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Critically ill COVID-19 patients may exhibit various clinical symptoms of renal dysfunction including severe Acute Kidney Injury (AKI). Currently, there is a lack of bibliometric analyses on COVID-19-related AKI. The aim of this study is to provide an overview of the current research status and hot topics regarding COVID-19 AKI. The literature was retrieved from the Web of Science Core Collection (WoSCC) database. Subsequently, we utilized Microsoft Excel, VOSviewer, Citespace, and Pajek software to revealed the current research status, emerging topics, and developmental trends pertaining to COVID-19 AKI. This study encompassed a total of 1507 studies on COVID-19 AKI. The United States, China, and Italy emerged as the leading three countries in terms of publication numbers, contributing 498 (33.05%), 229 (15.20%), and 140 (9.29%) studies, respectively. The three most active and influential institutions include Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan University and Harvard Medical School. Ronco C from Italy, holds the record for the highest number of publications, with a total of 15 papers authored. Cheng YC's work from China has garnered the highest number of citations, totaling 470 citations. The co-occurrence analysis of author keywords reveals that 'mortality', 'intensive care units', 'chronic kidney disease', 'nephrology', 'renal transplantation', 'acute respiratory distress syndrome', and 'risk factors' emerge as the primary areas of focus within the realm of COVID-19 AKI. In summary, this study analyzes the research trends in the field of COVID-19 AKI, providing a reference for further exploration and research on COVID-19 AKI mechanisms and treatment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Particularly at the beginning of the pandemic, adults aged 65 and older were portrayed as a homogeneously vulnerable population due to the elevated health risks associated with contracting the COVID-19 disease. This portrayal, combined with travel restrictions, closures of economic sectors, country-wide lockdowns, and suggestions by governmental authorities to limit social contact, had important implications for the wellbeing of older individuals. However, older adults are a heterogeneous population who relies on different resources to cope with stressful periods, like the COVID-19 pandemic. Simultaneously, countries also employed differentmeasures to contain the virus. Research thus far has focused on the short-termconsequences of the pandemic, but studies have yet to address its long-term consequences. Objectives: We explore older adults' lived experiences nearly 2 years after the pandemic onset. Moreover, we focus on the bordering countries of Switzerland and Italy, who employed contrasting containmentmeasures. This paper analyzes (1) Howthe COVID-19 pandemic impacted the experiences of wellbeing of older adults in these regions and (2) How older adults coped with the stressors brought about by the pandemic, in particular social distancing. Methods: The paper draws on 31 semi-structured interviews with 11 Swiss natives residing in Switzerland, 10 Italian migrants residing in Switzerland, and 10 Italian natives residing in Italy. Interviews were conducted from December 2021 to March 2022. Results: Coping mechanisms of the three groups related to acceptance, hobbies, cognitive reframing, telephone use, vaccine use and social distancing. However, results show heterogeneous experiences of wellbeing, with Swiss natives sharing more positive narratives than the other two groups. Moreover, Italian migrants and Italian natives expressed the long-term negative consequences of the pandemic on their experienced wellbeing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on four e-initiatives that were precipitated by the coronavirus outbreak in Italy. These experiences played a relevant role in developing multilevel solidarity (from the local to the global level) both online and offline. They are represented by the hashtags "#iorestoacasa" (I stay at home) and "#andràtuttobene" (everything will be alright), "performances on the balcony," "influencers' campaigns," and "altruism and e-parochialism." These experiences represent revealing examples essential to understand the benefits that a mediated form of solidarity can produce. This is particularly important given the challenges that solidarity faces due to the technological acceleration imposed by the pandemic, which is likely to influence social relationships even in the post-pandemic era. Four lessons can be learned from these expressions of e-solidarity related to the capacity of information and communication technologies to (1) promote unconditioned altruism; (2) fight "parochialism" when the same disadvantaged condition is shared; (3) their capacity to develop a multilevel sense of community by connecting the local experience to the global dimension; and (4) to mediate between institutional sources and people, and connect family members, friends, vulnerable people with neighbors, and the global community. This last point suggests that the pandemic has offered fertile ground for both mechanical and organic forms of solidarity to emerge. On the one hand, it created a collective conscience based on shared vulnerabilities and interdependence. On the other hand, it is based on individualization and diversity. Indeed, these examples of Durkheimian collective effervescence show the paradox of a form of collective individualized and mediated solidarity, which is typical of contemporary society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses the case of Italy during the Covid-19 pandemic to critically assess the EU legal framework on third-country national migrants' equal access to social benefits. In Italy, migrants are structurally excluded from core social protections, a situation that during the pandemic led to a worsening of existing patterns of inequality; migrants have been more exposed than citizens to poverty, unemployment, and destitution. The first part of the paper looks for the EU legal root of this situation: it examines the EU legal framework in the migration field, showing that it is affected by fragmentation and inconsistencies. These problems become even more acute at the national level, where the Italian legislature mis-transposed the EU migration directives, thus affecting the use of discretionary clauses therein and severely curtailing migrants' equal treatment rights. Then, the second part of the paper asks whether adopting a mainstreaming approach to enhance equality could improve the situation of migrants. The paper argues that equality mainstreaming in the migration field shows good potential, while also encountering some structural limits. Therefore, it can hardly be considered a silver bullet against the problem of migrants' discrimination. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Team science refers to research initiatives considered in collaboration with scientists from different disciplines or fields. This paper presents a bibliometric analysis for visualization of global research activity concerning the combination of cancer and the COVID-19 pandemic using a team science approach. A bibliometric study was implemented using Web of Science from 2019 to 2021. We analyzed citations to identify description and citations analysis of results, most prolific countries, international research collaboration, most prolific institutions, research areas, most cited papers, and most productive journals. The preliminary data of 2,313 studies that adopted a team science approach were recorded and analyzed. Team science is becoming progressively popular in cancer research. The United States was the most active country, followed by Italy and China. The United States, the United Kingdom, and Italy had the highest level of cooperation with other countries. The most prolific institution was Harvard University, followed by University of London and the University of Texas System. Head and Neck Journal for the Sciences and Specialties of the Head and Neck, Frontiers in Oncology, and eCancerMedicalScience were the most productive journals. Governments, organizations, policymakers, and researchers should pay attention to team science approach at times of disasters such as cancer and COVID-19 to achieve the best strategies for controlling cancer that is currently a world problem. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the dynamics of volatility spillovers among five major tourism stock indices during the Covid-19 period. Our paper enriches the current literature as it is the first paper to investigate the volatility spillovers among major global tourism stock indices by adopting Diebold and Yilmaz (2012. Better to give than to receive: Predictive directional measurement of volatility spillovers. International Journal of Forecasting, 28(1), 57–66.), and Barunik and Krehlik (2018. Measuring the Frequency Dynamics of Financial Connectedness and Systemic Risk. Journal of Financial Econometrics, 16(2), 271–296.) time and frequency domain methods. Results suggest that total spillovers of the tourism stock indices rose significantly during the pandemic. Turkey and Italy are net volatility spillover transmitters, and others are net volatility spillover receivers. Findings of this study also indicates that the effect of volatility transmission among tourism stock markets is temporary (short-lasting). The results suggest that short-term investors and portfolio managers should avoid investing in the tourism indices in the short term. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

