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The global reality of the COVID-19/Corona pandemic paradoxically boosted national politics, broadcasting and citizenship. Media coverage, especially initially, praised citizen solidarity and the creative solutions that were pioneered to care for each other. A year later, a lasting social learning curve throughout and after this crisis seems illusory. The pandemic, this paper argues, needs to be understood in a longer timeframe as the working through and coming to terms with neo-liberal governmentality. The (often hilarious) early responses on social media provide a strong entry to do so. Our focus will be on the Netherlands which had a so-called 'intelligent' lockdown during the first wave of COVID-19 in the spring of 2020. Using the authors' own sharing back and forth of toilet paper memes as a starting point, we aim to explore the notion of collective self-reflection and citizen co-education underlying both heated and simply ridiculous posts. Using previous discussion of cultural citizenship, this paper inquires into how pandemic citizenship played out as a vast exercise in disciplining and distinction through jokes and anger. The material suggests a nostalgic turn that might point to an implicitly voiced critique of neoliberal governmentality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Catastrophic events like COVID-19 cause substantial material losses and significant harm to the public. However, such events may also accelerate socioeconomic developments such as increased digitalization of economic and societal activities, including e-government services. These services become especially critical in crisis situations , providing a vehicle for administrative responses and ensuring social and economic functioning. This paper reports on a pilot study on the impact of COVID-19 on the demand for and the provision of e-government services in a municipality in Poland. Interviews with city administrators and technical staff involved in providing e-government services during COVID-19 are the primary data sources. Issues identified relate to changes in work regulations, adjustments to operations, shifts in volume and types of services, and changes in employee attitudes and behaviors. Employing focusing event theory in interpreting the results, this paper contributes to the literature on information and communication technologies, especially e-government in local administrations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic, youth researchers have reported increased inequalities between young people, but the social processes that drive these changes are not well understood. In this paper, we draw on rich longitudinal interview data following the same participants from a year before and into the midst of national lockdown during the pandemic in Norway to explore the unfolding of classed and gendered responses that were triggered in young people across the class spectrum. We find that advantaged, ambitious youths engaged in self-resourcing practices with support from their family that could make them even better positioned after the crisis. Youths that were socially vulnerable before the pandemic dealt with the situation alone and in highly gendered ways that seemed to amplify their insecure position in the peer group and community. Thriving youths from working-class communities engaged in lockdown practices that connected them deeper to the family and resourced them for gender traditional, local lives. Illuminating how a crisis prompts practices that increased emerging differences along classed and gendered lines, the paper shows that to grasp inequalities in the making, researchers must consider the importance and changing nature of resources – including relational resources in the family – over time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The adverse impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on the global tourism industry necessitated several responses from policymakers in order to support the industry's recovery and post-pandemic growth. Southern Africa hosts tourism-sensitive and connected economies, with many tourists who arrive in one country, often visiting neighbouring countries. Using the United Nations World Tourism Organisation's policy framework for COVID-19 mitigation, recovery, and stability for the tourism industry, this paper critically examined the Southern Africa's level of support for mitigating the impact of the pandemic and their recovery strategies for the tourism industry. Data were collected from publicly available policy and strategic documents. Findings reveal non-compliance to referenced benchmarks, lack of regional policy direction from SADC, and divergent levels of support among the member countries. The paper recommends, among others, a revision of the SADC's regional tourism programme, collaborative tourism governance through increased regional integration, and improved destination attractiveness of the Southern African region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Increasing uptake of the metaphor of a “tsunami” of mental health problems related to COVID-19, reflects widespread concern for pandemic-related mental distress. Mental health may be compromised by such things as loneliness and depression linked to social isolation, as well as fear of infection from coronavirus. Of interest to question is the veracity of this concern and how the alleged decline in mental wellness might affect one of society’s most important issues: Namely, the issue of parenting. Owing to the novel nature of this subject matter, scoping review was selected to substantiate critical commentary in this paper surrounding parenting, the COVID-19 pandemic and the disabling effects of mental health difficulties. Findings suggest that there is no linear, formulaic or conclusive relationship between the pandemic, mental health and parenting. Rather, present discourses, such as those that embrace a tsunami metaphor, ought to attain more nuance and balance, in the context of protective factors, opportunities and strengths also at play. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the era of Covid-19 and right after the announcement of it as a pandemic and threat to humanity by the World Health Organization, most educational activities were globally forced to shut down their traditional teaching/learning activities. This is one of the biggest and most vital changes of educational settings which have led to migration to online educational platforms. This paper can be considered as one of the few first studies that aimed to investigate the Iranian EFL online learners' learning performances (individual vs. interactive classroom tasks through quizzes, presentations, assignments, feedback and discussion) during the 2020–2021 educational year. DCM package (Diagnostic Classification Modeling) using R was used to classify the learning performances of 397 Iranian EFL BA students based on their learning behavior in online classes, and to find out to what extent their learning profiles related to their achievement. The results showed that interactive learning, performed through interaction and collaborative activities among students, is more challenging for the learners though for the majority of them mastering both individual and interactive learning is required to successfully pass the course. These findings can have important significance for all the