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COVID‐19 has revealed the policy capacity of some governance institutions, both resilience and vulnerability. Hence, this circumstance has demanded public administration scholars and practitioners to rethink the existing governance practices, particularly in making effective crisis‐related policies. This paper reviewed primary and secondary studies exploring the application of policy capacity competencies in facilitating COVID‐19 handling in Asia. In achieving so, we did a systematic literature review of relevant studies published between January and October 2020. Applying the agreed search term to several databases, we found 2541 studies, while merely 30 were included for review. Findings from the studies are predominantly closely linked to operational capacity (n = 21). Other studies are related to political and analytical capacity (n = 14 and 7, retrospectively). We found that there are some dilemmas and inadequacy of understanding concerning the role of features in certain capacities (such as technology use versus individual privacy, the paradox of trust and legitimacy, or centralisation versus decentralisation), particularly in the time of crisis, which is a calling for future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The outbreak of the SARS CoV2 virus, commonly referred to as the COVID‐19 pandemic, has impacted the social, economic, political, and cultural lives of citizens around the world. The sudden outbreak of the pandemic has exposed the legal preparedness, or lack thereof, of governments to reduce and contain its drastic impact. Strong legislative measures play a crucial role in any epidemic or pandemic situation. In this situation, the Indian Government has requested all state governments to invoke the Epidemic Disease Act (EDA) of 1897 to address the COVID‐19 emergency. The Central Government has also used the powers provided in the Disaster Management Act (DMA) of 2005. As the country is facing its first major health emergency since independence, the existing legislative measures to deal with a COVID‐19 like situation are lacking and require certain amendments to address such situations in the future. This paper aims to present the current constitutional and legislative response to health emergencies in India and attempts to identify gray areas in the statutory provisions. Based on the analysis, this paper suggests several recommendations for amending current legislation and suggests the promulgation of comprehensive public health law. This paper is largely based on primary sources such as the EDA and the DMA, regulations, guidelines, rules issued by the public authorities and court cases related to health and health emergencies along with secondary resources such as newspaper articles and published papers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Covid‐19 has impacted the financial markets dramatically. The risk and return expectations of investors have changed, leading them to reallocate their portfolios. This paper aims to analyse the impact of Covid‐19 on the portfolio allocation decisions of individual investors. The study examines the perceptions of investors about various investment avenues before and during the period of extreme uncertainty caused by the COVID‐19 pandemic. The data were collected from individual investors residing in Delhi and Mumbai. AHP is used to rank the investment preferences of the respondents. The results show that due to the present financial crisis pertaining to COVID‐19, investors have started reallocating their portfolios. Since the returns on risky assets are not as expected, investors are moving towards a conservative portfolio. However, the case of transition from risky to risk‐free assets is not the same in the case of all investors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The outbreak of Coronavirus 2019 (COVID‐19) has impacted everyday lives globally. The number of positive cases is growing and India is now one of the most affected countries. This paper builds predictive models that can predict the number of positive cases with higher accuracy. Regression‐based, Decision tree‐based, and Random forest‐based models have been built on the data from China and are validated on India's sample. The model is found to be effective and will be able to predict the positive number of cases in the future with minimal error. The developed machine learning model can work in real‐time and can effectively predict the number of positive cases. Key measures and suggestions have been put forward considering the effect of lockdown. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the present business situation during the COVID‐19 pandemic, employee engagement has become one of the utmost prominent primacies for human resource managers and practitioners in organizations due to lockdown. The paper is to determine the engagement of employees by various companies during coronavirus pandemic. Organizations nowadays are constantly developing innovative and effective means to engage the employees during this tough time. This paper is a conceptual paper that is based on various research papers, articles, blogs, online newspapers, and reports of World Health Organization. During this pandemic situation, organizations are evolving many engagement activities like online family engagement practices, virtual learning and development, online team building activities, webinars with industry experts, online conduct weekly alignment sessions, team meet‐ups over video conference for lunch, short online game sessions, virtual challenges and competitions, online courses, appreciation sessions, communication exercises, live sessions for new‐skill training, online counseling sessions, recognition and acknowledgment session, webinars dealing with anxiety and stress, providing online guidance for exercise and meditation, social interactions in a virtual office, classrooms training modules digitally, e‐learning modules, and many more creative learning sessions. Work‐from‐home regime engagement activities are very fruitful for employees as well as for organizations. Those organizations doing these kinds of engagement activities for their employees are learning new skills and developing themselves. Employees are feeling committed to the organization and stay motivated during this tough time of COVID‐19 pandemic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper empirically investigates the impact of COVID‐19 on the volatility of stock prices in India with the help of a generalized autoregressive conditional heteroscedasticity model. Daily closing prices of stock indices, Nifty and Sensex from September 3, 2019 to July 10, 2020 has been used for the analysis. Further, the study has been attempted to make a comparison of stock price return in pre‐COVID‐19 and during COVID‐19 situation. Findings reveal that the stock market in India has experienced volatility during the pandemic period. While comparing the result during COVID period with that of the pre‐COVID, we found that the return on the indices is higher in the pre‐COVID‐19 period than during COVID‐19. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Covid‐19 is a Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Corona Virus‐2 (SARS‐CoV‐2), which has exposed the issue of public risk perception among people in Pakistan. Previous research about public risk perception among people in Pakistan has been a neglected area till the writing of the current paper. The study aims to determine the level of public risk perception among people in Pakistan about the Covid‐19 pandemic. Why and how public risk perception among health professionals and literate is more than the illiterate people in Pakistan? Data were collected through questionnaires and interviews of populations sampling from five districts through visits in KPK and other provinces via phone calls and online through internet. Theory of Health Belief Model (HBM) was utilized to explain public health risk perception in Pakistan. The lack of public health risk perception has more in illiterate people than literate among people in Pakistan, which has caused the Coronavirus to multiply rapidly in Pakistan. The findings have indicated that both health professionals and other literate people have different health behaviors than those who are illiterate in Pakistan about the Covid‐19 pandemic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper has been empirically investigated the existence of the day‐of‐the‐week effect by using closing daily data for Nifty 50, Nifty 50 Midcap, Nifty 100, Nifty 100 Midcap, Nifty 100 Smallcap, and Nifty 200 for before and during the COVID‐19 health crisis. This study used secondary data for all indices over the period 1 April 2005–14 May 2020. The present study used both dummy variable regression and the Generalized Autoregressive Conditional Heteroscedasticity (GARCH) model. The total study period is divided into two sub‐periods, that is, during and before the COVID‐19 health crisis. A negative return is found for Mondays when the during‐COVID‐19 health crisis period is examined; in contrast, it was positive for the before COVID‐19 period. Tuesday's effect on index return is found statistically significant and positive for all indices during the COVID‐19 crisis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The spread of coronavirus disease, 2019, has affected several countries in the world including Asian countries. The occurrences of COVID infections are uneven across countries and the same is determined by socioeconomic situations prevailing in the countries besides the preparedness and management. The paper is an attempt to empirically examine the socioeconomic determinants of the occurrence of COVID in Asian countries considering the data as of June 18, 2020, for 42 Asian countries. A multiple regression analysis in a cross‐sectional framework is specified and ordinary least square (OLS) technique with heteroscedasticity corrected robust standard error is employed to obtain regression coefficients. Explanatory variables that are highly collinear have been dropped from the analysis. The findings of the study show a positive significant association of per capita gross national income and net migration with the incidence of total COVID‐19 cases and daily new cases. The size of net migration emerged to be a potential factor and positive in determining the total and new cases of COVID. Social capital as measured by voters' turnout ratio (VTR) in order to indicate the people's participation is found to be significant and negative for daily new cases per million population. People's participation has played a very important role in checking the incidence of COVID cases and its spread. In alternate models, countries having high incidence of poverty are also having higher cases of COVID. Though the countries having higher percentage of aged populations are more prone to be affected by the spread of virus, but the sign of the coefficient of this variable for Asian country is not in the expected line. Previous year health expenditure and diabetic prevalence rate are not significant in the analysis. Therefore, people‐centric plan and making people more participatory and responsive in adhering to the social distancing norms in public and workplace and adopting preventive measures need to be focused on COVID management strategies. The countries having larger net migration and poverty ratio need to evolve comprehensive and inclusive strategies for testing, tracing, and massive awareness for sanitary practices, social distancing, and following government regulation for management of COVID‐19, besides appropriate food security measures and free provision of sanitary kits for vulnerable section. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Effective crisis communication is essential to efficiently handle the uncertainty and anxiousness of citizens during the COVID‐19 crisis. Government Twitter handles are an excellent platform for faster information dissemination and engaging citizens. While most government ministries actively use Twitter, limited attention is given to its modus operandi. Using data retrieved from the official Twitter handle of 'The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare' (MOHFW) of India, the current study examines the effect of the content characteristics, including content type and media type, on citizen engagement measured as tweet likes and retweets. The findings are based on 3742 tweets from MOHFW, recording more than 4.06 million likes and 1.23 million retweets over the initial six months of the largest COVID‐19 vaccination drive. Results show that content‐sharing guidance for stakeholders gained the maximum engagement, while the latest news about the COVID‐19 crisis resulted in the least engagement. Photos gained maximum engagement, while statuses resulted in the least engagement. The results illuminate the textual features of the government's Twitter communication and will enable policymakers to manage their social media content strategy diligently. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The COVID‐19 outbreak has left an indelible effect on Bangladesh's agriculture sector, like that of most developing countries. Considering that agriculture is the cornerstone of Bangladesh's economy, we made an effort to compile a detailed scenario of COVID‐19's effect on it through a relevant literature review. Since no significant studies outlined a complete picture of the pandemic's impact on agriculture, our study ventured to reveal the circumstances of each sub‐sector of agriculture. During the early phases of the pandemic, farmers engaged in agriculture production got poor prices, with the majority of them incurring losses. Labor shortages and input scarcity were the most prevailing hindrances across all the sub‐sectors. The export volume seemed to shrink hugely, hurting the country's GDP. The supply chain for agricultural commodities was disrupted as a result of the lockdown and mobility restrictions, which resulted in the elimination of the majority of intermediaries. Unprecedented challenges occurred in the input and output markets, as well as in the agro‐industries, exacerbating the situation. However, while the vegetables and poultry sub‐sectors recovered utterly and the dairy sub‐sector somehow managed to stabilize, other sub‐sectors are still grieving. This study highlighted some policies that can mitigate the miseries of the agriculture sector and overcome further potential threats in Bangladesh and other agriculture‐led developing countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the COVID‐19 pandemic, many rumors and conspiracy theories spread in various media outlets. The purpose of this study is to reveal the nature of the misinformation detected by fact check platforms that spread in the Fragile Five countries. To determine the themes of misinformation about COVID‐19 and from which media it is disseminated are a possible way to prevent it. The data of the study were obtained from International Fact‐checking Network's CoronaVirusFacts database. One thousand seven hundred thirty‐four piece of misinformation collected by web scraping method during the period January 24, 2020 to November 14, 2020 and analyzed with MAXQDA Analytics Pro 2020. As a result of the research, it was found that rumors (96.3%) spread more in the Fragile Five countries than conspiracy theories (3.7%). While the main theme of the rumors is about illness (26.9%) and diagnosis‐treatment (25%), conspiracy theories are mostly related to the cause of the disease (68.8%). 53.06% of misinformation was spread through the Facebook platform. 15.32% on Twitter; 13.34% on WhatsApp. Misinformation has been heavily false (85.12%) in both rumor and conspiracy theories. In the second place, misleading (10.09%) news spread. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Organizational reputation is critical for successful stakeholder engagement. A crisis can affect the organizational reputation and alter stakeholder perception about organizations. The current study investigates the impact of the Covid‐19 pandemic and its management on the World Health Organization's (WHO's) reputation among Indian public health professionals (PHPs). The study applies the situational crisis communication theory (SCCT) model to investigate the reputational impact of the pandemic on WHO among the study subjects. The study results indicate that most Indian PHPs attribute the current Pandemic to WHO. Their current reputation has dropped compared to their earlier reputation among Indian PHPs. The same is reflected in their behavioral intent, with the PHP's willingness to follow WHO guidelines on public health issues significantly reduced. The study also finds empirical support for the SCCT Model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The COVID‐19 pandemic, ever since its global outbreak in 2020, has continued to wreak havoc. Governments across the world were compelled to enforce strict nation‐wide lockdowns, while emphasising on social distancing and quarantining suspected people in order to slow down the spread of the virus. During this time, there was a massive increase in demand for COVID‐19 test kits. However, given the limited supply, countries were finding it hard to test enough people. This study proposes an approach called Encoded Blending (EB) to increase the number of tests drastically, without increasing the number of test kits. EB modifies the pooled testing method; this has been followed by countries like Germany, Israel and South Korea for mass testing their citizens. EB has the potential to reduce test kits requirement by up to 85% and 80% in a population with 5% and 10% affected cases, respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study explored the experiences of working from home among women in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) during the lockdown. Adopting the interpretative philosophical approach, this study conducts semi‐structured interviews with sixteen (16) randomly selected women actively employed in different sectors in the UAE economy. The analysis was carried out using the thematic analysis to derive the themes and sub‐themes emerging from the coded data. The research finds that most of the challenges are associated with spillover from work, affecting family time, and invading personal space. The research concluded that women working remotely faced issues linked to glitches, malfunctions, and knowledge deficiencies. The third most identified challenge to working from home was the distractions that come with the conscious attempt to divide attention between work and family, trying to stop one from interfering with the other. However, the research observed some notable advantages including workplace flexibility and control, as well as the opportunity to work from the comfort of the home. The findings also revealed the mixed feelings to continue working from home and its impact on the career progression of women in the UAE. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We examine the dynamics of the impact of the evolving policy response during the COVID‐19 pandemic on the equity market sentiment in India. We operationalise our study by examining the India VIX, the fear gauge of the Indian equity market as an indicator for the market sentiment, and the country level Government Response Index of the Blavatnik School of Government, Oxford University as an indicator for the policy response. The relation is examined through the Markov‐switching model using high‐frequency daily data from January 30, 2020, to May 31, 2021. The evidence suggests that the policy response has a positive impact on the market sentiment when the market is fearful. Further, the evidence suggests that both the high‐fear state and the low‐fear state of the market sentiment given by the model are short‐lived indicating heightened volatility and possible speculation during the ongoing pandemic in the Indian equity market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research explores the correlation between diversity, entrepreneurial innovation, and performance of the Lebanese healthcare sector during the COVID‐19 pandemic period. It aims to analyze the nature of the following correlations (a) the impact of workforce diversity on entrepreneurial innovation, (b) the impact of workforce diversity on performance, and (c) the impact of entrepreneurial innovation on performance. Using a cross‐sectional survey design, we collected the primary data from heterogeneous respondents including 870 patients and 261 executives leading 87 major private hospitals and other medical centers in Lebanon. Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) is employed to predict multivariate causal relationships between latent constructs and measured variables. The results of the SEM model reveal that gender diversity (GD) is a key success factor of workforce performance in the Lebanese healthcare sector since it can increase both process innovation (PI) and organizational innovation (OI) and also enhance organizational performance (OP) and patient satisfaction (PS). The results indicate that age diversity (AD) especially the presence of youth in medical centers has a positive and significant impact on organizational performance and patient satisfaction. Finally, the results of this study show that the presence of women and youth in the Lebanese healthcare sector improves entrepreneurial innovation and thus, leads to enhance the performance level and the quality of healthcare outcomes. This research provides original information that supports executive managers in the healthcare sector during crisis periods. Managerial practices and policies designed to foster diversity can improve workforce performance and the quality of medical outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The healthcare sector is increasingly facing changing demand patterns and escalating pressures for innovative services during the COVID‐19 pandemic. Market‐focused flexibility refers to the capabilities of adaptation and facilitating the innovative performance of the firm. Accepting the overall role of innovation in COVID‐19 response, this study aims to explore how public healthcare organizations exhibit market‐focused flexibility to introduce new and innovative services. This study conducts an exploratory case study in a national‐level healthcare firm in India. This study identifies four specific dimensions of market‐focused flexibility that healthcare firms execute to deliver customized services. The study's findings contribute to an integrative framework of market‐focused flexibility and innovative performance in public healthcare. The mechanisms of market‐focused flexibility are unearthed and explained how the different facets influence innovative services in various manners. The implications to theory and practices are discussed, and future research avenues are sketched. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates the impacts of pandemic‐induced economic policy uncertainties (PIEPU) on the S&P500, Nasdaq‐100, and Dow Jones indexes (stock returns). To this aim, for the first time, newly created IDEMV (the Infectious Disease Equity Market Volatility index (henceforth, PIEPU index) is used. The Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) model and the Toda and Yamamoto (Journal of Econometrics, 1995, 66, pp. 225–250) causality test are applied for the 2009–2020 period. Empirical findings indicate that rises in the PIEPU index lead to falls of only the S&P500 and Dow Jones indexes. Corporations in the tech‐heavy Nasdaq100 index do not negatively respond to rises in the PIEPU index. Additionally, the negative impacts of the rises in the specifically COVID‐19 based‐constructed PIEPU (DCOVPIEPU) index on the S&P500 and Dow Jones indexes are higher than the negative impacts of the general PIEPU index. This can be interpreted to mean that the larger the magnitude and spread rate of a pandemic, the larger the negative impacts on stock returns. In the sample period of this study, COVID‐19 is the largest and most destructive pandemic compared to H1N1 and Ebola. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The COVID‐19 pandemic has raised awareness of the urgency of reforming our economy to achieve a global recovery. This endeavour will require the implementation of various strategies aiming for a system reset, at the core of which is the sustainable recovery model. In 2009, the United Nations General Assembly proclaimed 22 April as International Mother Earth Day. It was a brave act of acknowledgement that the Earth and its ecosystems are our typical home. At the same time, it is a tangible expression of the global conviction that humankind must be in Harmony with Nature to achieve a just balance among the economic, social and environmental needs of present and future generations. While the global community is actively searching for new ways to achieve sustainable development, resolved to perform an economic system reset, determined to a green recovery, why don't we try to reform the taxing system? A right taxation system could help recover quickly and achieve a green recovery of the global economy. While everyone has to pay tax, the truth is that some more prominent companies go to extreme measures to minimise their contribution where they are based and where they sell. The