At the very beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic, the act of loading shopping carts more than usual materialized as a sensible choice for most shoppers. Yet, stockpiling was constructed in parallel to the social pathologizing of so-called panic buying. Panic buyers emerged as supermarket "loose cannons" who seemed to create an "indecorous" spectacle out of what is usually considered an unremarkable act of everyday life. In this context, through the disjunctive comparison of experiences of grocery shopping in Italy and England, this paper looks at material cultures of preparedness and moral cosmologies of everyday consumption as they acquired social salience during the first few months of the Covid-19 pandemic (from March to June 2020). The rupture of everydayness allowed to appreciate the ritualistic aspects of grocery shopping and highlight their role in the temporal, social and moral ordering of everyday life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Critically ill COVID-19 patients may exhibit various clinical symptoms of renal dysfunction including severe Acute Kidney Injury (AKI). Currently, there is a lack of bibliometric analyses on COVID-19- related AKI. The aim of this study is to provide an overview of the current research status and hot topics regarding COVID-19 AKI. The literature was retrieved from the Web of Science Core Collection (WoSCC) database. Subsequently, we utilized Microsoft Excel, VOSviewer, Citespace, and Pajek software to revealed the current research status, emerging topics, and developmental trends pertaining to COVID-19 AKI. This study encompassed a total of 1507 studies on COVID-19 AKI. The United States, China, and Italy emerged as the leading three countries in terms of publication numbers, contributing 498 (33.05%), 229 (15.20%), and 140 (9.29%) studies, respectively. The three most active and influential institutions include Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan University and Harvard Medical School. Ronco C from Italy, holds the record for the highest number of publications, with a total of 15 papers authored. Cheng YC’s work from China has garnered the highest number of citations, totaling 470 citations. The co-occurrence analysis of author keywords reveals that ‘mortality’, ‘intensive care units’, ‘chronic kidney disease’, ‘nephrology’, ‘renal transplantation’, ‘acute respiratory distress syndrome’, and ‘risk factors’ emerge as the primary areas of focus within the realm of COVID-19 AKI. In summary, this study analyzes the research trends in the field of COVID-19 AKI, providing a reference for further exploration and research on COVID-19 AKI mechanisms and treatment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Air conditioning systems can play a positive or negative role in the spread of COVID-19 infection. The importance of sufficient outdoor air changes in buildings was highlighted by the World Health Organization, therefore these should be guaranteed by mechanical ventilation systems or adequate air conditioning systems. The proposed case study concerns the optimal number of outdoor air changes to limit COVID-19 contagion for a school building in Central Italy. The Wells–Riley model is used to assess the risk of airborne infection, while energy consumption is calculated by a dynamic energy simulation software. The scope of the paper offers an innovative method to define the optimal ventilation strategy for the building's HVAC system design to reduce the risk of infection with limited increases in energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions. Results show that the desirable approach is the one in which the same low value of contagion risk is set in all rooms. This new approach results in significant energy savings, compared to the most common ones (setting the same high outdoor air rates for all rooms) to counteract the risk of infection. Finally, the zero-emission building target is verified by introducing a suitable photovoltaic system to offset pollutant emissions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The COVID-19 pandemic has brought about significant changes to the life of most individuals, worldwide. This study explores the cultural factors influencing decision-making during the pandemic, and is part of the CORNER Project, funded by the Research Council of Norway, aimed at understanding institutional response in the early phases of the Covid-19 emergency in Norway, Sweden, and Italy. Semi-structured interviews with key political-administrative leaders in Italy (N = 35) were conducted and content-analyzed, allowing the identification of the underlying cultural dynamics that played a role in these decisions. Thematic analysis was used to assess the influence of cultural factors on the crisis management and early reaction of institutions and citizens to the spread of Covid. In line with previous studies, and as expected, the individualism vs. collectivism dimension can explain differential health outcomes during the outbreak. In this paper we argue that individualism-collectivism cultural values can also play a pivotal role in public compliance with Covid-19 restrictions, and psychological responses during the pandemic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: This paper aims to examine the COVID-19 pandemic's impacts on the regional progression toward the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) through the lens of the adoption of 2030 Agenda by firms from different Italian regions. Design/methodology/approach: Mixed methods were adopted. First, a content analysis was performed on 330 nonfinancial declarations released in the 2019–2021 period by a sample of 110 Italian listed companies from different regional macroareas. Second, regression analyses were run to test the impact of regional localization of businesses on SDGs adoption over pre-/during/post-COVID era. Findings: The regional localization of businesses does not affect the SDGs adoption in the pre-COVID-19 era because Italian firms mainly address social goals. Instead, SDGs adoption is affected by regional localization of businesses both during and post-COVID-19 age, when Northern firms prioritize economic and social goals, whereas Southern firms shift from social to environmental goals. Originality/value: This study fills the need of considering the subnational specificities in literature on sustainable development by capturing connections between firms, belonging territory, SDGs and COVID-19 crisis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Journal of Modern Italian Studies is the property of Routledge and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated the pre-existing vulnerabilities and inequalities in societies. In this paper we analyse the categories that have suffered more than others from the pandemic and the restrictions on social life in terms of mental health. We rely on the Serendipity project based on a survey administered between November 2021 and February 2022 to a sample of Italian physicians (n = 1281). The survey aimed to assess the perception of general practitioners, paediatricians, geriatricians, and mental health specialists (psychiatrists, neurologists, child neuropsychiatrists), about changes in the mental health of the population as an effect of the COVID-19 pandemic and the lockdown. The strategies implemented by the doctors interviewed in terms of the intensity of the prevention, emergence, and treatment of mental health interventions, and their association with physicians' characteristics and their opinions on patient vulnerability have been illustrated by means of a multiple correspondence analysis. An overall result of the survey is the consensus of doctors on the worsening of mental health in general population, especially among their patients, due to the pandemic and on the onset of new discomforts. The most exposed individuals to the risk of onset or worsening of mental disorders include women, young people, and patients with psychiatric comorbidity. The paper also illustrates the interventions put in place by the physicians and deemed necessary from a public heath response perspective, that include providing psychoeducation to the general population, improving telehealth services, and increasing financial and human resources for community-based care. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present paper aims to identify how economic evolutions related to health conditions during the Covid-19 pandemic. The research includes an analysis on the evolutions of the health and economic conditions during the Covid-19 health crisis and also on they way they are linked to each other. The investigation is conducted at country level and is exemplified on two European countries, namely Italy and Greece. The methodology employed was based on three types of analyses: descriptive, correlation and comparative analyses that used secondary data from international organizations. Results illustrate that the economic life was affected by the Covid-19 conditions (Covid-19 incidence and the associated restrictions), with inflation being the most affected in both countries. At the same time, international trade was affected differently in the two countries, with Italy being negatively and more intensively affected than Greece, for which the association was positive and rather weak. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

At the beginning of 2023, the Italian former prime minister, the former health minister and 17 others including the current president of the Lombardy region were placed under investigation on suspicion of aggravated culpable epidemic in connection with the government's response at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. The charges revolve around the failure by authorities to take adequate measures to prevent the spread of the virus in the Bergamo area, which experienced a significant excess of deaths during the initial outbreak. The aim of this paper is to analyse the pandemic data of Italy and the Lombardy region in the first 10 days of the pandemic, spanning from the 24th of February 2020 to the 4th of March 2020. The objective is to determine whether the use of early warning indicators could have facilitated the identification of a critical increase in infections. This identification, in turn, would have enabled the timely formulation of strategies for pandemic containment, thereby reducing the number of deaths. In conclusion, to translate our findings into practical guidelines, we propose a low-cost early warning method for infectious respiratory diseases with asymptomatic carriers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: A new national survey has been carried out by the Italian Centers for Cognitive Disorders and Dementias (CCDDs). The aim of this new national survey is to provide a comprehensive description of the characteristics, organizational aspects of the CCDDs, and experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic. Methods: A list of all national CCDDs was requested from the delegates of each Italian region. The online questionnaire is divided in two main sections: a profile section, containing information on location and accessibility, and a data collection form covering organization, services, treatments, activities, and any service interruptions caused by the COVID-19 outbreak. Results: In total, 511 out of 534 (96%) facilities completed the profile section, while 450 out of 534 (84%) CCDDs also completed the data collection form. Almost half of the CCDDs (55.1%) operated for 3 or fewer days a week. About one-third of the facilities had at least two professional figures among neurologists, geriatricians and psychiatrists. In 2020, only a third of facilities were open all the time, but in 2021, two-thirds of the facilities were open. Conclusion: This paper provides an update on the current status of CCDDs in Italy, which still shows considerable heterogeneity. The survey revealed a modest improvement in the functioning of CCDDs, although substantial efforts are still required to ensure the diagnosis and care of patients with dementia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate how business-to-business (B2B) companies operating in durable goods use digital communications after the COVID-19 outbreak. In particular, this paper focuses on the objectives of these digital communication tools for the marketing strategies of B2B white goods firms. Design/methodology/approach: As the research objective is explorative, the authors conducted a qualitative analysis by collecting 13 semi-structured interviews with B2B marketing professionals working for white goods firms in Italy. Primary data was triangulated with secondary data about the white goods industry, such as sector reports. Findings: The findings of this paper show an acceleration in the adoption of digital communication tools among B2B firms after COVID-19. The authors also discuss the effects in the use of such tools both in the short and long term. Originality/value: This paper attempts to contribute to the B2B marketing literature by providing an original analysis of the consequences of the COVID-19 outbreak focusing on the use of digital communication tools among white goods firms. It also provides managerial implications for firms operating in B2B. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The spread of the coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19) pandemic in 2020 was the impetus for an exogenous shock. In addition to the disruption brought on by the spread of COVID-19, conspiracy theories flourished on many aspects of the disease. However, the association between belief in conspiracy theories and voting behaviour has not been studied sufficiently, especially in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. This paper investigates the association between a belief in conspiracy theories and an intention to vote for populist parties (PPs). This association is analysed in a case study of Italian voters, where PPs can be found in the government and in the opposition. By conducting a cross-sectional analysis during the third wave of panel data fielded in December 2020, this article shows that individuals who have anti-vax attitudes and who also have a higher propensity to believe in conspiracy theories are more likely to vote for PPs, although it is worth considering the roles PPs play in either the government or in the opposition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Making ethical decisions in the context of a pandemic emergency due to the limited availability of healthcare resources is a pervasive problem that health organizations are trying to counter. As the coronavirus disease emerged worldwide, some countries were experiencing unanticipated challenges regarding resource allocation. While some were consistent with following the ethical guidelines in allocating these scarce resources, others acknowledged a different approach in their respective jurisdictions. A committee in Italy recognized the need to set an age limit for ICU admissions after seeking ethical counsel because the demand for critical care surprisingly exceeded supply. On the other hand, Philippine healthcare systems responded in a way that is not the same. They allocate resources reasonably and seek help from the Philippine government to avoid the scarcity dilemma. This paper will explore how scarce medical resources should be administered by healthcare systems without leaving the elderly behind. Afterward, this gives a possible approach to be taken in dealing with pandemics and other emergencies in the future. This paper will argue that in public health emergencies, age is an irrelevant characteristic when determining healthcare resource allocation amid the COVID-19 pandemic, and decisions should not be based on how scarce resources are. This paper supports an egalitarian view, specifically John Rawls' theory of justice, to ease the deep-rooted ageism in societies. The author believed that overlooking the most vulnerable populations during the pandemic must not be perpetuated despite the lack of preparedness for this sudden public health