practitioners in the field of Education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This small-scale qualitative research project is located within post-compulsory education in England and explores some of the strategies and responses employed by three initial teacher educators to carry out their professional role while responding to the COVID-19 pandemic. The central argument is that teacher identity was significant as a pedagogical tool to respond to the pandemic. Therefore, more consideration should be given to the interconnectedness of who I am, what I do and why I do it, when pedagogical responses are needed to address emergent issues. The first part of the paper paints a picture of the available literature related to learning during covid-19, followed by an articulation of the research design. The second part discusses the relationship between identity and pedagogy, which is the central theme constructed from the data gathered from the research participants. It closes with a reflection about how educators as a collective have shown resilience and creative ways to deal with challenges, thus adding new layers of their identity, and this can be pedagogically powerful. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The COVID-19 pandemic was a major challenge for journalism. In the case of Germany, critics very early on voiced concerns over the quality of mainstream media coverage. Mainstream media were attacked for the intensity of their coverage, for reporting too much and unnecessarily frightening audiences, for not presenting a diversity of viewpoints on the pandemic and the measures taken to mitigate it, and for being one-sided and too close to the government. Against this background, this paper examines the intensity and viewpoint diversity of the coverage of 13 mainstream and two alternative media in Germany in 2020 and 2021. Based on a comprehensive manual content analysis of almost 9000 news stories, we conclude that the mainstream media did not cover the pandemic in a fundamentally exaggerated or one-sided way. However, they did not always report intensively when the pandemic was particularly severe, and they tended to warn against the pandemic rather than criticize the measures taken. In contrast, alternative media coverage tended to be more one-sided and generally biased against government measures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The collection of papers we have put together for this special themed section originally emerged from a desire to explore how the rapid and wholescale transformation of everyday spaces brought about by the Covid-19 pandemic might change, challenge and shift experiences and understandings of the gendered body. Since 2020, we have witnessed and experienced the dramatic alteration of everyday mobilities and a concurrent reconfiguration of spatial and embodied relations. The pandemic, and responses to it, has transformed the locations in which subjects routinely situate themselves, and the quotidian bodily practices they participate in, with immediate and lasting impact. Such a moment called for a revisiting of established theoretical and methodological paradigms in feminist geography - many of which developed from within the pages of this journal - which understand the relationship between space and the gendered body to be a mutually constitutive one. If the gendered body is understood as a processual assemblage shaped by the spaces within which it is formed, what do such radical spatial reconfigurations of embodied relations mean for gendered subjects? These papers, then, represent an opportunity to revisit and reflect upon core debates about gender, embodiment, and space in feminist geography, understanding the pandemic via a gendered lens. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

COVID-19 has brought to unavoidable prominence what feminist geopolitics has long insisted, namely that the global and the intimate are always, everywhere, already entangled. Drawing on Anglo-American experiences of the pandemic, this paper aims to make two key arguments. The first is that feminist geopolitics is a conceptual approach that is perhaps uniquely placed to make sense of COVID geographies. The second is to propose that this account of COVID speaks back to recent debates about the future of feminist geopolitics. Reflecting on recent debates about possible futures for feminist geopolitics, the paper will make the case for a materially-engaged feminist geopolitics which nevertheless keeps the socially-marked body at the heart of analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Whilst NHS Health Service management is usually characterized by hierarchized bureaucracy and profit-driven competitiveness, the COVID-19 pandemic drastically disrupted these ways of working and allowed London-based non-clinical management to experience their roles otherwise. This paper is based on 35 interviews with senior non-clinical management at a London-based NHS Trust during 'Alpha phase' of Britain's pandemic response (May-August 2020), an oft-overlooked group in the literature. I will draw upon Graeber's theory of "total bureaucratization" to argue that though the increasing neo-liberalization of the health-services has hitherto contributed toward a corporate mentality, the pandemic gave managers a chance to experience more collaboration and freedom than usual, which ultimately led to more effective realization of decision-making and change. The pandemic has shown NHS managers that there are alternatives to neoliberal logics of competition and hierarchy, and that those alternatives actually result in happier and effectively, more capable staff. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Achieving urban food security before and after COVID-19 lockdown among urban households' in Ghana is key. This paper compares the pre-and post-COVID-19 lockdown food security status of urban dwellers in lockdown cities of the Greater part of Accra in Ghana using the Rasch and ordered logit model. From a sample of 340 respondents, the study found a significant difference in household food security status and predictors of food security. Prior to COVID-19 households were 'High food secure' (36.4%), but post-COVID-19 lockdown made more households 'Very low food secure' (12.35%). To combat post-COVID-19 lockdown food insecurity in urban agriculture is encouraged. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we investigate whether fertility and newborn health changed during the Covid-19 pandemic in Mexico. We use national administrative data and an event-study design to examine the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on fertility and newborn health characteristics. Our findings suggest that Mexico's fertility declined temporarily as measured by conceptions that likely occurred during the stay-at-home order. Initially, the general fertility rate fell by 11–12 per cent but quickly rebounded and returned close to its original levels by the end of 2021. Newborn health also deteriorated during the pandemic. Instances of low birthweight and prematurity substantially increased, with both remaining elevated over the entire pandemic period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The COVID-19 pandemic has posed one of the most challenging situations for the academicians as well as the students all around the world. Students being the biggest stake holders of the education process, their challenges during this pandemic become even more pivotal. These challenges vary in intensity and type depending on multiple items. In this paper, we analyse and document the challenges particular to the courses of mathematics and statistics in higher education. A survey was carried out for students, who have taken mathematics/statistics courses at universities mainly in UAE, to analyse various items affecting the learning process during the COVID-19 pandemic. The results of the survey showed that a significant portion of students are satisfied with distance education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research on vaccines confirms the crucial role media play in framing discourses and mobilizing public support for successful immunization campaigns. What journalists cover on vaccination issues and their diligence in producing stories can influence attitudes to and uptake of vaccines. This paper contributes to emerging discussions on the role of the media in pandemics and in vaccination programs by interrogating the information seeking and verification practices of journalists reporting on COVID-19 vaccines in Ghana. A cross-sectional online survey was conducted among journalists from June to July 2021 through self-administered questionnaires by means of Google forms. The opinions of 300 respondents, randomly drawn from members of the Ghana Journalists' Association, were solicited and a response rate of 73% obtained. Majority of journalists surveyed relied on official health sources for their information on COVID-19 vaccines (61.5%) and were confident the benefits of vaccines outweigh the risks (70%). While journalists relied on a variety of expert sources, social media platforms served as important sources of information also, with respondents stating a preference for Facebook (48.3%), and WhatsApp (44%). Journalists stated they were guided by sound practices such as source credibility and relevance, but betrayed weaknesses in their verification practices with a third of them admitting to sharing unsolicited information from social media. Journalists in Ghana generally display a positive attitude towards COVID-19 vaccines and regularly search for information from official sources to inform their work, thus making them vital allies in overcoming vaccine hesitancy. Laxity in verification practices, however, makes them inadvertent agents of misinformation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The COVID-19 pandemic has changed the way time is allocated towards market and non-market activities. This paper looks at the effect of the pandemic on a key category of non-market activity – leisure. We use micro-data from the American Time Use Survey to see how the pandemic affected leisure in the United States. A seemingly unrelated regression system is deployed to examine how the pandemic affects various leisure activities such as television viewing, socialising, reading/writing, active sports, games, and computer use. Apart from socialising, which was actively discouraged during the pandemic, all major leisure activities saw an increase, which resulted in overall leisure going up in the Covid year 2020 by 5%, compared to 2019. However, the impact is statistically significantly different for different types of leisure activities. Active leisure is being consumed less while passive leisure is being consumed more – pointing towards an increased sedentarization of lifestyles. Since previous studies have shown passive leisure to be negatively associated with health, our result has important implications for the health and well-being of Americans, and if the trend continues, policymakers should actively incentivise the consumption of active forms of leisure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: This one-year pilot study investigated the effectiveness of a multimedia campaign, Heart Healthy U (HHU), to increase awareness about the link between unhealthy behaviors and risk for heart disease among emerging adults on a college campus. This paper describes the implementation of HHU. Participants: The HHU campaign was implemented from the Fall of 2019 through Spring 2020 and during this time there were approximately 15,043 enrolled students at the south eastern U.S. college campus. Methods: The HHU campaign employed print (e.g., banners, posters, and yard signs) and electronic formats (e.g., email, Instagram). We designed the methods across three phases: (1) relationship building and formative research, (2) campaign development, and (3) the Heart Healthy U campaign launch. Results: The HHU encountered challenges when the novel coronavirus (COVID-19 or SARS-co-V2) interrupted campus life, however we relied on the electronic formats to reach students during the state-wide lockdown/quarantine mandates. In addition, there were two changes to the HHU health messages. First, we updated the health messages to illustrate that eating healthy and engaging in physical activity supports immune function. Next, we developed new health messages to address effects of physical isolation and anxiety by promoting psychological well-being during this historic public health crisis. Conclusions: We asked whether a multimedia campaign on a college campus could encourage emerging adults to consume fruits and vegetables and engage in physical activity according to the federally-recommended guidelines. It is essential that interventions intended to reach today's emerging adults be presented in formats that they use (e.g., social media platforms), supported by campus administrators, and endorsed by peer influencers. In conclusion, more intervention studies are needed to counter the unhealthy social norm behaviors common to college campus life that increase heart disease risk, particularly among marginalized populations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In response to the spread of COVID-19 in early 2020, schools across the UK moved to virtual teaching arrangements for the majority of their learners. Some localized school closures occurred in England in February 2020, with a national lockdown following in March 2020. Although relaxed in June 2020, concerns about rising cases of the virus led to a second period of enforced school closure across the UK in January 2021. With no sign of the pandemic abating, we wanted to gain insights into teachers' experiences at this unique time. We used a solicited diary method with teachers over a 4-month period to reflect on workload and wellbeing issues related to their changing teaching practices. The diaries were supplemented by a series of teacher interviews. In this paper, we carry out a critical reflection of diary use. We observe how diaries provide a structure for eliciting ideas in an ordered way, and which then become a resource for a teacher's professional reflection. This process also appears to strengthen some of the social connections that were compromised during the social distancing periods of the pandemic, and which has benefits for teachers' wellbeing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The epidemic of COVID-19 has been the most mathematically informative pandemic. The unprecedented information gives rise to some unprecedented models, problems, and discussions. One of these new matters is modeling the epicenters of a pandemic. The present paper is the first attempt to model the waiting time to introduce a new epicenter during a pandemic. This modeling is