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Leveraging data on organizational social distancing initiatives (SDIs) this paper examines the link between SDI implementation and perceived organizational support (POS). The paper discusses and tests the intended beneficiary heuristic to help explain why and when employment practices may induce POS. We suggest that SDIs, involving various ways to separate employees to keep them safe, have the important secondary benefit of increasing employees' perception that the organization cares about their well-being and values their contributions. Using the intended beneficiary heuristic we argue that such favorable treatment as SDIs relates positively to POS most when employees attribute their implementation to the organization's concern for the welfare of employees. Results of two studies, a cross-sectional study with 121 employees in the United States and a longitudinal study with 103 employees in South Korea, indicate that SDIs were positively associated with employees' POS, which in turn improved their job satisfaction (Studies 1 and 2), affective organizational commitment, and organizational citizenship behavior (Study 2). The results also show that these relationships were stronger when employees perceived SDIs to be implemented to protect their welfare rather than as a means of protecting the organization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate the close relationship between the disciplines of law and health-care studies. This interrelation has become particularly evident during the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic, when restrictive human rights provisions have been initiated by many states for the sake of public health. Research focuses on the notional proximity of the principle of proportionality and its health-care correlative: effectiveness. It also goes through the influence of acceptance rates for the application of restrictive measures. Design/methodology/approach: Research focuses on interdisciplinary literature review, taking into consideration judicial decisions and data on acceptance rates of restrictive human rights measures in particular. Analysis goes in depth when two categories of restrictive human rights measures against the spread of the pandemic are examined in depth: restrictive measures to achieve social distancing and mandatory vaccination of professional groups. Findings: Restrictive human rights measures for reasons of public health are strongly affected by the need for effective health-care systems. This argument is verified by judicial decision-making which relies to the necessity of health-care effectiveness to a great extent. The COVID-19 pandemic offers a laminate example of the two disciplines' interrelation and how they infiltrate each other. Research limitations/implications: Further implications for research point at the need to institutionalize a cooperative scheme between legal and health-care decision-making, given that this interrelation is strong. Originality/value: The originality of this paper lies on the interdisciplinary approach between law and health-care studies. It explains how state policies during the pandemic were shaped based on the concepts of effectiveness and proportionality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social distancing measures are typically recommended to contain the spread of infectious diseases. To improve the public's voluntary compliance, governments and health authorities seek to publicize timely information about the pandemic. Yet social planners may exaggerate or downplay their private information about the disease's severity to elicit their preferred level of social distancing. This is because the relative weight they assign to the costs of isolation over public health may be unbalanced, and people may not fully consider how their social distancing may influence others' infection risk. Consequently, messages and claims about the pandemic may be distrusted. The author investigates whether and when communication can be fully or partially credible despite apparent incentives for misrepresentation. The author finds that a government would communicate truthfully in equilibrium if and only if the disease severity levels are not too close to each other in the public's prior belief. Nevertheless, an increasing difference between the severity levels need not enhance the credibility of communication. Greater communication credibility may hurt social welfare. Moreover, as the government becomes more concerned about the costs of social distancing, its equilibrium messages may become more or less trustworthy. The article's results can benefit social planners and users of their messages (e.g., analysts, researchers, investors). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Due to the global COVID-19 pandemic, in-person data collection methods have been considerably hampered by requirements for social distancing and safety. Consequently, academic inquiry has shifted largely to virtual means, leading to the considerable growth of virtual qualitative research. Conducting virtual research in post-conflict contexts, such as Sri Lanka, with increased state surveillance, security concerns, and censorship presents researchers with additional tensions, particularly during a pandemic. Limited literature, however, has grappled with these unique situations. This paper addresses this gap by reflecting on the process of conducting virtual qualitative research through a case study of faculty members in peace education instruction at Sri Lankan universities. The study drew on semi-structured interviews (n = 32), documentary evidence, and memos created during the data collection and analysis stages. This paper discusses the challenges and complexities of conducting virtual research within the intersections of peace education, post-conflict legacies, ethical dimensions, and positionality dimensions, which are interwoven, adding several layers of considerations in this context. Furthermore, the paper chronicles the key tensions faced: surveillance and consent, residual embodiments, and the choices made in response to navigate them. This paper concludes with a discussion around these tensions and aims to expand the literary discourse beyond the technological aspects of conducting virtual research. The study highlights the need for future research into residual embodiments, ethical and micro-ethical issues, and practical challenges in virtual research in conflict-affected contexts, suggesting that institutions should provide researchers with training to address these complexities and support robust knowledge co-creation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Brazil counts among the countries the hardest hit by the Covid-19 pandemic. A great deal has been said about the negative role played by President Bolsonaro's denialism, but relatively few studies have attempted to measure precisely what impact it actually had on the pandemic. Our paper conducts econometric estimates based on observational data at municipal level to quantitatively assess the 'Bolsonaro effect' over time from March 2020 to December 2022. To our knowledge, this paper presents the most comprehensive investigation of Bolsonaro's influence in the spread of the pandemic from two angles: considering Covid-19 mortality and two key transmission mitigation channels (social distancing and vaccination); and exploring the full pandemic cycle (2020–2022) and its dynamics over time. Controlling for a rich set of relevant variables, our results find a strong and persistent 'Bolsonaro effect' on the death rate: municipalities that were more pro-Bolsonaro recorded significantly more fatalities. Furthermore, evidence suggests that the president's attitude and decisions negatively influenced the population's behaviour. Firstly, pro-Bolsonaro municipalities presented a lower level of compliance with social distancing measures. Secondly, vaccination was relatively less widespread in places more in favour of the former president. Finally, our analysis points to longer-lasting and damaging repercussions. Regression results are consistent with the hypothesis that the 'Bolsonaro effect' impacted not only on Covid-19 vaccination, but has affected vaccination campaigns in general thereby jeopardizing the historical success of the National Immunization Program in Brazil. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Communication technology has evolved continuously throughout human history, especially recently, for overcoming physical distancing. In addition to visual and auditory senses, the transmission of tactile sensations through the human skin holds significant potential as a novel communication method. In this paper, we propose a flexible heating device that can convey warmth at distances. A pixelated heater was developed by depositing Ag nanowires (NWs) patterned on a thin polyimide substrate. The thermal and mechanical durabilities of the Ag NWs were effectively enhanced using a ZnO film as the capping layer. In addition, we created a multifunctional heater by depositing a flexible thermochromic liquid crystal polydimethylsiloxane film on the heater, providing visual feedback on temperature changes. The resistance variations and thermal characteristics of the multifunctional heater were examined under bending to demonstrate its performance as a flexible heater. The results of this study are expected to extend the applications of this technology from simple wearable devices to multifunctional metaverse devices in various fields. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aim: This paper investigates the effect of a religious holiday (Eid-ul-Fitr in Pakistan) on compliance behaviour instituted during the COVID-19 pandemic. Longstanding religion-based norms of behaviour during the Eid holidays (traveling to meet family members, praying in large gatherings, hugging) may counteract newly established (and weaker) norms of health-preserving behaviours. Method: We study the impact of Eid-ul-Fitr on compliance with COVID guidelines for a sample of university students. Our effects are identified by unprompted delays in fielding a survey measuring compliance with prescribed behaviours. Results: We find that compliance with guidelines declines immediately after the religious holiday in our sample of students, with no observable decline in other well documented predictors of compliance behaviour (risk perceptions, trust in the authorities). We find that this decline in compliance is largely attributable to male participants, with one important exception. We further confirm our results by conducting robustness checks incorporating matching techniques and a smaller follow-up study where we randomize invitations to the survey. Conclusion: We conclude that amid the pandemic, newly formed norms pertaining to healthcare guidelines (focusing on social-distancing) emerged, and were subsequently undercut by longstanding norms of behaviour following a religious celebration: Eid-ul-Fitr. This paper underscores the fragility of these newly emerged norms, especially when challenged by a more well-entrenched, traditional norm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The outbreak of pandemic at the beginning of 2020 has been urban exclusive and brought the existing inequalities across class and different types of settlements into the forefront. A prolonged period of lockdown, promotion of social distancing, and quarantine of infected individuals, which had been recommended as preventive measures raises a question on the feasibility of these measures in Indian cities considering the challenges related to adequate housing and exclusive access to basic amenities. Against this background, this paper tries to understand the level of pandemic preparedness of urban households across different socio-economic groups, city-size, and settlement types and its changes in the last two decades based on an analysis of unit level data from the National Sample Survey (NSS). The paper has attempted to construct a 'Pandemic Preparedness Index' (PPI) to measure a household's ability to maintain isolation and social distancing. Results indicate that urban households have become more prepared for such pandemics over this period. However, the poor and slum households, particularly located in metropolitan cities still face multiple deprivations related to housing and basic amenities, which make them more vulnerable to such pandemics. This paper calls for urban household's pandemic and disaster preparedness with an increased policy focus on poor and slum households in metropolitan cities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Motion prediction has gotten much attention in the past few years. It has endless uses either in real life or in virtual life (gaming). The current dynamic motion prediction models, such as the Markov model, depend only on the object motions' history. They ignore the object's direction and speed, which play a key role in dynamic motion prediction. This paper introduces two new probability density functions (PDFs) for elliptic and ellipsoidal regions. Then, it introduces two new motion prediction models based on the new proposed PDFs. This paper proposes new motion detection models that depend not only on the motion's history but also on moving objects' speed and direction (objects' velocity). Moreover, it integrates the proposed models with the Markov model to attain a more precise prediction. Besides, it introduces several applications for the proposed models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Digital storytelling is an arts-informed approach that engages short, first-person videos, typically three to five minutes in length, to communicate a personal narrative. Prior to the pandemic, digital storytelling initiatives in health services research were often conducted during face-to-face workshops scheduled over multiple days. However, throughout the COVID-19 lockdowns where social distancing requirements needed to be maintained, many digital storytelling projects were adapted to online platforms. Methods: As part of a research project aiming to explore the day surgery treatment and recovery experiences of women with breast cancer in Peel region, we decided to pivot our digital storytelling process to an online format. During the process, we observed that the online digital storytelling format had multiple opportunities and challenges to implementation. Results: This paper outlines our promising practices and lessons learned when designing and implementing an online digital storytelling project including pre-production, production and post-production considerations. Conclusions: We provide lessons learned for future teams intending to conduct an online digital storytelling project. Plain English Summary: Digital storytelling uses pictures, video clips and audio to create a short, first-person video, to share a person's story. Before the pandemic, digital storytelling workshops were often held in-person over multiple days to help members of the community create their own digital stories. However, throughout COVID-19, many digital storytelling workshops were held online instead. This paper outlines our lessons learned when hosting an online digital storytelling workshop series to capture women's experiences with breast cancer in our local community. We hope our lessons learned are helpful for other teams who are considering using online digital storytelling workshops for their own research projects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the individual might feel isolated, and his psychological capital (PsyCap) is negatively influenced. Most research on peer support has focused on its contribution to employee well-being when the peers are in the same workplace. Scant research targets the times of lockdowns and social distancing. This paper investigates how peer support influences employee PsyCap during the COVID-19 pandemic. By conducting a questionnaire with N = 42 employees and three online focus groups with N = 15 employees out of N = 350 employees working at an international organization operating in Egypt as a bilateral development partner funded by the German government, the paper concludes that peer support has a positive influence on employee PsyCap, especially self-efficacy, hope, and optimism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we study the dynamics of the CoVid-19 outbreak in Semarang, Indonesia, using a fractional CoVid-19 model. We first determine the effects of the isolation rate e and infection rate ẞ on the reрго- duction number Ro and infected number V. We find that Ro is directly proportional to ẞ and inversely proportional to e. For V, the effect of physical distancing is not as significant as changing e. As e increases, V decreases, the number of susceptible individuals increases, the number of quarantined individuals decreases sharply, and the number of recovered individuals decreases. Moreover, the effect of vaccination is