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This paper provides a comprehensive summary of evidence to explore and position the role of serology testing in the context of coronavirus disease 19 (COVID-19) immunization and policy response in the Asia-Pacific (APAC) region. The document builds on a review of academic literature and existing policies followed by a process of discussion, validation, and feedback by a group of six experts. Six countries and territories—Australia, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Thailand, and Taiwan—were sampled to highlight the differing contexts and scenarios in the region. The review includes an overview of (1) the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, including the emergence of Variants of Concern (VOCs), especially Omicron, (2) the introduction of immunization, (3) the available testing options and potential use of serology testing, (4) the landscape of guidelines and recommendations for their use, and (5) the barriers and challenges to implementing serology testing as a tool to support COVID-19 immunization. Based on the findings, the co-authors propose a set of recommendations to resolve knowledge gaps, to include the use of serology testing as part of the policy response, and to ensure adequate means of implementation. This paper's target audience includes members of the academic community, medical societies, health providers and practitioners, and decision-makers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The adoption of emerging technologies in healthcare systems plays a crucial part in anti-obesity initiatives. COVID-19 has intensified the Body Mass Index (BMI) discourses in AI (Artificial Intelligence)-powered social media. However, few studies have reported on the influence of digital content on obesity prevention policies. Understanding the nature and forums of obese metaphors in social media is the first step in policy intervention. The purpose of this paper is to understand the mutual influence between obesity and COVID-19 and determine its policy implications. This paper analyzes the public responses to obesity using Twitter data collected during the COVID-19 pandemic. The emotional nature of tweets is analyzed using the NRC lexicon. The results show that COVID-19 significantly influences perceptions of obesity; this indicates that existing public health policies must be revisited. The study findings delineate prerequisites for obese disease control programs. This paper provides policy recommendations for improving social media interventions in health service delivery in order to prevent obesity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The COVID-19 pandemic substantially impacted the mental health of the general population and particularly vulnerable individuals and groups. A wealth of research allows for estimating this impact and identifying relevant factors contributing to or mitigating it. The current paper presents and synthesizes this evidence into a multiaxial model of COVID-19 mental health impacts. Based on existing research, we propose four axes: (1) Exposure to COVID-related events; (2) Personal and social vulnerability, such as previous mental health problems or belonging to a vulnerable group; (3) Time, which accounts for the differential impacts throughout the development of the pandemic; and (4) Context, including healthcare and public policies, and social representations of the illness influencing individual emotional reactions and relevant behaviors. These axes help acknowledge the complexity of communities' reactions and are pragmatic in identifying and prioritizing factors. The axes can provide individual information (i.e., more exposure is harmful) and account for interactions (e.g., exposure in an early phase of the pandemic differs from a later stage). This model contributes to the reflections of the evidence and informs the mental health response to the next pandemic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted global energy markets and caused significant socio-economic impacts worldwide, including the energy sector due to lockdowns and restricted economic activity. This paper presents a comprehensive and analytical review of the impact of COVID-19 on the energy sector and explores the potential role of artificial intelligence (AI) in mitigating its effects. This review examines the changes in energy demand patterns during the pre-, mid-, and post-pandemic periods, analyzing their implications for the energy industries, including policymaking, communication, digital technology, energy conversion, the environment, energy markets, and power systems. Additionally, we explore how AI can enhance energy efficiency, optimize energy use, and reduce energy wastage. The potential of AI in developing sustainable energy systems is discussed, along with the challenges it poses in the energy sector's response to the pandemic. The recommendations for AI applications in the energy sector for the transition to a more sustainable energy future, with examples drawn from previous successful studies, are outlined. Information corroborated in this review is expected to provide important guidelines for crafting future research areas and directions in preparing the energy sector for any unforeseen circumstances or pandemic-like situations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the subjective realities of female students in higher education as they navigated their well-being and active lives during the COVID-19 pandemic. Drawing upon Merleau-Ponty's phenomenological framework, which confronts an often-neglected dimension of our experience—the lived body and the phenomenal world—we aim to inform the development of targeted support and interventions to address the specific needs of female students, in future pandemic times. By exploring how three female students studying sport and recreation in higher education perceived their experiences, this article seeks to shed light on the unique challenges faced by these women in maintaining physical activity, coping with isolation and a change in social networks, and managing their mental health in the context of the pandemic. Understanding these subjective realities (such as isolation, restricted physical activity, and loss of social connections) and interpreting the three students' lived habitats, their bodily responsiveness, and their spontaneity ensures that their experience is heard, and appropriate future support can be given. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Breast cancer is the most commonly diagnosed cancer among women worldwide, and is a leading cause of cancer-related deaths. When diagnosed at an early stage, appropriate and timely treatment results in a high cure rate and better quality of life. Delays in initiating anti-cancer therapy, including surgical resection, adjuvant/neoadjuvant chemotherapy and radiation therapy are commonly encountered, even in developed health care systems. Existing comorbidities that mandate referral to other services, genetic counseling and testing that may dictate the extent and type of anti-cancer therapy and insurance coverage, are among the most commonly cited factors. However, delays can be unavoidable; for over three years, health care systems across the globe were busy dealing with the unprecedented COVID-19 pandemic. War across hot zones around the globe resulted in millions of refugees; most of them have no access to cancer care, and when/where available, there may be significant delays. Thus, cancer patients across the globe will probably continue to suffer from significant delays in diagnosis and appropriate treatment. Many retrospective reports showed significant negative impacts on different aspects of treatment outcomes and on patients' psychosocial wellbeing and productivity. In this paper, we review the available data on the impact of delays in initiating appropriate treatment on the outcomes of patients with early-stage breast cancer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Worldwide, COVID-19 is a highly contagious epidemic that has affected various fields. Using Artificial Intelligence (AI) and particular feature selection approaches, this study evaluates the aspects affecting the health of students throughout the COVID-19 lockdown time. The research presented in this paper plays a vital role in indicating the factor affecting the health of students during the lockdown in the COVID-19 pandemic. The research presented in this article investigates COVID-19's impact on student health using feature selections. The Filter feature selection technique is used in the presented work to statistically analyze all the features in the dataset, and for better accuracy. ReliefF (TuRF) filter feature selection is tuned and utilized in such a way that it helps to identify the factors affecting students' health from a benchmark dataset of students studying during COVID-19. Random Forest (RF), Gradient Boosted Decision Trees (GBDT), Support Vector Machine (SVM), and 2- layer Neural Network (NN), helps in identifying the most critical indicators for rapid intervention. Results of the approach presented in the paper identified that the students who maintained their weight and kept themselves busy in health activities in the pandemic, such student's remained healthy through this pandemic and study from home in a positive manner. The results suggest that the 2- layer NN machine-learning algorithm showed better accuracy (90%) to predict the factors affecting on health issues of students during COVID-19 lockdown time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Internet of Things (IoT) plays a fundamental role in monitoring applications; however, existing approaches relying on cloud and edge-based IoT data analysis encounter issues such as network delays and high costs, which can adversely impact time-sensitive applications. To address these challenges, this paper proposes an IoT framework called Sazgar IoT. Unlike existing solutions, Sazgar IoT leverages only IoT devices and IoT data analysis approximation techniques to meet the time-bounds of time-sensitive IoT applications. In this framework, the computing resources onboard the IoT devices are utilised to process the data analysis tasks of each time-sensitive IoT application. This eliminates the network delays associated with transferring large volumes of high-velocity IoT data to cloud or edge computers. To ensure that each task meets its application-specific time-bound and accuracy requirements, we employ approximation techniques for the data analysis tasks of time-sensitive IoT applications. These techniques take into account the available computing resources and optimise the processing accordingly. To evaluate the effectiveness of Sazgar IoT, experimental validation has been conducted. The results demonstrate that the framework successfully meets the time-bound and accuracy requirements of the COVID-19 citizen compliance monitoring application by effectively utilising the available IoT devices. The experimental validation further confirms that Sazgar IoT is an efficient and scalable solution for IoT data processing, addressing existing network delay issues for time-sensitive applications and significantly reducing the cost related to cloud and edge computing devices procurement, deployment, and maintenance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper attempts to identify the changes in religiosity among Catholic practitioners in Poland that occurred during the COVID-19 pandemic, based on the changes in the realization of religious practices by students (N = 354). A questionnaire prepared by the authors was used for the study. We sought to answer the question of the extent to which the socio-demographic characteristics of the subjects, a history of COVID-19, and the death of a family member due to SARS-CoV-2 infection differentiated the subjects' opinions about religiosity and their undertaking of religious practices. The paper also addresses the issue of media-facilitated religious practices. The study showed that the frequency of religious practices was influenced by the perceived religiosity of the family, the religiosity of the respondent, and the declaration concerning the belief in God. The same factors most often significantly differentiated respondents' opinions on COVID-19. No relationship was confirmed