conducted in terms of time-to-event, the number of epicenters, and the normalized time. We model the waiting time data by an exponential distribution, therefore, the number of epicenters can be represented through a Poisson process. Then, the parameters are estimated by the method of moments and maximum likelihood method. All the simulations are the result of 10,000 runs conducted on MATLAB R2015b. It is expected to encounter 12 and 14 (with probability 95%, 3-24 and 7-23) epicenters from 15th May to 13th June and from June 14 to July 12, 2020, respectively. We forecast that the cumulative number of confirmed cases for coming epicenters is over 10,000 when they join the existing epicenters. The paper suggests that the time to epicenter is a suitable criterion to compare the spreading speed of an epidemic in different periods or even different epidemics. The study aims to model the time to the next epicenters during the pandemic COVID-19. The study introduces the time to epicenter as a criterion to study of spreading speed of an epidemic in different periods or compare different epidemics. The study deals with the number of cumulative confirmed cases at the time that a region become epicenter. The study proposes the Poisson process as the model to describe the number of epicenters. The study suggests that exponential distribution can model the time to event for the epicenters of COVID-19. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper addresses U.S. pandemic-related propaganda, as a mode of administering society, selves, and the COVID-19 virus relevant to other national contexts. The paper examines what I call pandemic revanchism, which, in order to stoke U.S. culture wars, propag(and)ates the COVID-19 epidemic by sensationalizing the trivial and normalizing the extraordinary or absurd. Banal forms of administrative grotesquerie mobilize a community of alt-health (non)sense and tie freedom to a viral and literally infectious resentment and retaliatory collateral mortality. The paper first develops the framework of FOOB ('folklore of operational banality') to scrutinize how ordinary health/medical administration and reactionary power relations alike level sense and non-sense. It then offers a performative analysis that shows human geographies of routinized anti-establishment refusal and conspiratorial organizing related to the pandemic. The FOOB approach refuses to simply admonish pandemic revanchism and, instead, tracks how this form of administration consolidates social terrains and quotidian online activity. The analysis seeks to level criticism in a way that undermines social division. It does so by remaining open to reasonable doubts about biomedicalization that are swept up in alt-health and pandemic-related propaganda, and by foregrounding how policy, affect, and storylines routinize extremisms within the American public terrain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents the current status of Indian smart cities and examines their preparedness and response to the COVID-19 outbreak. The study focuses on implemented & ongoing projects under the Smart City Mission of the Government of India, which have contributed significantly to controlling the pandemic along with other channels. The study finds that modern cities in both developed and developing countries were not well-prepared to deal with the emergency situations and struggled in providing a satisfactory response during the pandemic. The analysis of primary and secondary data has shown that digital surveillance and movement control through integrated control command centers (ICCC) were the most useful projects in monitoring the COVID-19 cases. However, the lack of technology integration in smart cities hinders the effective usage of implemented projects. Thus, the study recommends integrated network-based applications that include healthcare, essential services, mobility, and movement across smart cities in India. The proposed framework is expected to provide the much-needed alignment at the policy, objective, and implementation levels of smart city framework designs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay proposes a return to C. G. Jung's personality theories and argues in favor of their relevancies in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic and the unprecedented changes it produced to forms of socialization. Through a narratological analysis of survey data gathered by the author, this paper maintains that the adaptability, malleability, and complexity of Jung's psychic paradigms is what makes his theories of the personality current in the 2020s. The survey, distributed globally in the summer of 2021, consisted of open essay-style questions that encouraged participants' narrative orientation. Results are mixed and do not always follow type expectations (not all introverted participants thrived, nor did all extraverts struggle). Mixed results point to human variability, which Jung acknowledges even within types, and to the existence of multiple stories about the lived experience of COVID-19 lockdowns. Ultimately, I propose a post-Jungian, post-pandemic approach to the personality, which takes contextual factors into account, and I advocate a humanistic approach to Jung, which will result in a better understanding of human psychology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Discourse in the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic explored its likely effects on the tourism sector including the nature of recovery. Viewed through the lens of Evolutionary Economic Geography, this paper examines the preferences of four stakeholder groups for future tourism development in Northern Devon. Specifically, it reports on their views from 2021 and 2022 of three potential scenarios which were elaborated before the pandemic, and it explores whether COVID-19 was a trigger event for a change in trajectory. There was consistent support for the most sustainable trajectory, which represented the continuation of the existing arc of development, not a fundamental change in direction triggered by COVID-19. Not only does this finding contribute a retrospective critique of early opinions on possible COVID-induced change, it suggests an alternative view of the role of trigger events in destination evolution. The pandemic offered space for reflection on tourism development, as a form of 'mindful continuation' of transformation, not a 'mindful deviation' identified in some previous studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Health professional education (HPE) has been affected significantly by the COVID-19 pandemic, due to a combination of disruption to healthcare systems, changes to workforce needs, the effects on tertiary education provision and a necessity to innovate. While a challenging time, these were also opportunities in disguise. There is evidence that HPE is historically slow to adapt at the best of times; COVID-19 was an unavoidable catalyst for change. As the world tries to adapt to ‘COVID-19 normal’ life, it is essential that those in HPE consider what a ‘COVID-19 normal’ response might be. The learnings noted in this paper draw on recent literature and aim to help health professional educators consider what we have learned from our experiences during the height of the pandemic and ways of advancing curricula, teaching and learning. While the learnings are drawn from the health professions, they likely have relevance to professional and higher education more broadly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The economic effects of the Covid-19 pandemic have placed a renewed strain on the economic governance of the European Union (EU). The European Central Bank (ECB) was a key player in the EU's response to the crisis induced by the pandemic. This paper adopts a theoretical approach focused on policy learning to explain how and why the ECB responded to the crisis in 2020–2021. By drawing on speeches, newspaper articles and interviews with policy-makers, the paper finds that the ECB was able to rely on earlier crisis experiences in the euro area in forming its response to the pandemic crisis. Although the sovereign debt crisis and the pandemic crisis had both similarities and differences from one another, the ECB was able to engage in inter-crisis and intra-crisis learning. Its learning concerned objectives, instruments as well as an awareness that timely and forceful response was crucial, so that the member states and other EU institutions had time to act. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper contributes to social and cultural geographies of the COVID-19 pandemic through an exploration of the role of UK street art in documenting the remarkable shifts in the practice of wearing facemasks, the tensions and emotions involved, and the transformations in the meaning of facemasks during the pandemic. Street art has become an important outlet for political critique and social engagement, capturing the public mood in response to policies and recommendations attempting to stem viral transmission, including the requirement to wear facemasks in some public places. Drawing primarily on image analysis of street artworks produced during 2020 and sourced using online search tools, and qualitative interviews with UK street artists in 2020 and 2021, the paper first explores the changing geographies and politics of street art during the pandemic. It then examines the ways in which street art portrays mask-wearing simultaneously as reassuring, protective and fear-inducing, and reflects the meaning of masks in relation to protecting public health, managing anxieties concerning health risks, boosting morale, and symbolising solidarity and public spiritedness. The paper argues that pandemic street art contributes to public dialogue by articulating emotion and deeply held concerns, and communicating the intimate politics, semiotic meanings and social properties of objects associated with disease. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed complex connections between housing and health vulnerabilities. By investigating the share housing market in Sydney, Australia during the COVID-19 period, this paper examines these connections, highlighting health risks associated with shared facilities, overcrowding, and rental insecurity. Using data from Flatmates.com.au, Australia's dominant share housing platform, the paper analyses advertisements offering or seeking share housing in April and August 2020. The analysis highlights health risks, vulnerabilities and risk management strategies employed by those looking for share accommodation or new household members during the pandemic period as well as wider implications for housing and health policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses the effects that mobility restrictions during the COVID-19 pandemic have had on different types of co-presence, which the existing literature considers to be central for science and innovation. Drawing on a regional analysis of COVID-19 restrictions in Germany, it links specific mobility restrictions to concrete impacts on co-presence, differentiating between co-presence in organizations, dynamic temporary co-presence, and the local 'buzz'. It highlights that co-presence at workplaces and conferences was resilient to restrictions but that the detrimental effects on the 'local buzz' may have been substantial and long-lasting. In conclusion, it cautions against the severe effects of placing restrictions on the education system. Subsequently, the discussion links the reported disruptions of co-presence to the potential effects of the pandemic on preconditions for innovative processes and economic recovery. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in a total of 676 million cases of infection and 6.9 million deaths. During a pandemic, healthcare workers are exposed to psychological stressors such as high risk of infection, inadequate protection, and isolation, which could have implications for their wellbeing. The purpose of this qualitative literature review carried out systematically was to examine the views of physiotherapists who worked with COVID-19 patients during the COVID-19 pandemic to identify how physiotherapy services might be better prepared for future pandemics. A systematic search was carried out across four databases (CINAHL, MEDLINE, PsycINFO, SPORTDISCUS) to identify relevant studies. Studies were assessed for quality and data extracted and analysed using thematic synthesis. A total of 631 studies were identified through the search strategy and screened against the inclusion/exclusion criteria. Six papers met the inclusion criteria. Four themes were identified from the perspective of the physiotherapy participants: lack of resources; emotional impact; coping strategies and integration; and value within the multidisciplinary team. Overall qualitative evidence around the views of physiotherapists who worked during the COVID-19 pandemic is limited. An insight into the views of participants may help healthcare organisations support physiotherapy services to be better prepared in the event of a future pandemic, specifically addressing the need to strengthen supply chains, advocating for physiotherapy as a profession in low-income counties and psychological resilience. Future research should focus on identifying the most effective support options and strategies to build psychological resilience before a crisis occurs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Almost 50 years ago, Edward Said wrote on 'the other' in relation to race and gender in his path-breaking book Orientalism (1978). While much has evolved around notions of gendered and racialised otherness since then, Said's conceptualisation still resonates today. Our paper reports on a 2020/2021 survey of Women of Colour in the Australian workplace. The survey was conducted during the pandemic by Women of Colour Australia, a not-for-profit group, working with the lead author. We focus on the qualitative answers from participants, many of which detail sometimes painful and extremely personal workplace experiences. More than 500 Women of Colour, including seven per cent who were Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander, completed the survey. Sixty per cent said they had experienced discrimination in the workplace, despite 59 per cent of participants saying their workplace had a Diversity and Inclusion policy. Participants had to 'perform' their identities whilst being subjected to intersectional issues of racism and sexism, some of which the pandemic exacerbated. Our paper describes the harmful ramifications of gendered othering of Women of Colour for Australian organisations and society in the years of the pandemic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Positive psychology approaches have been shown to play a vital role in protecting