also considered. The combination of physical distancing, isolation, and vaccination has a significant impact on reducing the number of infected individuals. Analysis of dynamical systems allows us to understand the characteristics of our model, such as its boundedness and non-negativity, the existence of equilibrium points, the existence and uniqueness of solutions, and the local and global stability. To val- idate our fractional CoVid-19 model, we introduce the fractional extended Kalman filter (FracEKF) as a prediction method and compare the results against reported CoVid-19 data. FracEKF is a modified version of the basic extended Kalman filter with a time-fractional memory effect. The prediction results illustrate the accuracy of this model in terms of the root mean square error (RMSE), normalized root mean square еггог (NRMSE), and mean absolute percentage error (MAPE) for each fractional-order. Varying e repro- duces the trends observed in the reported data for the number of infected individuals, i.e., when e increases, the infected number decreases. Moreover, a higher fractional-order results in higher model accuracy. Furthermore, higher values of the process noise Q give smaller errors, whereas higher values of the observation noise Ry produce higher errors. Q, and the fractional-order are inversely proportional to RMSE, NRMSE, and MAPE, whereas Ry is directly proportional to RMSE, NRMSE, and MAPE. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores factors shaping citizens' obligation to comply with COVID-19 prevention strategies, such as mandatory mask-wearing and recommended social distancing, contact limitation, and stay-at-home measures. The central focus is to assess the relationship between dimensions of state authorities' legitimacy (normative alignment, obligation to obey, and support for COVID-19 mitigation mandates) and fear factors (risk of sanctions and infection) on citizens' willingness to comply with COVID-19 mandates. Data for the study came from 508 respondents from Russia's second-largest city, St. Petersburg—in May 2020, when the COVID-19 regional legislation that mandated citizens to wear masks in public went into effect. Overall, our findings suggest that normative alignment and obligation to obey do not directly influence compliance but have an impact through support for regulations. Additionally, fear factors of perceived police sanctions, COVID-19 infection, and self-morality were positively related to compliance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The spread of infectious diseases was further promoted due to busy cities, increased travel, and climate change, which led to outbreaks, epidemics, and even pandemics. The world experienced the severity of the 125 nm virus called the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), a pandemic declared by the World Health Organization (WHO) in 2019. Many investigations revealed a strong correlation between humidity and temperature relative to the kinetics of the virus's spread into the hosts. This study aimed to solve the riddle of the correlation between environmental factors and COVID-19 by applying RepOrting standards for Systematic Evidence Syntheses (ROSES) with the designed research question. Five temperature and humidity-related themes were deduced via the review processes, namely 1) The link between solar activity and pandemic outbreaks, 2) Regional area, 3) Climate and weather, 4) Relationship between temperature and humidity, and 5) the Governmental disinfection actions and guidelines. A significant relationship between solar activities and pandemic outbreaks was reported throughout the review of past studies. The grand solar minima (1450-1830) and solar minima (1975-2020) coincided with the global pandemic. Meanwhile, the cooler, lower humidity, and low wind movement environment reported higher severity of cases. Moreover, COVID-19 confirmed cases and death cases were higher in countries located within the Northern Hemisphere. The Blackbox of COVID-19 was revealed through the work conducted in this paper that the virus thrives in cooler and low-humidity environments, with emphasis on potential treatments and government measures relative to temperature and humidity. Highlights: • The coronavirus disease 2019 (COIVD-19) is spreading faster in low temperatures and humid area. • Weather and climate serve as environmental drivers in propagating COVID-19. • Solar radiation influences the spreading of COVID-19. • The correlation between weather and population as the factor in spreading of COVID-19. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

(1) Background-Urban forest plays a positive role in alleviating the negative emotions brought about by urbanization and industrialization, and is of great significance to the improvement of public health and well-beings. The development and design of urban forest parks should not only pay attention to the needs of visitors, but also adapt to the actual changes in the needs of visitors. However, in the study of the application of urban forest parks, the relationship between visitor loyalty and environmental restoration effect has not been widely studied, and the analysis and explanation of the formation mechanism of visitor loyalty are also lacking. (2) Methods-Based on the restorative environment theory and cognitive attitude behavior theory (i.e. Knowledge--Attitude--Practice model), this paper puts forward the research hypothesis and constructs the structural equation model of "natural environment perception loyalty" of visitors to urban forest parks. The research data comes from a questionnaire survey of visitors to Hunan Botanical Garden from September to October 2023. Based on 404 valid questionnaires, this paper discusses the formation mechanism of visitor loyalty in urban forest parks and puts forward some feasible policy suggestions. (3) Results-First, the natural environment perception has a significant positive impact on the compatibility, mental distancing, physical distancing and infatuation of restorative environmental perception. Second, the compatibility, mental distancing and physical distancing have significant positive effects on the visitors' satisfaction. Third, the satisfaction of the visitors has a significant positive impact on their loyalty. Fourth, under the mediating role of restorative environment perception and satisfaction, the influence of natural environment perception on visitor loyalty plays a role through three paths: the one is through the chain mediating effect of compatibility perception and satisfaction, the other is through the chain mediating effect of mental distancing perception and satisfaction, and the third is through the chain mediating effect of physical distancing perception and satisfaction. (4) Conclusions and Discussions-In order to give full play to the restoration effect of urban forest parks environment and meet people' s demand for a better life, the following policy suggestions are put forward: First, Attach importance to the overall construction of restorative environment in the parks and products development. In the management and development of urban forest parks, special attention should be paid to the cultivation of compatibility, mental distancing and physical distancing perception. Second, in the management process of urban forest parks, adhere to the construction principles of nature-orientation, distinctive characteristics and harmonious coexistence. Fully respect the laws of nature and put protection first. The materials, colors, styles and sizes of the infrastructure and buildings should be appropriate to the natural environment. At the same time, pay attention to communication and interaction with the public and actively listen to public opinions and suggestions. Third, improve the quality of recreational facilities in urban forest parks. Pay attention to the layout and design of the recreation facilities in the parks, constantly update the recreation facilities in the parks, strengthen the construction of the roads, bridges, seats, lighting and other infrastructure in the parks, and increase the cultural, educational and entertainment facilities in the parks to enhance the public' s sightseeing experience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The U.S. Boards of Nursing (BONs) collect annual report data from their nursing programs as part of their approval process. This paper highlights the 2020 and 2021 annual report data on the effect of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) on