emergency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the unexpected lockdown of schools brought many challenges to redesigning the teaching and learning of chemistry at the secondary schooling level. The demand for online teaching under COVID-19 conditions was, however, also an opportunity to reflect on introducing new content, pedagogies, and media. This paper reflects on the implementation of a chemistry lesson plan focusing on the socio-scientific issue of ethanol used for hand sanitizers in Italy. Ethanol is possibly the most common ingredient of hand sanitizer lotions and provides an authentic context for the learning of and about chemistry. The objective was to promote students' awareness of the deep interconnections between science, society, ethics, and the environment through a socio-scientific issues-based approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the proximity of local media to audiences during the COVID-19 pandemic. It is based on a case study of Italian daily L'Eco di Bergamo combining two sets of data: a list of initiatives the newspaper took in 2019 and 2020 to be closer to audiences, and interviews shedding light on how staff viewed the paper's relationship with audiences during that time. An analysis of these two datasets shows that the pandemic increased the newspaper's proximity to audiences but did not fundamentally change the way in which it related with audiences, despite significant changes in journalists' work routines. Based on these findings, the paper proposes a conceptualization of proximity as a dynamic balance between three structuring dimensions (gatekeeping, social and commercial), with a focus on audiences as a plural figure determined by news organizations' strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of European Journal of Social Work is the property of Routledge and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Around the world, the 2019 Coronavirus disease (COVID-19), caused by the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), has raised serious public health problems and major medical challenges. The Italian Society of Pediatric Gastroenterology, Hepatology and Nutrition (SIGENP) published several papers on the impact of COVID-19 on the current management, diagnosis, and treatment of acute and chronic gastrointestinal, hepatic, immune-mediated, and functional disorders. The present article summarizes the most relevant SIGENP reports and consensus during and after the peak of the COVID-19 outbreak, including the diagnosis and treatment of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), indications and timing of digestive endoscopy, and insights into the novel hepatitis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In response to the economic crisis unleashed by the Covid-19 pandemic, the EU authorities have launched extraordinary fiscal and monetary measures in support of member states. The impact of these measures is of great significance for Italy, the EU third-largest economy, which as a result of the pandemic has suffered a dramatic decline in GDP, and a further rise in the government debt to GDP ratio. Building on a stock-flow consistent, structural macro-econometric model, this paper shows that the currently planned EU measures are insufficient to boost the recovery of the Italian economy, and to ensure the sustainability of its government debt. The paper also assesses two potential alternative policies. A fiscal consolidation (i.e. austerity) policy would exacerbate the decline in GDP and further deteriorate the government debt to GDP ratio. By contrast, a money-financed fiscal stimulus policy could lead the Italian economy on a path of sustainable growth, with positive outcomes for employment and government finances. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in Italy, practitioners had to make tragic decisions regarding the allocation of scarce resources in the ICU. The Italian debate has paid a lot of attention to identifying the specific regulatory criteria for the allocation of resources in the ICU; in this paper, however, we argue that deciding such criteria is not enough for the implementation of fair and transparent allocative decisions. In this respect, we discuss three ethical issues: (a) in the Italian context, the treating physician, rather than a separate committee, was generally the one responsible for the allocation decision; (b) although many allocative guidelines have supported moral equivalence between withholding and withdrawing treatments, some health professionals have continued to consider it a morally problematic aspect; and (c) the health workers who have had to make the aforementioned decisions or even only worked in ICU during the pandemic often experienced moral distress. We conclude by arguing that, even if these problems are not directly related to the above-mentioned issues of distributive justice, they can nevertheless directly affect the quality and ethics of the implementation of allocative criteria, regardless of those chosen. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Italy was among the first countries to introduce drastic measures to reduce individual mobility in order to slow the diffusion of COVID-19. The first measures imposed by the central authorities on March 8, 2020, were unanticipated and highly localized, focusing on 26 provinces. Additional nationwide measures were imposed after one day, and were removed only after June 3. Looking at these watershed moments of the pandemic, this paper explores the impact of the adoption of localized restrictions on changes in individual mobility in Italy using a spatial discontinuity approach. Results show that these measures lowered individual mobility by 7 percentage points on top of the reduction in mobility recorded in the adjacent untreated areas. The study also fills a gap in the literature in that it looks at the changes in mobility after the nationwide restrictions were lifted and shows how the recovery in mobility patterns is related to various characteristics of local labour markets. Areas with a higher proportion of professions exposed to diseases, more suitable for flexible work arrangements, and with a higher share of fixed-term contracts before the pandemic are characterised by a smaller increase in mobility after re-opening. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The aim of this paper is to help management scholars and executives learn from the COVID-19 global crisis by analyzing if and how the level of financial literacy affected stakeholders' sensitivity to corporate social responsibility (CSR) issues during the pandemic, as well as identifying whether financial literacy is an important variable to account for in the postpandemic period. The authors test the relationship between objective (measurable) and subjective (self-assessed) financial literacy, as well as financial happiness (i.e. satisfaction with one's current financial situation) with CSR during the pandemic. High levels of financial literacy cause individuals to reward companies that implement CSR strategies and processes. Design/methodology/approach: The authors designed an online survey and obtained data on objective and subjective financial literacy, financial happiness and COVID-19 infections, as well as on the demographic and socioeconomic characteristics of a representative sample of 1,334 Italian respondents. From a methodological point of view, the authors perform a factor analysis on the CSR-related questions to extract the principal components (PCs) that were used as dependent variables in the regression models to analyze the effects of explanatory variables (financial literacy, financial happiness and COVID-19 infections) and consider the control variables (demographic and socioeconomic characteristics). The authors follow a theoretical approach merging stakeholder theory with CSR. Findings: Respondents with a high level of financial literacy and financial happiness are highly sensitive to all CSR components (ethical, philanthropic, economic and legal social responsibilities). Being infected by COVID-19 increased participants' sensitivity to ethical and philanthropic social responsibility (SR), but not to economic and legal SR. The more educated and employed respondents were, the more sensitive they were to CSR, especially compared to their less educated and unemployed counterparts. Research limitations/implications: While the sample used is large and representative of the Italian population, Italy is an interesting and useful case to analyze, given that it was the first Western country to be