new thinking that this article puts forward is that instead of taxing the companies for what they produce and sell, we should tally the amount of CO2 a company emits while making the goods and recycling them to tax them accordingly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates the impact of COVID‐19 pandemic on stock returns, conditional volatility, conditional skewness and bad state probability. This study utilizes an asymmetric exponential generalized autoregressive conditional heteroscedasticity model to capture the asymmetric effect of positive and negative shocks (news) on conditional volatility. Using a sample consisting of international stock market indices in Brazil, China, Italy, India, Germany, Russia, Spain, United Kingdom, and United States, over the period from January 1, 2013 to December 31, 2020, we find unprecedented increases in conditional volatilities and bad state probabilities across all the markets. However, this impact is not symmetric across markets. Furthermore, we find that the negative affect of deaths is more pronounced, compared to the positive impact of recovered cases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

COVID‐19 is wreaking havoc all around the globe, and Pakistan bears no exception. This study explores Pakistan's response toward controlling COVID‐19 Pandemic from the day the 1st case was reported, February 26, 2020, in Pakistan until August 31, 2020. It explores the administrative conflicts among federal and provincial governments and political behaviors of political parties toward the COVID‐19 pandemic by referring Government Response Index. By applying the ARDL model approach, results show that since the administrative harmony had been implemented in Pakistan in July 2020, its positive impact on combating the COVID‐19 situation in Pakistan and substantial improvement in recovered cases and a downward trend new confirmed and fatal cases has observed in Pakistan. The findings demonstrate that administrative efforts scattered due to internal conflicts from February to mid‐July 2020 have ended, and collective aggressive policy enforcement has been mitigating the adverse impact of COVID‐19 in Pakistan since July to date. However, sustainable measures and prudent policy implications are needed to combat the ongoing COVID‐19 pandemic and future calamities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, we developed and analyzed a mathematical model for explaining the transmission dynamics of COVID‐19 in India. The proposed SIuIkR model is a modified version of the existing SIR model. Our model divides the infected class I of SIR model into two classes: Iu (unknown infected class) and Ik (known infected class). In addition, we consider R a recovered and reserved class, where susceptible people can hide them due to fear of the COVID‐19 infection. Furthermore, a non‐monotonic incidence function is deemed to incorporate the psychological effect of the novel coronavirus diseases on India's community. The epidemiological threshold parameter, namely the basic reproduction number, has been formulated and presented graphically. With this threshold parameter, the local and global stability analysis of the disease‐free equilibrium and the endemic proportion equilibrium based on disease persistence have been analyzed. Lastly, numerical results of long‐run prediction using MATLAB show that the fate of this situation is very harmful if people are not following the guidelines issued by the authority. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Management of COVID‐19 largely depends on the reporting of suspected or confirmed positive cases. This study examined public's suspect report intention during COVID‐19 using and extending the theory of planned behavior by adding two incident‐specific variables such as perceived severity of COVID‐19 and fear of retaliation. Direct association of attitude, subjective norm, and perceived behavioral control with suspect report intention and moderating role of perceived severity of COVID‐19 and fear of retaliation were probed. This study also investigated whether the moderation of perceived severity of COVID‐19 (primary moderator) varies with different level of fear of retaliation (secondary moderator) using moderated moderation analysis. Analyzing data collected from 554 Indian citizens provides evidence that attitude, subjective norm, and perceived behavioral control were positively associated with suspect report intention. Perceived severity of COVID‐19 and fear of retaliation negatively moderated such associations. When fear of retaliation was high, high perceived severity of COVID‐19 did not positively moderate the association of attitude, subjective norm, and perceived behavioral control with suspect report intention. Perceived behavioral control was the most potent facilitator and fear of retaliation was the strongest inhibitor of suspect report intention. Understanding people's suspect report intention can assist in implementing awareness programs to encourage suspect report intention and stop the community spread of COVID‐19. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Positioning Covid‐19 as a wicked problem we analyse the extent that the UK government adhered to the guidelines for dealing with such problems and the extent to which the management of the pandemic exacerbated the crisis. We argue the management of the pandemic saw a continuance of political communication as usual, focusing on emphasising the optimistic rhetoric which underpinned the Brexit narrative and 2019 election campaign which delivered Boris Johnson a majority. The failure to break out of a narrow permanent campaigning mindset which saw the pandemic as a brief interlude during a period when the focus was on delivering Brexit led to public confusion as optimistic claims were proven to be inaccurate and promises unreachable. Johnson's government's attempts to offer certainty despite a situation characterised by volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity led to numerous U‐turns that seriously damaged their credibility while the politicisation of the response led to poor decision making at key points. We therefore highlight the deficiencies of Johnson's strategy and highlight key lessons for communications professionals who navigate an increasingly volatile and uncertain world beset by wicked