all nursing programs in 17 BONs in 2020 and 19 in 2021. Method: Nursing programs answered 16 questions on the effect of COVID-19 on their programs. Because BONs require annual report data, all programs in the participating states answered the questions, which included 798 programs in 2020 and 929 in 2021. Results: Major disruptions in nursing education occurred during the pandemic. Clinical experiences and didactic classes were greatly affected, though alternative strategies were used. Student and faculty attrition rates were particularly high in 2021. Conclusion: The authors call for a national forum where nurse leaders analyze what happened and make recommendations for future crisis events. [J Nurs Educ. 2024;63(5):312–319.] [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The inability of Nordic governments to coordinate their COVID-19 pandemic responses on social distancing and travel restrictions has puzzled observers and raised concerns for the future of Nordic cooperation. However, little academic attention has been directed so far to the collective Nordic response to the pandemic. In the first comprehensive account of Nordic health coordination and cooperation during the pandemic, this article investigates a paradox: how did one of the oldest regional units in Europe, with the current ambition of becoming the “most sustainable and integrated region in the world in 2030”, become one of the most inconsistent and divided once the pandemic hit? This paper argues that the recent developments have roots in the overall decline of the Nordic regional model. Increasingly based on broad commitments and informal coordination, Nordic solidarity has shown its limits in a time of crisis – leaving the Nordic project on the brink of marginalisation between the domestic and European levels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper introduces a Patron Counting and Analysis (PCA) system that leverages Wi-Fi-connection data to monitor space utilization and analyze visitor patterns in academic libraries. The PCA system offers real-time crowding information to the public and a comprehensive visitor analysis dashboard for library administrators. The system's development was driven by the need for occupancy restrictions during the pandemic, ensuring a spacious environment for library visitors as well as balancing between efficient utilization and adhering to social distancing regulations. Traditional methods of patron behavior performance and library spatial analysis, such as manual head counting or card-swiping systems, often incur additional costs for labor, hardware installation, or software subscription. The PCA system, however, utilizes existing Wi-Fi-connection data, providing a cost-effective solution to represent patron demographics and spatial usage. Limitations may arise when patrons do not carry Wi-Fi-enabled devices or during periods of low Wi-Fi service functionality. Implemented in Node.js and integrated with Python Flask framework and related libraries, the PCA system was piloted at the King Library in Miami University, successfully demonstrating a high validity compared to manually collected data. It filters out noise and redundancy, visualizes the occupancy index meter in real time, and generates statistical reports by linking user IDs with demographic information. The PCA system's reliability was validated through manually head counting data collected at the King Library in Miami University, establishing it as a reliable tool for library space management and patron analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Livestreaming and filming death rites and funeral ceremonies to enable remote engagement proliferated rapidly during the COVID-19 pandemic, and many expect these options to remain prevalent going forward. This paper draws on interviews with a diverse UK sample of 68 bereaved people, funeral directors, officiants and celebrants. It illustrates how, and explains why, people's experiences and evaluations of hybrid funerals can vary. In a context when in-person gatherings were limited, hybridisation played a valuable role in enabling more people to engage with funerals. However, virtual attendance was often considered less satisfying than in-person attendance because it did not enable people to participate well in the funeral activities that mattered to them or to participate with others as they would in person. Scope for participation was partly contingent on the functionality and use made of technology, including whether and which steps were taken to facilitate engagement and a sense of connection for those joining online. People's evaluations of hybrid funerals could also reflect their relationships to the deceased and their frames of reference – for example, whether they were comparing virtual attendance to attending in person, or to being unable to attend at all, or to an overwhelmingly large funeral. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: Since the coronavirus disease 2019-mandated social distancing policy has been lifted worldwide, the circulation of influenza is expected to resume. Currently, oseltamivir is approved as the first-line agent for influenza prevention and treatment. Areas covered: This paper reviews the updated evidence in the pharmacology, resistance mechanisms, clinical pharmacy management, and real-world data on oseltamivir for influenza. Expert opinion: Oseltamivir is an oral prodrug of oseltamivir carboxylate, an influenza A and B neuraminidase inhibitor. Recently, the therapeutic efficacy of oseltamivir has been demonstrated in several trials. Oseltamivir is generally well-tolerated but may lead to neuropsychiatric events and bleeding. Oseltamivir-resistant influenza virus has been associated with the H275Y mutation in the influenza A(H1N1)pdm09 virus, while most strains are still sensitive to oseltamivir. Dose adjustment for oseltamivir should be based on creatinine clearance and body weight in pediatric patients with renal failure. According to real-world data from Nanfang Hospital, the annual number of patients prescribed oseltamivir declined from 35,711 in 2019 to 8,971 in 2020, with marked increases in 2022 (20,213) and 2023 (18,071). Among the 206 inpatients, children aged < 6 years who were treated with oseltamivir had the shortest duration to defervescence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The COVID‐19 pandemic has forced a shift in thinking regarding the safe delivery of wet laboratory courses. While we were fortunate to have the capacity to continue delivering wet laboratory experiments with physical distancing and other measures in place, modifications to the mechanisms of delivery within courses were necessary to minimize risk to students and teaching staff. One such modification was introduced in BCH370H, an introductory biochemistry laboratory course, where a OneNote Class Notebook (ONCN) was used as an electronic laboratory notebook (ELN) in place of the traditional hardbound paper laboratory notebook (PLN) used prior to the pandemic. The initial reasoning for switching to an ELN was around safety—allowing course staff and students to maintain physical distancing whenever possible and eliminating the need for teaching assistants to handle student notebooks; however, the benefits of the ONCN proved to be significantly more. OneNote acted not only as a place for students to record notes but the Class Notebook's unique features allowed easy integration of other important aspects of the course, including delivery of laboratory manuals, posting of student results, notetaking feedback, sharing of instructional materials with teaching assistants, and more. Student and teacher experiences with the ONCN as used within a fully in person biochemistry laboratory course, as well as learned best practices, are reviewed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The paper proposes a privacy-preserving artificial intelligence-enabled video surveillance technology to monitor social distancing in public spaces. Design/methodology/approach: The paper proposes a new Responsible Artificial Intelligence Implementation Framework to guide the proposed solution's design and development. It defines responsible artificial intelligence criteria that the solution needs to meet and provides checklists to enforce the criteria throughout the process. To preserve data privacy, the proposed system incorporates a federated learning approach to allow computation performed on edge devices to