severely hit by COVID-19; since the paper only refers to a specific country scenario, the results cannot be generalized to other countries. A cross-country comparison relating financial literacy and financial happiness to CSR during the COVID-19 pandemic period would be desirable. The research study has theoretical implications for management scholars since the authors show that, during the pandemic period, financial education and financial happiness are relevant in explaining stakeholders' greater sensitivity to CSR issues. The findings may thus help scholars to learn from the COVID-19 period, with the aim of further developing and enhancing stakeholders' theory. Practical implications: The research also has practical implications, both for corporate executives and for policymakers, helping them to learn from the COVID-19 global crisis concerning the role of financial literacy and financial happiness on CSR sensitivity and, consequently, how they may consider these important variables in the postpandemic era. On the one hand, executives may improve stakeholders' segmentation and eventually modify CSR policies, considering the higher sensitivity of their stakeholders' due to a higher degree of financial literacy. On the other hand, the findings suggest that policymakers should have a stronger role in supporting employment and education in general and in promoting programs to improve financial literacy to increase stakeholders' sensitivity to CSR, thus further stimulating the inclusion of CSR factors in companies' strategies. Increasing stakeholders' sensitivity to CSR will, in turn, increase the propensity of companies to include SR in their strategies. Thus, increasing financial literacy will have tangible positive effects of increasing CSR. Given the greater role played by companies during the COVID-19 period with respect to societal risk, the findings seem particularly useful. Originality/value: To the best of the authors' knowledge, this study represents the first that links financial literacy and financial happiness with CSR during the COVID-19 crisis. The large and representative dataset, as well as the use of specific variables related to financial literacy, financial happiness and COVID-19 infections in the CSR assessment model, makes our analysis original, robust and significant by contributing to the CSR literature and to the financial literacy literature from a methodological point of view, as well as by informing corporate executives and policymakers about the role of financial literacy with regard to CSR during the pandemic, which may help them in learning how to improve their decisions and actions in the postpandemic era. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: This paper aims to analyze the convergence of the testing and positivity rates for the COVID-19 pandemic focusing on Germany and Italy. Design/methodology/approach: The authors employ the two-regime threshold autoregressive (TAR) panel unit root test by using the weekly data in the period of 2020:03-2021:04. Findings: Following finding out that the testing and positivity rates are nonlinear, the authors determine that the transition country between the two regimes is Italy for the testing rates and Germany for the positivity rates. Their findings support the partial convergence for the testing rates for Germany and Italy. On the other hand, the authors could not find any convergence for the positivity rates of these two countries. Originality/value: This paper contributes to academic literature in several ways. Firstly, to the best of their knowledge, this paper is the first study that analyzes the convergence of testing and positivity data. This paper further focuses on two Euro-Area countries which have suffered significantly from the COVID-19 pandemic. In addition, the authors employ the two-regime threshold autoregressive (TAR) panel unit root proposed by Beyaert and Camacho (2008) in their empirical analysis. This recent panel data methodology aims to test real convergence in a nonlinear framework by incorporating the threshold model, panel data unit root test and the calculation of critical values by bootstrap simulation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2014, the European Union adopted the Seasonal Workers Directive to achieve a twofold aim: meeting employers' demand for flexible and cheap labour and enhancing protection for third-country national (TCN) workers. Especially Article 23, the equal treatment provision, triggered a cautious optimism among scholars and trade unions, which looked at the Directive as a source of increased protection for seasonal workers. However, trade unions also pointed out the limited reach of the Directive, criticising its lack of commitment and ambition. Over the years, and especially during the Covid pandemic, it became clear that the Seasonal Workers Directive did not represent a game-changer for TCN seasonal workers, whose increased protections remained true only on paper. This contribution draws on the case of Italy during the pandemic to understand the reasons for the Directive's limited impact. The article critically examines the different political tensions underpinning the adoption of the Directive, to better understand why the Directive is not applied in practice and how it impacts the labour market and migrants' social conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Knowledge brokers are among the main channels of communication between scientists and the public and a key element to establishing a relation of trust between the two. But translating knowledge from the scientific community to a wider audience presents several difficulties, which can be accentuated in times of crisis. In this paper we study some of the problems that knowledge brokers face when communicating in times of crisis. During the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, we collected interviews with Italian experts that played a major role as knowledge brokers in the local media. We asked them questions about five main topics: the features and role of science communicators; the use of language in communicating science; the importance of the relation of trust with the public; the peculiarity of communicating in a context of emergency; the problem of disagreement among experts, and its public perception and communication. The goal of this paper is to understand, through the words of knowledge brokers themselves, what they consider as best practices (and obstacles) to create trust between scientists and the public. Our empirical work can inform normative accounts of what knowledge brokering should be about. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to describe and discuss the significance of the social policy measures implemented in Southern European countries—Greece, Italy, Portugal and Spain—in response to the first wave of COVID‐19. Our analysis covers interventions from 1 March to June 30, 2020. Despite significant differences in how the COVID‐19 pandemic spread—with Italy and Spain experiencing much higher rates of infection and lethality—Southern European economies are among the most hard‐hit—and are likely to find themselves in the eye of the storm, once more. The paper shows that despite differences in how countries have countered the spread of COVID‐19, there are important commonalities in the actions governments took to counteract the economic impact of the pandemic. Foremost efforts were directed at wage subsidy schemes to contain mass job destruction, additional temporary benefits to compensate self‐employed and other non‐standard workers for the loss of earnings; the expansion of unemployment insurance; and finally, the introduction and/or strengthening of schemes to provide support to families with care responsibilities. The scale of the social policy and employment protection response has nevertheless been constrained by the fiscal position of each individual country in the post‐Euro crisis context. We argue that, in the long run, the response capacity of these governments and the social and economic consequences of this crisis will need to be contextualised against the backdrop of the deep and prolonged impact of austerity‐driven measures on public budgets, production and welfare regimes over the last decade. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper has explored the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on the Italian stock market at an industry level, analysing companies listed in the two major stock indexes: MIB 30 and STAR. Using daily firm-level stock prices (from December 2019, until October 31, 2020), we employed an event-study approach to analyse short-term stock market reactions, considering different pandemic windows period. Results showed that stocks reacted negatively to the announcement of the first case in the country, with deep reversal effects when the country was locked down. Monetary policy measures showed potential to ease stock markets: the announcement of Next Generation Agreement highlights the reversed role of Market Capitalization. Firm-specific variables were included in order to make inferences about firm characteristics that emerged as value drivers during the pandemic: in the first lockdown period, a greater company's capitalization ensured a greater resilience to the Covid-19 shock. Reversals at both an industry and a company level are observed. Results allow to understand how an outbreak of contagious disease affects stock returns in various sectors, helping investors to develop trading strategies to protect their wealth from future epidemics and providing inputs into the assessment of economic vulnerability to pandemic crises. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The spread of COVID-19 implied a large and fast increase of demand for intensive care services. To face this increase in demand, health care systems need to adapt their response by increasing hospital beds, intensive care unit (ICU) capacity and by (re-)deploying doctors and other personnel. This paper proposes a forecast approach based on the Vector Error Correction model for the daily counts of hospitalized patients with symptoms and of patients in ICU, using publicly available data on the current COVID-19 outbreak in Italy, Switzerland and Spain. The level of analysis is the local government managing the health care system response, which corresponds to regions for Italy. The one-week-ahead forecasts are validated with out-of-sample data over successive weeks; they are found to provide timely and robust prediction of ICU capacity needs in Lombardy, the most-affected Italian region, starting from the sample of the first 2 weeks of data. The same methodology is successfully validated on other Italian regions, Switzerland and Spain. This approach may be used in other countries/regions/provinces to help adapt the health care system response to COVID-19 (or other similar disease); for this purpose, the open-source software code to produce the forecasts is provided with the paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Data played a major part in the journalistic coverage and understanding of the Covid-19 pandemic. Particularly in Italy, one of the countries most affected by the Coronavirus, health authorities released on a daily basis a huge amount of data in regards to the spread of the virus in the country. Based on interviews with Italian data journalists who covered the pandemic, this paper will discuss various issues and flaws related to the Italian data-driven coverage of the Covid-19 pandemic. In particular, the paper aims at discussing journalists' own perceptions of official data reliability, the effectiveness of data in explaining the contagion's progress in full and the most effective strategies to cover such data without spreading misguided or biased information to the public. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background/Aim: To evaluate the research trends in coronavirus disease (COVID-19). Materials and Methods: A bibliometric analysis was performed using a machine learning bibliometric methodology. Information regarding publication outputs, countries, institutions, journals, keywords, funding and citation counts was retrieved from Scopus database. Results: A total of 1883 eligible papers were returned. An exponential increase in the COVID-19 publications occurred in the last months. As expected, China produced the majority of articles, followed by the United States of America, the United Kingdom and Italy. There is greater collaboration between highly contributing authors and institutions. The "BMJ" published the highest number of papers (n=129) and "The Lancet" had the most citations (n=1439). The most ubiquitous topic was COVID-19 clinical features. Conclusion: This bibliometric analysis presents the most influential references related to COVID-19 during this time and could be useful to improve understanding and management of COVID-19. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

2020 will be remembered worldwide as the year of COVID-19 outbreak. The onset of this pandemic abruptly changed everybody's life and, in a particular manner, doctors' lives. Our hand surgery department became rapidly one of the first COVID-19-specialized wards in Italy, impacting considerably the authors' routines and activities. In this paper, the authors focus on how the demographics of patients with hand trauma changed and how they had to modify their activity. The authors retrospectively took into consideration all patients reaching their emergency department (ED) with hand trauma between 9 March 2020 (the day of the beginning of the first lockdown in Italy) and 8 March 2021 and compared them to those who reached the ED in the three previous years. Authors have analyzed the number of patients, their gender and age, the severity of their trauma, where the trauma occurred, the type of lesion, the percentage of patients who underwent surgery, and the percentage of patients who had an emergency admission. In the last year, the number of patients reaching the ED for a hand trauma has been reduced by two thirds (975 patients during the past year), the mean age of those patients has slightly increased, the severity of cases has increased, places of trauma and type of lesions have changed, and, lastly, the percentage of patients needing surgery who were admitted immediately has increased. This paper shows how the type of patients reaching the ED changed and discusses how surgeons evolved and modified their habits in treating those patients during the first lockdown and the year that followed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research aims to explore how the stock exchange indexes of developed and developing Mediterranean countries are interrelated, both during times of crisis and stability. Specifically, it examines the association between Macedonia's MBI10 index and the stock exchange indexes of Serbia (BELEX15), Italy (FTSE MIB), and Spain (IBEX35) from 2005 to 2022 using monthly data. To understand how crises impact the relationships between these markets, the study breaks down the timeframe into four distinct periods: before the Great Financial Crisis (pre-GFC), during the GFC, after the GFC (post- GFC), and during the Covid-19 pandemic and energy crisis. Through Pearson correlation and linear regression analyses, the findings show that the MBI10's correlation with the BELEX15, FTSE MIB, and IBEX35 indexes was strongest during the GFC. However, this correlation dropped significantly during the Covid-19 pandemic and energy crisis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The spread of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 had a huge impact on the life course of all of us. This rapid spread has also caused an increase in the research production in topics related to different aspects of COVID-19. Italy has been one of the first countries to be massively involved in the outbreak of the disease. In this paper, we present an extensive scientometric analysis of the research production both at global (entire literature produced in the first 2 years after the beginning of the pandemic) and local level (COVID-19 literature produced by authors with an Italian affiliation). Our results showed that US and China are the most active countries in terms of number of publications and that the number of collaborations between institutions varies depending on geographical distance. Moreover, we identified the medical-biological as the field with the greatest growth in terms of literature production. As regards the analysis focused on Italy, we have shown that most of the collaborations follow a geographical pattern, both externally (with a preference for European countries) and internally (two clusters of institutions, north versus center-south). Furthermore, we explored the relationship between the number of citations and variables obtained from the data set (e.g. number of authors). Using multiple correspondence analysis and quantile regression we shed light on the role of journal topics and impact factor, the type of article, the field of study and how these elements affect citations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The