mental health in times of challenge and are, therefore, important to include when studying the psychological outcomes of COVID-19. While existing research has focused on individual psychological health, this paper focuses on collective wellbeing and collective posttraumatic growth, with the aim of more clearly identifying the positive experiences and potential for positive growth for key institutions in our society during the pandemic. A range of positive psychology interventions for families, schools, workplaces, and clinical psychology are presented. The paper then considers how three broad-reaching phenomena existing in our wider society (i.e., arts and culture, eco-connection, and wellbeing literacy) can be used to boost collective wellbeing. A positive systems approach to understand civilian responses to the pandemic together with an examination of the role that positive psychology can play in supporting marginalized groups are also discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The University of Illinois Chicago (UIC) Library began planning for the Fall 2020 semester knowing that COVID-19 and social unrest stemming from police actions across the country would impact library safety for the university community. The goal for reopening was to implement best practices that incorporated University health and safety guidelines as well as student feedback. A task force conducted 12 focus group sessions between June 18–26, 2020, in which 56 university students participated. Students identified physical distancing, personal protective equipment (PPE), and monitoring compliance in the library as primary concerns. The campus libraries made extensive changes to its facilities, access to materials and services, and conduct policies to address these issues. This paper will benefit library leaders and administrators making tough and unprecedented time-sensitive decisions using evidence-based data from stakeholders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Every minute of every day, 24 Americans experience intimate partner violence (IPV). During a crisis, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, daily life may be disrupted and there can be increased risk for harm associated with IPV. The novelty of the pandemic in modern times coupled with the potential for increased risk at the intersection of the pandemic and IPV (e.g., staying home with a partner, increased stress, uncertain access to community resources) demanded rapid innovation and implementation. Recognizing that IPV is a significant health issue, the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) rapidly mobilized a multifaceted nationwide response to ensure that veterans, their partners, and VA staff would have resources and support available, and empower those working directly with patients to ensure safety is addressed. IPV, like national and global crises, necessitates an interprofessional and multisystemic response, and as such, this paper details an approach to de-silo institutions and purposefully initiate the necessary partnerships to respond to complex needs that arise. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to ignite a conversation on the challenges of the ongoing 'novel' surrounding the coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) pandemic in the Southern Africa region. The global COVID-19 pandemic started with the outbreak in Wuhan, China, in December 2019. It is understood that different countries, regions and territories will have different, context-specific challenges in fighting the pandemic. These will differ from country to country and therefore necessitates contextual research. By sharing African perspectives on swift action against this coronavirus, this paper is intended to appraise the nexus between the coronavirus and tourism in order to prepare tourism practitioners for the recovery strategies that will be needed to address the damages caused by the pandemic. This paper points to tourism researchers focusing on the Southern African region and possible key areas for further research as the coronavirus situation unfolds. It draws from published material and document analysis, including from academic research, media reports and social media platforms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores relationships between environment and education after the Covid-19 pandemic through the lens of philosophy of education in a new key developed by Michael Peters and the Philosophy of Education Society of Australasia (PESA). The paper is collectively written by 15 authors who responded to the question: Who remembers Greta Thunberg? Their answers are classified into four main themes and corresponding sections. The first section, 'As we bake the earth, let's try and bake it from scratch', gathers wider philosophical considerations about the intersection between environment, education, and the pandemic. The second section, 'Bump in the road or a catalyst for structural change?', looks more closely into issues pertaining to education. The third section, 'If you choose to fail us, we will never forgive you', focuses to Greta Thunberg's messages and their responses. The last section, 'Towards a new (educational) normal', explores future scenarios and develops recommendations for critical emancipatory action. The concluding part brings these insights together, showing that resulting synergy between the answers offers much more then the sum of articles' parts. With its ethos of collectivity, interconnectedness, and solidarity, philosophy of education in a new key is a crucial tool for development of post-pandemic (philosophy of) education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic created an unprecedented physical and mental health crisis on an international scale. Clients and therapists alike navigated the fears and uncertainty surrounding the virus, often in an environment of social isolation. The following paper presents a brief overview of the unique stressors and psychosocial factors impacting therapeutic work in the time of the coronavirus pandemic, including fears of the virus and social transmission, relational stressors due to isolation, grieving in isolation, fear of death, financial challenges, and the transition to telehealth. In addition, this paper aims to provide specific interventions and helpful approaches for psychotherapists navigating the novel challenges and demands to their clinical work through an AEDP (Accelerated Experiential Dynamic Psychotherapy) perceptive. This includes finding an entry point for accessing the pain: undoing aloneness; moving through the pain: dyadic affect regulation; and paying close attention to vitality within suffering: searching for transformance. Recommendations for the health and care of the clinician are also discussed, such as attuning to self-needs, anticipating and detecting dysregulation, staying with the good, meaning-making, identifying and responding to burnout, and the importance of receiving personal therapy and clinical supervision. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This is a follow-up to the study 'A mindful shift: an opportunity for mindfulness-driven tourism in a post-pandemic world', which was published in Tourism Geographies. The original paper advocated that, during a major crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, the focus could be put on (more) mindful tourists as a driver of mindful change for the global tourism industry. In this follow-up study, we discuss the mindfulness-based approaches as feasible, low-cost solutions to reduce negative psychological effects in many tourism settings as well as a strategy to ensure the tourism industry's pro-longed sustainability during and after the pandemic. We start with the underlying mechanism of mindfulness practices as a technique to cope with the pandemic and, from a managerial standpoint, discuss the different roles of mindfulness within the envisioned courses of tourism development in a post-COVID-19 future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The COVID-19 pandemic triggered a major economic crisis worldwide. The monetary policy response of the European Central Bank (ECB) was fast and massive. The ECB also intervened on the supervisory side because, after the establishment of Banking Union, the ECB was given responsibility for banking supervision in the euro area through the Single Supervisory Mechanism (SSM). This paper explains the response of the ECB-SSM to the COVID-19 related economic crisis during 2020 and 2021, up until February 2022. These ECB actions include the reduction of bank capital buffers, the redefinition of non-performing loans, and the limitations on dividends and bonuses paid by banks. We adopt a neofunctionalist approach, which suggests that policies are developed at the EU level in response to need, whereby supranational actors and spillovers are particularly important. We offer some concluding insights into whether the ECB-SSM's responses have led to a further deepening of integration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

COVID-19 has had an extreme impact on schools. Although the effects of COVID-19 on schooling have been a topic of research, non-mainstream schools’ coping has not received critical attention. This paper provides an evidence-based account of how non-mainstream (alternative) schools coped with the COVID-19 breakout. The study’s data collection methods included interviews and observations of educators and students in five alternative schools in Israel. Qualitative measures revealed a three-stage model of coping: stress and helplessness; action and recuperation; discovery, and growth. The model delineates the evolution of schools who were grappling with the complexities and challenges of the pandemic. What began as stress and practical adaptations to cope with lockdown circumstances led to creative education and growth. Thus, the pandemic created an opportunity for educators to rethink educational processes. Findings showed the progression between stages depended on creative thinking and collaboration amongst educators. The study sheds light on the factors promoting growth in schools. Discovering alternative educational pathways is significant. For education to be more dialogic, flexible, and responsive, opportunities to reflect on these ideas should be embraced. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The ways we experience and construct our homes help us know and define who we are. The digital age and the immense presence of social media in people's lives have led to the redefining and, some argue, erasures of the boundaries between 'private' and 'public' spheres. Recently, with wide-scale lockdowns and the mass movement of workspaces to homes in response to COVID-19, these boundaries have been altered particularly radically and universally. This paper explores the changing role and function of the home as more than simply a house – or a physical, concrete space – but as multiple, fluid and sometimes intangible spaces. Analysing Australian digital audio fiction series The Fitzroy Diaries, it investigates how individuals negotiate structures of power in these spaces during COVID-19 to create a sense of home but also a sense of self. A close textual analysis illustrates the ways that those living through the pandemic witness and negotiate on the one hand the shrinking of their internal worlds, but on the other hand the opening up of these into 'outside' realms, and how individuals are positioned in relation to these changing spaces of home according to their access to power and privilege. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A person trapped in a building engulfed in a raging fire, a person dealing with severe chronic disease, people dealing with a virus pandemic, and people fighting in a protracted war may appear dissimilar but are fundamentally in a similar situation and their behaviors follow a predictable and similar pattern. In this paper, the behaviors of rational people dealing with a significant persistent unpleasant, or dangerous stimulus that is inescapable are elucidated. The unique modulatory effects of stimulus persistence on human behavior as well as the role of means and interest are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The COVID-19 pandemic has significantly changed how the justice system and its research partners can do their work. We were working with the Marion County Diversion Drug Court doing preliminary observations and developing a collaborative grant proposal to implement services and evaluate the program when the court was forced to move entirely online using Zoom due to the COVID-19 pandemic. This paper discusses how the transition to Zoom changed the evaluation of the drug court and service delivery. While we expected to conduct in-person focus groups and interviews with the court team and participants, as well as in-person observations of team meetings and court, these were not possible from March 2020 to June 2021 (in person court resumed in July 2021). Consequently, we adapted the now-funded, ongoing evaluation plan to conduct observations, interviews, and coding via Zoom and Qualtrics. We discuss the strengths, limitations, and early lessons learned from this endeavor. We also report initial findings on how COVID-19 affected service delivery and explore the possible implications of online drug court beyond the pandemic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How do police officers respond to public emergencies in developing countries where state institutions struggle to protect citizens and officers alike? This paper investigates police response to the COVID-19 crisis in Pakistan and develops an analytical framework of 'procedural informality', a condition whereby state policies are constructed and conveyed to state officials with the tacit acceptance that these are likely to be implemented through informal practice. Procedural informality, therefore, is central to official state practice. It is argued that procedural informality manifested itself in Pakistan during the COVID-19 pandemic in three ways: (1) due to a lack of support from the government, it enabled officers to rely on interpersonal connections within the private sector; (2) intra-organisationally, it forced the police to make hasty decisions due to contradictory policies that strained the workforce, but also allowed it to creatively manage demand; and (3) it compelled the police to respond to non-compliance with a heavy hand, whilst equipping them to protect vulnerable communities and maintain individual relationships. In this way, procedural informality enabled the police to try to meet demand with flexibility, which was encouraged and expected by those interacting with the police. Procedural informality moves beyond the formal-informal dichotomy to show how informality facilitates the implementation of formal policy goals, and the operations of street-level bureaucrats, especially during a crisis. This paper contributes to debates on informality within state institutions and in state practice, while providing empirical insights on police response to COVID-19 from a developing country. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the impact of the pandemic on both the author's subjectivity, and the intersubjectivity of dyadic work. The prevailing mood of futility is well-captured by Albert Camus in his essay, "The Myth of Sisyphus". Here Camus introduces the idea of absurdity, exemplified by our own unthinkable cosmic mortality or finitude. In this paper, absurdity is seen as a symbolic death, or traumatic loss, a temporal collapse into re-experienced despair or overwhelm. The stresses of COVID are shown to evoke a return to archaic overburdening and threatened loss of selfhood, reminiscent of the author's upbringing as a "parentified" child in an alcoholic surround, which resulted in an affective quarantining, provoked again in current clinical entanglements. The end of personal office visits, with some patients halting treatment altogether, become Sisyphean losses for the author, and a threat to developmental strivings, both personal and professional. Patients are also shaken by the loss of intimate contact, along with other losses undermining to relationality. Such jarring finitude, uncertainty, and loss are viewed here through the lens of phenomenological-contextualism. Clinical vignettes are presented against the pandemic's backdrop, as the stresses and shocks experienced by the analyst become a window into patients' dread and overwhelm, leading to expansions of the analytic alliance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper briefly introduces the Special Issue "The Psychological Effects of the COVID-19 Pandemic." In doing so, it first outlines the initial call for papers and some of the general contours of the issue before then offering a terse summary of the larger themes offered in each of the six papers included in this volume. Some final summary remarks and larger suggestions for additional work in this area are also noted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the impact of COVID-19 on shopping behavior in two neighboring developing economies: Bangladesh and India. While the previous studies investigating the impact of COVID-19 on shopping behavior have relied on Revealed Preference (RP) data, this paper combines RP and Stated Preference (SP) data to develop joint RP-SP discrete choice models. This makes it possible to quantify the relative impact of the situational contexts on the choice of shopping modes of households and to capture the associated heterogeneity arising from the characteristics of the households. Further, comparison of the data and the estimated model parameters of the two countries with substantial socio-cultural similarities provide insights about how differences in the state of e-commerce can lead to different levels of inertia in continuing the pre-COVID behavior. The results will be useful to planners and policymakers for predicting the shopping modes in different future scenarios and formulating effective restriction measures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Low levels of trust in institutions in a post-socialist context is a relatively well-documented finding across various disciplines. Building upon this, the paper adds new insights to this discussion by contextualizing institutional trust amidst the COVID-19 pandemic in Croatia. Relying on the results from the national probabilistic sample, the authors explore how three sets of predictors – socio-demographic variables, individual characteristics (i.e., motivational orientations of authoritarianism and social dominance), and participants' experiences during the coronavirus pandemic determine the level of trust in public institutions. Results unequivocally showcase a fairly weak relationship between authoritarianism and social dominance orientation with institutional trust, unlike situational experiences, which play the most significant role in explaining levels of institutional trust. Contrary to authors' expectations, adherence to measures and worries about catching the COVID-19 disease in the future were not predictive for institutional trust. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The opportunity for display of books is a frequently cited reason for choosing print reading over e-reading. But the desired display is not always intended for others. For many, the most important observer of a personal bookshelf is the person to whom it belongs: a physical shelf as means to access, commemorate, and honour reading history and reading identity. This makes it essential to consider bookshelves in the era of COVID-19 not only in terms of the Zoom feed, beaming snapshots of collections to the outside world, but also Zoom "self view": the digital selfportrait hovering in the corner of our device screens. Drawing on qualitative data from surveys, focus groups and interviews conducted between 2014 and 2021, this paper will explore the phenomenon of the backdrop as mirror, and examine curated bookshelves - including manipulated, misattributed, or appropriated bookshelves - in terms of self- as well as public image. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The COVID-19 pandemic has been causing serious disasters to mankind. The incubation period is a key parameter for epidemic control and also an important basis for epidemic prediction, but its distribution law remains unclear. This paper analyzed the epidemiological information of 787 confirmed non-Wuhan resident cases, and systematically studied the characteristics of the incubation period of COVID-19 based on the interval-censored data estimation method. The results show that the incubation period of COVID-19 approximately conforms to the Gamma distribution with a mean value of 7.8 (95%CI:7.4–8.5) days and a median value of 7.0 (95%CI:6.7–7.3) days. The incubation period was positively correlated with age and negatively correlated with disease severity. Female cases presented a slightly higher incubation period than that of males. The proportion of infected persons who developed symptoms within 14 days was 91.6%. These results are of great significance to the prevention and control of the COVID-19 pandemic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the relation between different models of ethics and their impact upon crises solution strategies. Here, it is important to consider knowledge and ethical theories from different cultures. The paper describes some alternative ethical models from the perspective of the Chinese, particularly Confucian, philosophies. This perspective is meaningful because in the Sinitic areas the pandemic has been brought under control much more effectively than in other regions of the world. First, the paper introduces the Chinese philosophy of life and highlights its current relevance; then, it presents traditional Chinese models of relational and anti-essentialist concepts of the self and investigates their impact to the Confucian models of social ethics. On this basis, it illuminates some new ways of understanding interpersonal and intercultural interactions that might help us develop new strategies against current and future pandemics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]