limit sensitive and identifiable data movement and eliminate the dependency of cloud computing at a central server. Findings: The proposed system is evaluated through a case study of monitoring social distancing at an airport. The results discuss how the system can fully address the case study's requirements in terms of its reliability, its usefulness when deployed to the airport's cameras, and its compliance with responsible artificial intelligence. Originality/value: The paper makes three contributions. First, it proposes a real-time social distancing breach detection system on edge that extends from a combination of cutting-edge people detection and tracking algorithms to achieve robust performance. Second, it proposes a design approach to develop responsible artificial intelligence in video surveillance contexts. Third, it presents results and discussion from a comprehensive evaluation in the context of a case study at an airport to demonstrate the proposed system's robust performance and practical usefulness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social distancing has gotten into the light, it refers to the practice of keeping a safe distance (usually at least 6 feet) between individuals to reduce the spread of infectious diseases, such as COVID-19. We have seen the situation in the country and the world due to the contagious spread of COVID in 2020-2022. We have also seen the importance and impact simple practices like social distancing have brought. This calls for a smart solution through which safety is maximized. Overall, the problem statement of a Social Distancing ID card is to detect any human in its range and avoid contact by alerting them. It is made of basic components like Arduino Nano, a buzzer, an infrared sensor, an LED, and a battery. The paper further describes how all these are used, how the flow and working of the said device is how it can be implemented on various individual and social level to protect people from airborne diseases and reduce the effects of upcoming pandemics and viral infections. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

COVID-19 pandemic is an active epidemic disease and is evolving in various variants of SAR-COV-2. The most critical point for COVID-19 is to break the transmission chain by early detection and isolation. It necessitates monitoring human interactions using remote technologies as a proactive strategy to minimize the spread. This paper presents a framework for user behaviour recognition and localization in a heterogeneous environment leveraging artificial intelligence for COVID-19 contact tracing. This approach designed and developed a mobile application to acquire the mobile sensors (received signal strength indicator (RSSI), accelerometer, gyroscope, and speed), sensors response, and machine learning-based user behaviour classification to assess the spread of COVID-19 with better proximity detection. This paper presents a machine learning-based free-space path loss (FSPL) model to estimate the distance between users holding mobile devices. The framework considers comprehensive user interaction scenarios depending upon multiple parameters, including the randomness of a user's interaction (device-device communication), device position, environmental obstacles, and device type. This platform classifies user behaviour on a train, bus, walking, and sitting at one, two, and three-meter from the suspected patient. The proposed system outperforms existing models, estimates the distance up to three meters, and accurately classifies each user behaviour. This system can send alert notifications to all users within three meters of a person whose COVID-19 test is positive. This approach uses machine learning models and finds that the random forest classifier shows higher accuracy of 97.95% for user behaviour classification and uses the LSTM model for distance estimation from one to three meters between users with the highest accuracy of 98.07%. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Human distance estimation is essential in many vital applications, specifically, in human localisation-based systems, such as independent living for older adults applications, and making places safe through preventing the transmission of contagious diseases through social distancing alert systems. Previous approaches to estimate the distance between a reference sensing device and human subject relied on visual or high-resolution thermal cameras. However, regular visual cameras have serious concerns about people's privacy in indoor environments, and high-resolution thermal cameras are costly. This paper proposes a novel approach to estimate the distance for indoor human-centred applications using a low-resolution thermal sensor array. The proposed system presents a discrete and adaptive sensor placement continuous distance estimators using classification techniques and artificial neural network, respectively. It also proposes a real-time distance-based field of view classification through a novel image-based feature. Besides, the paper proposes a transfer application to the proposed continuous distance estimator to measure human height. The proposed approach is evaluated in different indoor environments, sensor placements with different participants. This paper shows a median overall error of ± 0.2 m in continuous-based estimation and 96.8 % achieved-accuracy in discrete distance estimation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This assignment helps students understand the interpersonal impact of COVID-19 on their lives. Specifically, this assignment can be used as a paper or as a set of discussion questions to illuminate the impact of COVID-19 on people's identities and relationships, as viewed from the perspective of multiple theories and concepts including uncertainty reduction, how to cope with expectancy violations, and relational maintenance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Telemedicine use surged during COVID-19, and a significant amount of recent research has relied solely on online surveys to assess patient perceptions. However, these surveys may be biased since they require an internet connection and digital literacy skills. We compare local perceptions of telemedicine visits in rural areas across two methods of data collection: online-only vs. paper surveys. We collected 100 paper and 108 online surveys in two rural counties with a total population of 10,000. The results show that significant differences exist in the demographics of people completing each type of survey and in the perceptions of telemedicine, with paper-based respondents generally demonstrating a higher degree of confidence in telemedicine. Ordered logistic regressions controlling for potentially influential underlying demographic characteristics (income, hours worked, and presence of children) show that paper-based respondents tend to have higher opinions of telemedicine, but that overall levels of comfort are similar across survey types. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Should research projects involving epidemiological modelling be subject to ethical scrutiny and peer review prior to publication? Mathematical modelling had considerable impacts during the COVID-19 pandemic, leading to social distancing and lockdowns. Imperial College conducted research leading to the website publication of a paper, Report 9, on non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) and COVID-19 mortality demand dated 16th March 2020, arguing for a Government policy of non-pharmaceutical interventions (e.g. lockdowns, social distancing, mask wearing, working from home, furlough, school closures, reduced family interaction etc.) to counter COVID 19. Enquiries and Freedom of Information requests to the institution indicate that there was no formal ethical committee review of this specific research, nor was there any peer review prior to their online publication of Report 9. This paper considers the duties placed upon researchers, institutions and research funders under the UK 'Concordat to Support Research Integrity' (CSRI), across various bioethical domains, and whether ethical committee scrutiny should be required for this research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper explores the role and value of the so-called 'balcony performances' – community special events, organized during the first national lockdown in Italy in March-May 2020. Following the constructionist research paradigm, in-depth interviews were collected