prediction of the evolution of epidemics plays an important role in limiting the transmissibility and the burdensome consequences of infectious diseases, which leads to the employment of mathematical modeling. In this paper, we propose a stochastic particle filtering extended SEIRS model with repeated vaccination and time-dependent parameters, aiming to efficiently describe the demanding dynamics of time-varying epidemics. The validity of our model is examined using daily records of COVID-19 in Italy for a period of 525 days, revealing a notable capacity to uncover the hidden dynamics of the pandemic. The main findings include the estimation of asymptomatic cases, which is a well-known feature of the current pandemic. Unlike other proposed models that employ extra compartments for asymptomatic cases, which force the estimation of this proportion and significantly increase the model's complexity, our approach leads to the evaluation of the hidden dynamics of COVID-19 without additional computational burden. Other findings that confirm the model's appropriateness and robustness are its parameter evolution and the estimation of more ICU-admitted cases compared to the official records during the most prevalent infection wave of January 2022, attributed to the intensified increase in admissions that may have led to full occupancy in ICUs. As the vast majority of datasets contain time series of total recovered and vaccinated cases, we propose a statistical algorithm to estimate the currently recovered and protected through vaccination cases. This necessity arises from the attenuation of antibodies after vaccination/infection and is necessary for long-time interval predictions. Finally, we not only present a novel stochastic epidemiological model and test its efficiency but also investigate its mathematical properties, such as the existence and stability of epidemic equilibria, giving new insights to the literature. The latter provides additional details concerning the system's long-term behavior, while the conclusions drawn from the R0 index provide perspectives on the severity and future of the COVID-19 pandemic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses the response to the COVID‐19 pandemic of inbound tourism to Italy looking at variation across countries and provinces. To this end, it uses weekly data on the number of foreign visitors in Italy from January 2019 until February 2021, as provided by a primary mobile telephony operator. We document a very robust negative relation at the province level between the local epidemic situation and the inflow of foreign travellers. Moreover, provinces with a historically higher share in art‐tourism, and those that used to be 'hotel intensive' were hit the most during the pandemic, while provinces with a more prevalent orientation to business tourism proved to be more resilient. Entry restrictions with varying degrees of strictness played a key role in explaining cross‐country patterns. After controlling for these restrictions, we observed that the number of travellers that could arrive by private means of transportation decreased proportionally less. Overall, this evidence emphasises that contagion risk considerations played a significant role in shaping international tourism patterns during the pandemic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The paper examines how accounting and accounting experts provided important contributions to the Italian government's strategy to address the COVID-19 emergency in 2020, especially in terms of implementing new rules of conduct and providing justification for penetrating interventions in the life of individuals. Design/methodology/approach: The paper adopts an interdisciplinary approach by drawing upon Agamben's concepts of the state of exception, bare life and biosecurity to understand the purposes of the decrees issued by the Italian government and data provided to the citizens in the "daily bulletin" on the crisis by the Civil Protection Department. Findings: Accounting data provided essential contributions to the government's strategy that sought to spread disquiet and uncertainty in the population to ensure compliance with the strict rules in place, thereby sustaining the management of the country under a state of exception. Social implications: The study draws attention to the way in which accounting provides justification for measures that are promoted as provisional but which have enduring effects, most importantly the ability of governments in the future to suspend the rights of individuals. It shows how accounting can influence people's behaviour and contribute to the development of a permanent state of exception that significantly increases government prerogatives. Originality/value: The work contributes to the literature on accounting and emergencies by studying the use of accounting information as a subtle means to ensure support for extreme government actions and ultimately as a political tool that promotes biosecurity as a new government paradigm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: To evaluate the impact of an e-learning online event, created for supporting resident's training during the slowdown of surgical and clinical activities caused by COVID-19 pandemic. An overview of PubMed literature depicting the state of the art of urology residency in the COVID-19 era was performed as well, to contextualize the issue. Methods: An online learning event for residents was set up at the beginning of the pandemic; the faculty consisted of experts in urology who provided on-line lectures and videos on surgical anatomy, procedures, updates in guidelines, technology, training. The audience was composed of 30–500 attendees from Italy, USA, India and Belgium. A questionnaire to analyze relevance, satisfaction and popularity of the lessons was mailed to 30 local residents. Results and limitations: Almost all residents defined the web environment suitable to achieve the learning outcomes; the method, the number and the competence of the faculty were appropriate/excellent. Most of the younger residents (81.8%) stated their surgical knowledge would improve after the course; 72.7% declared they would take advantage into routine inpatients clinical activity. Nineteen more expert residents agreed that the course would improve their surgical knowledge and enhance their practical skills; almost all stated that the initiative would change their outpatients and inpatients practice. Overall, 44 articles available in PubMed have addressed the concern of urological learning and training during the pandemic from different standpoints; four of them considered residents' general perception towards web-based learning programs. Conclusions: The paper confirms residents' satisfaction with e-learning methods and, to our knowledge, is the first one focusing on a specific event promptly settled up at the beginning of the outbreak. Web-based educational experience developed during the pandemic may represent the very basis for the implementation of prospective on-site training and overall scientific update of future urologists. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the media are often described as critical for the success of the well-being agenda, there is wide dissatisfaction with their current level of interest. However, the media coverage of well-being metrics has been unresearched and, even when studies have been conducted, these employed unrobust methodologies, were limited to newspapers and to restricted samples of metrics. This paper fills such gap, providing also for the first time an analysis of radio and TV coverage of well-being metrics. The research was undertaken using Factiva (for newspapers) and TVEyes (for radio and TV) for the years of 2017–2021 and 2018–2021, respectively. The countries analysed are Scotland and Italy, both pioneers in the measurement of well-being. Findings reveal that media coverage of well-being metrics has been extremely low overall and that this was impacted negatively by the COVID-19 pandemic, which instead impacted positively on the reporting of GDP and related queries, showing that the main concern during the pandemic was the impact that this was going to have in terms of output, rather than in terms of well-being. Most composite indices, whose creation is often thought to help obtain greater media coverage, were almost if not even fully ignored by journalists, whereas metrics that lack an overall composite index but that are overseen by independent institutions and have been institutionalised were among the ones that were reported the most. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: In 2020 the world faced the spread of the coronavirus infection disease (Covid-19). This was a general public health emergency but many people with disabilities might have been particularly affected. Objective: This paper aims to investigate the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on children with Cerebral Palsy (CP) and their families. Methods: 110 parents of children with CP (aged 2 to 19) who completed a questionnaire were included. These children were under the care of one of the Italian Children Rehabilitation Centers. Socio-demographic and clinical information about patients and their families were collected. In addition, difficulties on adopting protective measures and in respecting lockdown rules by children were explored. We adopted the ICF (International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health) framework to create multiple choice questions. Descriptive statistics were reported and logistic regression analyses were run in order to identify the predictors of perceived impairment in motor, speech, manual and behavioral abilities. Results: Daily activities of children, as well as rehabilitation and fitness sessions, underwent a change during the pandemic. Spending more time with family due to lockdown measures, has had, in some cases a positive effect however there was a perceived decrease in rehabilitation support and school activities. The age range (between 7 and 12 years) and difficulty in respecting rules emerged as significant predictors of the perceived impairment due to Covid-19 pandemic. Conclusions: The pandemic has had different impacts on children and their families on the basis of children's characteristics. Rehabilitation activities during a hypothetic lockdown should consider these characteristics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The global outbreak of Corona virus (COVID-19) spread rapidly in early 2020. In the initial stages, Italy became the second-hardest hit country in the world, only after the US, despite aggressive containment efforts by the its government. The fatality rate was mainly high among old-age patients. The underlined response by the Italian government amid COVID-19 was the desperate need of the hour; and so far, the best method known to contain the threat of transmission is by social distancing, self-isolation, and a nationwide lockdown. The ongoing global crisis has caused a great strain on the socio-economic position of the country and pushed it further into a recession like many other countries across the globe. COVID-19 has not only damaged the Italian economy but has severely crippled its public healthcare system as well. Apart from studying the outbreak of COVID-19 in Italy, the paper examines the response of the Italian government when there was a spike in the number of cases. The paper then outlines the precautionary measures and actions taken by the government to contain the outbreak as well as study the socio-economic and psychological impact of COVID-19 on Italian population, and how one of the most advanced healthcare systems in the world failed to cope with the situation. Italy being the hardest hit European country, in addition to some others, was indeed one of the top frontline countries in Europe to take prominent action in containing it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The COVID-19 outbreak initiated from the Chinese city of Wuhan and eventually affected almost every nation around the globe. From China, the disease started spreading to the rest of the world. After China, Italy became the next epicentre of the virus and witnessed a very high death toll. Soon nations like the USA became severely hit by SARS-CoV-2 virus. The World Health Organisation, on 11th March 2020, declared COVID-19 a pandemic. To combat the epidemic, the nations from every corner of the world has instituted various policies like physical distancing, isolation of infected population and researching on the potential vaccine of SARS-CoV-2. To identify the impact of various policies implemented by the affected countries on the pandemic spread, a myriad of AI-based models have been presented to analyse and predict the epidemiological trends of COVID-19. In this work, the authors present a detailed study of different artificial intelligence frameworks applied for predictive analysis of COVID-19 patient record. The forecasting models acquire information from records to detect the pandemic spreading and thus enabling an opportunity to take immediate actions to reduce the spread of the virus. This paper addresses the research issues and corresponding solutions associated with the prediction and detection of infectious diseases like COVID-19. It further focuses on the study of vaccinations to cope with the pandemic. Finally, the research challenges in terms of data availability, reliability, the accuracy of the existing prediction models and other open issues are discussed to outline the future course of this study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: The COVID-19 pandemic has affected and is still deeply affecting all aspects of public life. World governments have been forced to enact restrictive measures to stem the contagion which have led to a decrease in the movement of people within national territory and to a redirection of health care resources with a suspension of nonurgent procedures. In Italy, a lockdown was imposed from March 9th to May 3rd, 2020. As a result, a significant reduction in the overall operative volume of orthopedic trauma was expected, but it was not possible to predict a similar trend regarding fragility fractures of the proximal femur in the elderly. Methods: The aim of this paper was to examine the impact of COVID-19 on the operating volume for trauma surgeries and to determine how the pandemic affected the management of fragility hip fractures (FHFs) in non-COVID patients at a single Institution. Results: The first result was a statistically significant reduction in the overall operative volume of orthopedic trauma during the period of the first lockdown and an increase in the mean age of patients undergoing surgery, as expected. As regard to the second aim, the incidence of FHFs remained almost unchanged during the periods analysed. The population examined were superimposable in terms of demographics, comorbidities, type of fracture, peri-operative complications, percentage of operations performed within 48 hours from hospitalization and 1-year outcome. Discussion: Our results are in line with those already present in the Literature. Conclusions: Our study revealed a significant impact of the restrictive anticontagion measures on the overall orthopedic surgical volume, but, at the same time, we could affirm that the pandemic did not affect the management of FHFs in non-COVID patients, and their results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The COVID‐19 pandemic, which has affected a significant number of individuals worldwide, is generating serious mental health issues. Recovered COVID‐19 patients have experienced traumatic events related to their symptoms, isolation, possible hospitalization, bereavement, fear of infecting loved ones and the physical consequences of COVID‐19. One effective psychological treatment for these patients is Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR). The aim of this paper is to describe the therapeutic intervention and effects of EMDR in a pool of COVID‐19 survivors referred to an integrated psychological/psychiatric outpatient service. Twelve patients, comprising of nine males and three females, underwent EMDR psychotherapy from October 2020 to February 2022. Each patient received 8–16 weekly treatment sessions. The standard EMDR protocol of eight stages was administered to enable desensitization and reprocessing of four main targets: first positive swab, hospitalization, isolation and fear for relatives' health. Efficacy of EMDR was demonstrated by the significant improvement at clinical scale for subjective distress caused by traumatic events. For the therapists, carrying out these treatments was an intense and challenging experience. In fact, the perceived distance between therapist and patient was less defined than in other hospital settings because the pandemic affects everyone equally. However, with the widespread availability of vaccines and although the pandemic is still ongoing with the emergence of new variants, a window of improvement in the mental health landscape is starting to open up. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]