problems. In particularly we highlight the importance of depoliticising crises, seeking a diverse range of ideas and expertise, developing an empathic leadership style, starting a public conversation that recognises uncertainty and so develop a framework where wicked problems are a feature of public debate. We argue that failure in all of these areas contributed to the UK's poor comparative performance during the Covid‐19 pandemic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Household air pollution is a serious public health concern in India with more than half of the Indian households relying on solid fuel use. The long periods of lockdown related measures to control COVID‐19 pandemic in India further aggravated the adverse health effects of household air pollution as millions Indians were exposed to high level of health‐damaging air pollutants inside their homes. This commentary discusses the vulnerability of the socioeconomically disadvantaged population forced to stay indoors during the pandemic. Exposure to household air pollution has detrimental effects on health, which might put individuals at higher risk for complications related to COVID‐19. A large proportion of socioeconomically disadvantaged section of the population were exposed to critical levels of household air pollution and more vulnerable to severe health effects of COVID‐19. There is a pressing need to understand the aggravated health consequences of household air pollution in association with COVID‐19. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The rapid spread of COVID‐19 pandemic has caused a severe disorder in the global economy. The sudden imposition of lockdown is expected to largely impact the global as well as Indian economy. To overcome serious economic fallouts, the honorable Prime Minister of India, Sri Narendra Modi in his address to the nation called for "Atmanirbhar Bharat Abhiyan" or "Self‐reliant India" as self‐reliance would help in making pragmatic developments of the economy. According to WHO, COVID‐19 is a new strain found among humans that are caused by SARS‐CoV‐2, mainly a respiratory tract infection. As a consequence, the COVID‐19 pandemic gives India a unique situation to face this period of crisis boldly for optimum utilization of the available resources, and shift towards a more resilient and sustainable economy. Attainment of self‐reliance and sustainable resource management will also help the nation to overcome various global challenges. The present study mainly focuses on two objectives: Firstly, to understand the different possibilities which will secure India to become self‐reliant; and secondly, to know the prospects of self‐reliant of India in the post‐COVID‐19 scenario. It has to be kept in mind that Covid‐19 may not be the last viral infection that the world might see. Therefore, Novel Coronavirus sets a distinctive chance for India and the countries alike to utilize the available resources strategically and transform its dreams of "local" India into "Glocal" India for a better and brighter future of her people. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, an attempt has been made to examine the level of organizational commitment and job satisfaction among male and female school teachers working in private schools during the Covid‐19 pandemic. For the present study, descriptive method is used. The sample of 181 private school teachers was drawn using a purposive sampling procedure. The organizational commitment questionnaire is developed by Allen and Meyer in 1990 and job satisfaction index by Brayfield and Rothe in 1951 is used for the study. For descriptive statistics mean, standard deviation (S.D.), and z test is used. Shapiro–Wilks test, Levene's test, and Mann–Whitney U test is used to analyze data in the current study. The results revealed that female teachers are more continuance committed as compared to male teachers during this tough situation of a pandemic. The level of organizational commitment is found low in both female and male teachers during the Covid‐19. No significant difference is found in the overall job satisfaction among male and female teachers during the Covid‐19 pandemic. This study also determines a positive and significant relationship between organizational commitment and job satisfaction during the Covid‐19 pandemic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To contain the spread of the Covid‐19 pandemic, the mandated social distancing and restricted market activities have adversely affected the employment and earnings of the poor who are considered the targeted beneficiaries of the Microfinance Institutions (MFIs). The MFI operation and more specifically fresh lending are under serious threat as the mode of operations primarily involve physical interaction while distributing credits at the clients' doorsteps, conducting periodic group meetings and carrying out regular collections. This short article attempts to analyze the various challenges that MFIs may encounter in their current and future operations due to the ongoing pandemic. It discusses how the government initiated coping mechanisms may help MFIs overcome or minimize the pandemic challenges. At the same time, MFIs' efforts towards continued services are expected to create a win‐win situation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study seeks to explore the effect of the COVID‐19 outbreak pandemic on the posttraumatic growth among Saudi individuals and also to assess the effect of demographic variables on the PTG. A descriptive design was applied to detect the level of PTG and to determine the differences in PTG due to demographic variables. A randomized sample consisting of 365 participants was chosen; the participants' ages ranged between 20 and 60. The study sample was divided into subgroups according to demographic variables. The posttraumatic growth scale (PTG‐21) applied online to the study sample. The results indicated that there were high levels of improved personal relationships, increased emotional strength and resilience, greater spiritual connection, and a heightened sense of gratitude toward life among Saudis, while there were low levels of the new opportunities and the total score of posttraumatic growth. The results also found that there are significant statistical differences in the PTG due to demographic variables except academic degree has not no effect in PTG. The findings highlighting the importance of the psychological service centers, to help who suffer from the negative effects of COVID‐19 pandemic outbreak symptoms such as anxiety, depression, and obsessive compulsive. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since 2019, countries in the world have been facing many economic, political, social, and health shocks and challenges that are not easily faced with the COVID‐19 pandemic, including Singapore. Under these conditions, the performance of the governance system in dealing with a pandemic is tested transparently in public. However, the implementation of good governance by the Singapore government itself is carried out by steps and decisions that will be taken and implemented through the digital bureaucracy to the community in order to suppress the positive number of COVID‐19. The application of good governance also needs support other crucial elements that improved by digital bureaucracy, which are transparency, accountability, efficiency and effective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present work evaluates the impact of age, population density, total population, rural population, annual average temperature, basic sanitation facilities, and diabetes prevalence on the transmission of COVID‐19. This research is an effort to identify the major predictors that have a significant impact on the number of COVID‐19 cases per million population for 83 countries. The findings highlight that a population with a greater share of old people (aged above 65) shows a higher number of COVID‐19 positive cases and a population with a lower median age has fewer cases. This can be explained in terms of higher co‐morbidities and the lower general immunity in the older age group. The analysis restates the widely seen results that a higher median age and greater prevalence of co‐morbidities leads to higher cases per million and lesser population density and interpersonal contact helps in containing the spread of the virus. The study finds foundation in the assertion that a higher temperature might lower the number of cases, or that temperature in general can affect the infectivity. The study suggests that better access to sanitation is a certain measure to contain the spread of the virus. The outcome of this study will be helpful in ascertaining the impact of these indicators in this pandemic, and help in policy formation and decision‐making strategies to fight against it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aims to analyse the effectiveness of the lockdown measure taken to control the transmission of COVID‐19 in India by examining the peak of the epidemic pre and post the adoption of stringent lockdown from 25 March 2020. Susceptible‐exposed‐infectious‐recovered (SEIR) model has been developed to trace the peak of the outbreak. The study suggests that with the implementation of lockdown the peak of epidemic in India has delayed by two and a half month. Before lockdown peak was examined in end of May 2020 but post lockdown, it is expected to arrive in mid‐August 2020. Thus lockdown measures has delayed the arrival of peak of epidemic which would be helpful in preparing the healthcare system in advance, to tackle worst situation if arises in future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The World Health Organization (WHO) declared the Coronavirus Disease (COVID‐19) a pandemic due to the huge upsurge in the number of reported cases worldwide. The COVID‐19 pandemic in India has become a public health threat, and if we go by the number of confirmed cases then the situation seems to be a matter of grave concern. According to real‐time data, the numbers of confirmed cases are growing exponentially. No doubt, substantial public health interventions both at the national and state levels are implemented immediately by the Government of India; there is a need for improved preparedness plans and mitigation strategies along with accurate forecasting. The present study aims to forecast the COVID‐19 outbreak infected cases in India. The data have been obtained from https://www.covid19india.org, https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus, and ICMR reported publicly available information about COVID‐19 confirmation cases. We have used the double exponential smoothing method for forecasting the trends in terms of confirmed, active, recovered and death cases from COVID‐19 for emergency preparedness and future predictions. Findings reveal that the estimated value of point forecast is just 8.22% of the total number of confirmed cases reported on a daily basis across the country. It was observed that the deaths were lower for the states and union territories with a higher detection rate. It is suggested that by keeping in view the limited healthcare resources in the country, accurate forecasting, early detection, and avoidance of acute care for the majority of infected cases is indispensable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study has attempted to study the impact of COVID‐19 on downside stock market risk in the G‐20 nations using Vaue‐at‐Risk models. The findings of the study suggest that all the G‐20 nations have experienced very high level of risk during Global Financial Crisis and COVID‐19 as all the countries' stock markets are critical during these two periods, but the magnitude of risk is found to be highest during COVID‐19 period compared to other regimes in most of the countries. However, one shocking revelation is that China is found to be on safe zone having very less market risk, whereas all other countries are found to be critical. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In most of the affected country's ignorance of Knowledge, Attitude, and Practice (KAP) towards COVID‐19 leads to several issues. The aim of the present study is to review and discuss the KAP to fight the COVID‐19 crisis in respect of stakeholders namely, general populations, health workers, and students. A comprehensive search of the literature associated with KAP towards COVID‐19 is made using various keywords through PubMed, Web of Science, and Scopus and based on the results; a brief review is done by assessing the various aspects like country, sample size, and so forth. A detailed structure is provided with the KAP towards COVID‐19 to overwhelm the significant impact of the explosion. Though, various studies appear in the literature as a result of sufficient element of knowledge, positive attitude, and necessary practice, yet there are various challenges in front of the authority bodies as this pandemic becoming critical day by day. Incessant progress in the KAP has contributed well in the fight against the pandemic and we believe that providing proper information to related COVID‐19 would help in tackling this disease, especially, when authorities started talking with COVID‐19 for a long period or until a vaccine developed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article mainly explores the economic and health challenges faced by Bangladesh amid COVID‐19 and the policies taken by the government of Bangladesh to tackle the economic and health issues. Bangladesh is ranked as one of the worst‐hit countries in terms of total corona infections. Affecting the social, economic, and health sectors of the country, COVID‐19 pandemic has dampened the overall economic well‐being and thus GDP growth along with skyrocketing poverty, inequality, and unemployment nationwide. To tackle these crises, the government has initiated effective policy measures which, in turn, enhanced the recovery rate of COVID‐19 positive patients and strengthened the recovery of economic indicators. Therefore, this article suggests other hard‐hit COVID‐19 affected countries following the recovery model of Bangladesh to encounter the economic and health challenges due to the coronavirus pandemic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study has: (a) analysed the economic impact of the Covid‐19 pandemic, (b) evaluated the effectiveness and relevance of different measures against the pandemic and (c) examined nexuses between the corresponding measures and economic outcomes. The study uses a sample of 186 countries divided into four main regions, notably: Asia‐Pacific and the Middle East, Europe, Africa and America. Thirty four preventing and mitigating measures against the Covid‐19 pandemic are classified into five main categories: lockdown, movement restrictions, governance and economic, social distancing, and public health measures. The empirical evidence is based on comparative difference in means tests and correlation analyses. The findings show how the effectiveness and consequences of the Covid‐19 measures are different across regions. In adopting the relevant policies to fight the ongoing pandemic, the comparative insights from the findings in the study are worthwhile. Inter alia: (a) from a holistic perspective, only European countries have favorably benefited from the Covid‐19 measures; (b) lockdown measures at the global level have not been significant in reducing the pandemic; (c) the restriction of movement measure has been relevant in curbing the spread in the American continent; (d) the enforcement of the social distancing measures has been productive in Europe and counter‐productive in Africa; (e) governance and economic measures have exclusively been relevant in Europe and (f) overall public health measures have not had the desired outcomes in flattening the infection curve probably because most of the underlying measures are awareness decisions or oriented toward people already infected. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The research develops a theoretical model that highlights the determinants of adoption of online teaching at the time of the outbreak of COVID 19. Empirical data was gathered from 643 school teachers by means of an online survey. The proposed conceptual framework was investigated empirically by means of confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and structural equation modelling (SEM). The findings of the study revealed performance expectancy, and facilitating conditions had a positive impact on behavioural intention as well as attitude. However, effort expectancy failed to drive teachers' adoption to online teaching. On the other hand, social influence had insignificant relationship with attitude but significant relationship with behavioural intention. Attitude had a significant impact on behavioural intention as well as actual use. This study contributes to the literature by presenting and validating a theory‐driven framework that accentuates the factors influencing online teaching during outbreak of a pandemic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the trend of the spread of coronavirus disease (COVID‐19) pandemic in Pakistan and to explore the community perception of the socioeconomic impact of COVID‐19 pandemic in a rural mountain area of Pakistan. An online survey was conducted through snowball sampling technique and total 367 people participated in the survey. The results of the study show that COVID‐19 cases spiked amid ease of lockdown in the country and the spread of novel coronavirus pandemic has significant socioeconomic impact on the lives of mountain communities in Gilgit‐Baltistan. Financial uncertainty, decrease in income, fear of job loss, and food insecurity are some major challenges that mountain communities face due to outbreak of coronavirus in the region. The results further show that lack of community cooperation with government agencies, lack of awareness about the severity of coronavirus, and insufficient COVID‐19 testing kits are the major factors that caused the spread of coronavirus cases. This study suggests that the short‐, medium‐, and long‐term policies are required to mitigate the consequences of this pandemic and to revitalize the mountain economy of Gilgit‐Baltistan, and in this regard, this study provides baseline information for policy‐makers and practitioners to devise such demanding policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As we are about to publish this first issue of the I Journal Public Affairs i ( I JPA i ) in 2021, we do so against the backdrop of the still rising second wave of coronavirus infection in the United Kingdom and in other parts of the world. Indeed, coronavirus vaccine strategy adopted arguably has become a critically important public affairs issue for government around the world. Because of the worldwide demand for coronavirus vaccine, inevitably the question of securing adequate supply and then distribution of the various vaccines has become a priority issue for governments around the world. [Extracted from the article]