and analysed to understand how through engaging with special events, residents found ways to deal with uncertainty and distress during the time of lockdown. Balcony events allowed participants to connect with others at a distance, express and share their feelings and emotions and, eventually, transform fear and worry into hope and positivity. The paper reiterates the vital ritualistic role of events in community life and introduces a conceptual framework of the transformative power of events. The framework explains how during times of uncertainty, improvisational creativity within neighbourhoods, expressed in special events, can provide a platform for resilience building and community cohesion. The paper also puts forward a new perspective on residential balconies as event venues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The fight against negative neighbourhood effects has been led by urban regeneration policies aimed at mixing by ethnicity, income, tenure as well as demolition and poverty deconcentration – all of which sought to create mixed communities with improved reputations. This paper is based on the methodology applied in my PhD research and outlines how Participatory Photo Mapping (PPM) can evaluate impact and explore internal neighbourhood reputations providing both temporality and depth to the perception of urban spaces affected by change. PPM has involved residents of two European disadvantaged neighbourhoods (New Deal for Communities area, Bristol; Ponte Lambro, Milan) in the active and collaborative construction of their own narratives on the area and its developments and interventions. While also referring to the empirical findings, this paper focuses on the design and delivery of PPM and covers the challenges and the opportunities of the research method, conducted in times of Covid-19 pandemic lockdowns and social distancing. Despite the remote but innovative setting (Google My Maps) and data collection (online focus groups and 1–1 interviews), PPM confirms being an empowering tool to 're-create' place images from within and give voice to urban areas where territorial stigma tends to prevail. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: This paper aims to investigate the association of COVID-19 confirmed cases and deaths with mental health, unemployment and financial markets-related search terms for the USA, the UK, India and worldwide using Google Trends. Design/methodology/approach: The authors use Spearman's rank correlation coefficients to assess the relationship between relative search volumes (RSVs) and mental health, unemployment and financial markets-related search terms, with the total confirmed COVID-19 cases as well as deaths in the USA, UK, India and worldwide. The sample period starts from the day 100 cases were reported for the first time, which is 7 March 2020, 13 March 2020, 23 March 2020 and 28 January 2020 for the US, the UK, India and worldwide, respectively, and ends on 25 June 2020. Findings: The results indicate a significant increase in anxiety, depression and stress leading to sleeping disorders or insomnia, further deteriorating mental health. The RSVs of employment are negatively significant, implying that people are hesitant to search for new jobs due to being susceptible to exposure, imposed lockdown and social distancing measures and changing employment patterns. The RSVs for financial terms exhibit the varying associations of COVID-19 cases and deaths with the stock market, loans, rent, etc. Research limitations/implications: This study has implications for the policymakers, health experts and the government. The state governments must provide proper medical facilities and holistic care to the affected population. It may be noted that the findings of this study only lead us to conclude about the relationship between COVID-19 cases and deaths and Google Trends searches, and do not as such indicate the effect on actual behaviour. Originality/value: To the best of the authors' knowledge, this is the first attempt to investigate the relationship between the number of COVID-19 cases and deaths in the USA, UK and India and at the global level and RSVs for mental health-related, job-related and financial keywords. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There have been growing concerns that social distancing and stay-at-home mandates have exacerbated loneliness for older people. Empirical evidence about older people's experiences of loneliness and COVID-19 have quantified this phenomena without considering how older people themselves define and understand loneliness. This paper explores how older New Zealanders conceptualized and experienced loneliness under 'lockdown' stay-at-home measures. This multi-methods qualitative study combines data from letters (n = 870) and interviews (n = 44) collected from 914 people aged over 60 and living in Aotearoa, New Zealand during the COVID-19 pandemic. We conducted a reflexive thematic analysis to conceptualise this data. We identify three interconnected ways in which older people conceptualised and experienced loneliness: (1) feeling disconnected relating to lack of emotional closeness to another often resulting from being physically separated from others and not being able to touch; (2) feeling imprisoned relating to separation from preferred identities and activities and was frequently associated with boredom and frustration; and (3) feeling neglected which often related to feeling let down by generalised and idealised forms of support, such as one's neighbourhood and health care system. Older New Zealanders experienced lockdown loneliness in three interconnected ways rather than as a stable and homogenous experience. Māori, Pacific, Asian and New Zealand European older people often discussed loneliness in different ways; attesting to loneliness being a culturally-mediated concept shaped by expectations around desirable social interaction. We conclude the paper with implications for research and policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Verbal data provide researchers insight beyond that offered by text-based responses, including tone, reasoning elaboration, and experienced difficulty, among other processes. Additionally, it offers a less cognitively taxing way for participants to provide long responses. Verbal data collection methods are found in a variety of fields, mostly conducted in lab-based settings or requiring specialized hardware. Restricting verbal protocols to lab-based settings can have several drawbacks, including smaller sample sizes, biased populations, reduced adoption, and incompatibility with potential social distancing requirements. No method currently exists for researchers to collect verbal data within major online survey collection platforms. The current paper offers a user-friendly approach for collecting verbal data online, where a researcher can copy and paste JavaScript code into the desired survey platform. By providing a framework that does not require any advanced programming ability, researchers can collect verbal data in a scalable way using familiar modalities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The COVID-19 pandemic has had a profound impact on almost all aspects of society. Cultural heritage sites, which are deeply intertwined with the tourism industry, are no exception. The direct impacts of the virus on the population, as well as indirect impacts, such as government-mandated measures including social distancing, face coverings, and frequent temporary closures of sites, have greatly impacted visitor experiences at heritage sites. To quantitatively evaluate the impact of these measures from the perspective of visitors, we collected 1.4 millions visitor reviews from the Google Maps platform for 775 heritage sites. We analyzed visiting rates using the number of online reviews as a proxy and adopt state-of-the-art natural language processing techniques to more deeply understand visitor perception of preventive measures put in place to control the spread of COVID-19. Our findings reveal that even if visitor focus on COVID-19 has significantly decreased, there may still be notable difference between actual and expected number of reviews, suggesting that visitor involvement (e.g., number of visitors) for cultural heritage sites, especially urban indoor sites, needs more time to recover. Our findings further show that most comments by visitors to sites were associated with negative sentiment toward restricted access, but recognized the necessity of other safeguarding measures (e.g., social distancing and the requirement for face coverings). Moreover, they exhibited negative sentiment towards staff or other visitors who did not adhere to these measures. We make specific recommendations for heritage sites to adapt to the COVID-19 pandemic and a more general observation that the method used to gather information from online reviews in this paper will be effective in measuring visitor perceptions towards specific aspects of heritage sites, particularly in capturing changes in perception before and after unexpected or disruptive events at heritage sites. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Covid-19 was declared a pandemic in March 2020, and the world has witnessed significant changes since then. Spain has been forced to go into extreme lockdown, cancelling all school classes and outdoor activities for children, which may have significant consequences on young people. This paper explores how young children have experienced lockdown as a consequence of the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic and what they think about their future lives after Covid-19. Data were collected from 73 students aged from 7 to 9 years old, using participant-produced drawings and short questions with children's and parents' descriptive comments. We used a children's rights perspective and the Freirean approach of a pedagogy of love and hope to analyse the data. Results suggest that participants have been through significant changes in their routines, and that what they miss most from their lives before Covid-19 is playing outdoors with their friends and visiting their grandparents. To our knowledge, this paper is the first of its kind in investigating how the Covid-19 pandemic has influenced the ways that children lived during pandemic and its possible implications for their futures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies the suppression of an infectious disease in the canonical susceptible-infectious-recovered model. It derives three results. First, if technically feasible, the optimal response to a sufficiently small outbreak is halting transmissions instead of building up immunity through infections. Second, the crucial trade-off is not between health and economic costs, but between the intensity and duration of control measures. A simple formula of observables characterises the optimum. Third, the total cost depends critically on the efficiency of contact tracing, since it allows relaxing costly social distancing without increasing transmissions. A calibration to the COVID-19 pandemic illustrates the theoretical findings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates a taken-for-granted institutional form, shelters for unhoused New Yorkers, through the neo-institutional lens of institutional inertia and critical case study methodology. It focuses on the external shock of COVID-19, NYC's use of unoccupied hotels for social distancing, and the return to shelters when COVID waned. For guidance, we examine other instances of interrupted institutional inertia following shocks. Using Lewin's force field analysis, we explore why changes to some institutional forms amidst COVID persisted while novel approaches to shelter dissipated. We conclude that directly involving unhoused people in the design and implementation of homeless services may improve outcomes. Human service professionals share a body of knowledge and assumptions – a kind of echo chamber that amplifies and confirms beliefs. It is important to look beyond traditional and familiar models of service delivery to find alternative ideas and approaches that may be effective. Returning to Kurt Lewin's concept of force fields provides opportunities to think effectively and holistically about how to modify or change services, policies, and organizations. People served by human services – those with lived experiences – possess unique expertise that can inform organizational decisions and planning in new and helpful ways. As practitioners, we need to find ways to be more inclusive of the perspectives and ideas of those our programs serve through participatory methods of planning, decision making, and evaluation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nonprofit organizations operating in civil society have become the main channel for social service provision in most neoliberal welfare economies. Social service nonprofits (SSNs) deliver essential services mainly to vulnerable and marginalized populations. Since the outbreak of COVID-19, SSNs have been at the frontline of dealing with its socioeconomic consequences. This paper focuses on the activities and responses to the crisis of SSNs in Israel. Interviews with SSN directors (N = 17) show that they dealt with growing demands for services due to the social implications of the pandemic, along with operational difficulties, such as deterioration in clients' condition, disruption in service continuity, and reduced funding and staff. Next to these difficulties, the findings highlighted the social innovations adopted by SSNs to maintain service provision, such as implementing remote service technologies, forming collaborations, and recruiting volunteers. Implications for the social services and policies are presented and discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The outbreak of COVID-19 has had a significant impact on societies and individual lives across the globe. In this paper, we address the impact of the pandemic and the protective measures on empirical social scientific ageing research through the lens of 'ethically important moments'. One of the most crucial measures for preventing the spread of the virus includes social distancing; therefore, empirical research methods based on person-to-person direct contact (as in interviews) and first-hand observation have been scaled back since 2020. For ageing research, the challenges are particularly pronounced due to the ongoing discussion regarding vulnerabilities associated with higher age and age-based discrimination. Hence, many researchers focusing on ageing are facing some difficult questions: How and under what conditions can we carry on with empirical research without putting our research participants and ourselves at risk? Firstly, we systematically identify the key dimensions and challenges that have shaped social scientific research during the lockdowns associated with the COVID-19 pandemic: fragmentation, fluidity, ambiguity and uncertainty. Then, using insights from two international research projects, we illustrate and critically reflect on the ethically important moments and practical dilemmas that have resulted from these pandemic challenges when researching with and about older adults. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We examine the impact of government interventions on the spread of COVID-19 and consumer spending. We do this by first estimating models of COVID-19 spread, consumer spending, and social distancing in the United States during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic. Social distancing has a large effect on reducing COVID-19 spread and is responsive to national and local case numbers. Nonmask government interventions reduce COVID-19 spread, whereas the effectiveness of mask mandates is much smaller and statistically insignificant. Mask mandates tend to increase social distancing, as do nonmask governmental restrictions as a whole. Social distancing hurts spending in the absence of a mask mandate but has a negligible effect on spending if there is a mask mandate. Mask mandates have a direct effect of increasing spending in counties with high levels of social distancing while reducing spending in counties with low levels of social distancing. We use these three estimated models to calculate the effect of mask mandates and other governmental interventions on COVID-19 cases, deaths, and consumer spending. Implemented mask mandates decreased COVID-19 cases by a statistically insignificant 774,000 cases, saving 28,000 lives, over a four-month period, but led to $76B–$155B of additional consumer spending. Other nonmask governmental interventions that were implemented reduced the number of COVID-19 cases by 34M, saving 1,230,000 lives, while reducing consumer spending by approximately $470B–$703B over our 4-month period of the study. Thus, these restrictions were cost effective as long as one values each saved life at $387,000–$608,000 or more. This paper was accepted by Matt Shum, marketing. Supplemental Material: The data is available at https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2023.4853. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we share with the reader our individual and collective experience of a reading circle organised during the pandemic, at a time of social distancing. The collective reading allowed 'us' to become-with other humans, non-humans, and more-than-humans with the materiality of different bodies. The reading circle allowed individual vulnerability to be shared in a process of becoming-together a multiple 'Author' who authored a 'Composition'. We thus propose to the reader a Composition, in which we experiment with an embodied process of writing, where a drawing and words are mingled in-between poesy and prose. In their being intertwined, reading- and writing-together enabled a different 'academicity', emerging as an alternative to an individualistic experience of the neo-liberal Academia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The current paper aims to investigate the effects of pandemics and self-construal primes (i.e., collectivist/individualist) on two pandemic behaviours, namely compliance to social distancing measures (SDM) and prosociality while controlling for health anxiety. Study 1 (n = 207; M age = 39.8 years, SD age = 12.3) examined the effect of pandemic salience (PS) and self-construal on Compliance to Social Distancing Measure. Results found a significant effect of PS on compliance to SDM. Study 2 (n = 203; M age = 38.9, SD age = 11.6) examined the effects of pandemic salience (PS) and self-construal on prosociality, as measured by the Prosocial Behavioural Intentions Scale and Prosociality Scale. Results from Study 2 found a two-way interaction effect of PS and delay for helping actions, and a three-way interaction effect of PS, delay, and self-construal for caring actions and empathy. Individuals were more inclined to help others immediately after PS regardless of self-construal. They also endorsed more caring actions and empathy immediately after PS, only if they had been primed with collectivism self-construal. Findings from these studies offer important considerations in the conceptualization of community interventions during crises such as a pandemic or other community disasters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For classroom scheduling during the COVID-19 pandemic, we develop several variations of mixed integer programs where we seek to balance multiple objectives and constraints, including maximizing in-person attendance while maintaining social distancing constraints and balancing in-person attendance across students and over time. We describe the hybrid scheduling system that we implemented at Columbia Business School during the COVID-19 pandemic. The system allows some students to attend in-person classes with social distancing while their peers attend online, and schedules vary by day. We consider two variations of this problem: one in which students have unique, individualized class enrollments and one in which they are grouped in teams that are enrolled in identical classes. We formulate both problems as mixed-integer programs. In the first setting, students who are scheduled to attend all classes in person on a given day may, at times, be required to attend a particular class on that day online because of social distancing constraints. We count these instances as "excess." We minimize excess and related objectives and analyze and solve the relaxed linear program. In the second setting, we schedule the teams so that each team's in-person attendance is balanced over days of the week and spread out over the entire term. Our objective is to maximize interaction between different teams. Our program was used to schedule more than 2,500 students in student-level scheduling and about 790 students in team-level scheduling from the fall 2020 through summer 2021 terms at Columbia Business School. History: This paper was refereed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The device was invented to sense the variations in the deployed Environment, which takes different dimensions in its functionality. The basic operation does not change; it is the same surveillance, gathering and alert. Human intervention in all places is not possible and efficient monitoring in all circumstances cannot be done manually. Wireless Sensor Networks give the solution for the above-specified problem, continuous efficient monitoring and alerting on time without human intervention in any circumstances. Deploying WSNs and extracting efficient performance requires a strong technology backup. However, it's a machine in logical connectivity that may face several technical issues while transferring the gathered data. It has to be rectified, and efficient service to be provided in the deployed application. Finding the safest and fastest path is one of the critical tasks in the WSN. To achieve that, Bio-Inspired Computing will be used as a tool for designing the protocol to attain the fastest reliable network, even if it deals with the other problems in WSN, such as efficient energy utilization from the battery. In such a way, the Paper is proposed based on the exceptional and exciting behavior of one of the living things, which shook the entire world for almost two years in all aspects, and even a few countries are still seeking a way to come back from its impact, the reason for global lockdown, born with the crown, founder of social distancing, which is popularly known as "Corona" the virus. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: The binomial proportion is a classic parameter with many applications and has also been extensively studied in the literature. By contrast, the reciprocal of the binomial proportion, or the inverse proportion, is often overlooked, even though it also plays an important role in various fields. To estimate the inverse proportion, the maximum likelihood method fails to yield a valid estimate when there is no successful event in the Bernoulli trials. To overcome this zero‐event problem, several methods have been introduced in the previous literature. Yet to the best of our knowledge, there is little work on a theoretical comparison of the existing estimators. In this paper, we first review some commonly used estimators for the inverse proportion, study their asymptotic properties, and then develop a new estimator that aims to eliminate the estimation bias. We further conduct Monte Carlo simulations to compare the finite sample performance of the existing and new estimators, and also apply them to handle the zero‐event problem in a meta‐analysis of COVID‐19 data for assessing the relative risks of physical distancing on the infection of coronavirus. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Purpose: The rapid spread of the COVID-19 pandemic upended societies across the world, with billions forced into lockdowns. As countries contemplated instating and rolling back lockdown measures, and considered the impact of pandemic fatigue on policy measures, and furthermore to prepare for the improved management of future pandemics, this study examines the effectiveness of policy measures in limiting the spread of infections and fatalities. Design/methodology/approach: The methodological approach in the study centres on a fixed effects panel regression analysis and employs the COVID-19 Government Response Stringency Index, which comprises eight containment measures and three health campaigns, with progressive degrees of stringency, in order to investigate the efficacy of government policies. Findings: Findings suggest that some government policies were effective at reducing implicit mortality rates, infection cases and fatalities during the first four months of the COVID-19 pandemic. Solid stringency measures to reduce mortality rates include public gathering restrictions on more than 100 attendees, and international travel limits for developed countries and islands. Fatalities can further be reduced through the closing of public transport, whereas infection cases also experience benefits from public information campaigns. Comparable results are observed in a robustness test across 12 months. Originality/value: Some non-pharmaceutical policies are shown to be more effective than others at reducing the spread of infections, fatalities and mortality rates, and support policymakers to manage future pandemics more effectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]