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Physical distancing is a key measure to slow the spread of many highly infectious diseases, e.g. COVID-19. Streetscape interventions such as pedestrian signage can contribute to ensuring distances are kept, but it is unclear to what extent people comply with these in practice. This paper tackles this question using an immersive video environment to realistically simulate real-life streetscapes in the lab. In a controlled user study, we augmented panoramic video footage with pedestrian one-way street signage and recorded route decisions to assess compliance with distance keeping measures. Our results indicate that such signage affects routing decisions and can thus help pedestrians to avoid crowded situations where distance keeping is difficult. We also identified further factors affecting decisions and a correlation between intention to comply and actual compliance. The experimental method we used enabled us to effectively and safely carry out a study of a phenomenon that in the real world depends on interaction with the physical environment. This method may have applications in other areas in which simulations of physical environments are important. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Motivated by the varying effectiveness of government intervention policies to contain the COVID-19 pandemic, and the potential positive relationship between ethnolinguistic diversity and social distance, this paper aims to provide empirical evidence on the relationship between ethnolinguistic diversity and the spread of COVID-19. In particular, using global data from 113 developed and developing countries during the early stages of the pandemic (from 31 December 2019 to 8 July 2020), we have found a significant negative effect of ethnolinguistic diversity on the spread of the virus. The result is robust to alternative measures of ethnolinguistic diversity and estimator that addresses endogeneity. Moreover, we also show that the impact of ethnolinguistic diversity on the spread of COVID-19 differs in economies characterized by different levels of democracy, policy stringency on addressing COVID-19 and health expenditure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Policy responses to coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), particularly those related to nonpharmaceutical interventions, are unprecedented in scale and scope. However, evaluations of policy impacts require a complex combination of circumstance, study design, data, statistics, and analysis. Beyond the issues that are faced for any policy, evaluation of COVID-19 policies is complicated by additional challenges related to infectious disease dynamics and a multiplicity of interventions. The methods needed for policy-level impact evaluation are not often used or taught in epidemiology, and they differ in important ways that may not be obvious. Methodological complications of policy evaluations can make it difficult for decision-makers and researchers to synthesize and evaluate the strength of the evidence in COVID-19 health policy papers. Here we 1) introduce the basic suite of policy-impact evaluation designs for observational data, including cross-sectional analyses, pre-/post- analyses, interrupted time-series analysis, and difference-in-differences analysis; 2) demonstrate key ways in which the requirements and assumptions underlying these designs are often violated in the context of COVID-19; and 3) provide decision-makers and reviewers with a conceptual and graphical guide to identifying these key violations. Our overall goal is to help epidemiologists, policy-makers, journal editors, journalists, researchers, and other research consumers understand and weigh the strengths and limitations of evidence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the many challenges that has befallen the Infectious Diseases and Graduate Medical Education communities during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic is the maintenance of continued effective education and training of the future leaders of our field. With the remarkable speed and innovation that has characterized the responses to this pandemic, educators everywhere have adapted existing robust and safe learning environments to meet the needs of our learners. This paper will review distinct aspects of education and training of the Infectious Diseases fellows we believe the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted most, including mentoring, didactics, and wellness. We anticipate that several strategies developed in this context and described herein will help to inform training and best practices during the pandemic and beyond. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]