between having COVID-19 and subjects' beliefs about the pandemic or frequency of religious practice. Among the respondents, the pandemic did not intensify the practice of religion. In the face of danger, respondents did not turn to God; there was no revitalization of religion. The situation of limiting the physical experience communion of the Church was treated not as an acute undersupply but as an opportunity or a pretext to abandon the practice of religion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, digital technologies have played a vital role to minimize the spread of COVID-19, and to control its pitfalls for the general public. Without such technologies, bringing the pandemic under control would have been tricky and slow. Consequently, exploration of pandemic status, and devising appropriate mitigation strategies would also be difficult. In this paper, we present a comprehensive analysis of community-beneficial digital technologies that were employed to fight the COVID-19 pandemic. Specifically, we demonstrate the practical applications of ten major digital technologies that have effectively served mankind in different ways during the pandemic crisis. We have chosen these technologies based on their technical significance and large-scale adoption in the COVID-19 arena. The selected technologies are the Internet of Things (IoT), artificial intelligence(AI), natural language processing(NLP), computer vision (CV), blockchain (BC), federated learning (FL), robotics, tiny machine learning (TinyML), edge computing (EC), and synthetic data (SD). For each technology, we demonstrate the working mechanism, technical applications in the context of COVID-19, and major challenges from the perspective of COVID-19. Our analysis can pave the way to understanding the roles of these digital COVID-19-fighting technologies that can be used to fight future infectious diseases to prevent global crises. Moreover, we discuss heterogeneous data that have significantly contributed to addressing multiple aspects of the ongoing pandemic when fed to the aforementioned technologies. To the best of the authors' knowledge, this is a pioneering work on community-beneficial and transformative technologies in the context of COVID-19 with broader coverage of studies and applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The smart city has been a growing utopia, a brilliant image of a city of the future, in the past twenty years. Since its birth, at the end of the previous century, several changes have been seen in urban areas, both aligned and detached from this concept. On the one side, digital implementation seems to be growing in all the major cities, especially in the service sector, which are experiencing a proliferation of new solutions, tools and modalities of interactions. On the other side, new concepts are rising such as the "digital twin", the "15-minute city", and the "metaverse city", evidencing both the necessity to continuously innovate and reach higher levels of digitalization but also the need to focus on people's life. This paper aims to provide a contribution to the understanding of the concept's evolution at the forefront of climate change with the aim to detect the elements of innovation, focusing on implementation roadmaps and trends but also searching for evolutions in research due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The hypothesis is that some changes of direction could have been triggered by the pandemic due to the urgency of finding concrete solutions. The conclusions will show that it is possible to detect some of them, especially in the technological domain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to present aspects related to corporate governance, organisational resilience and sustainable practices developed by Brazilian companies during the COVID-19 pandemic. The methodological strategy included documentary research to identify sustainability reports published by companies listed on the Ibovespa index, which were examined through the content analysis technique. The results allowed light to be shed on opportunities for improvement concerning sustainability and corporate governance. Regarding organisational resilience, risk management is central for the development of sustainability practices by organisations. The support to society related to the COVID-19 pandemic was evidenced mainly through the donation of financial resources, equipment and hospital supplies. Practices related to reducing energy consumption and minimising waste generation were those most associated with environmental aspects. The actions identified were mapped according to their relations with the SDGs. Managers can benefit from the information presented in this study to enhance organisational sustainability and resilience, while researchers can use it as a starting point for future studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The outbreak of COVID-19 presented many challenges to the global community. The scientific community developed vaccines to mitigate the virus spread and morbidity. Higher Education institutions shifted their research and development activities toward developing COVID-19 interventions. The University of Botswana set up a multi-disciplinary design team that responded to society's COVID-19 needs. An agile methodology and co-creation process to design medical assistive devices was adopted for the study. These methods are human-centred, participatory, and have the added advantage of developing impactful, value-added, and acceptable products. This paper reports on the experiences of developing assistive breathing devices in response to the COVID-19 crisis. Experience gained from the study has enabled universities to continue to build local capacity in research and development to respond effectively and efficiently to future pandemics and any pressing societal challenge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Part of the rationale behind public health measures is protecting the vulnerable. One of the groups most vulnerable to COVID-19 are the elderly and, consequently, many countries adopted public health measures that aimed to keep the elderly safe. The effectiveness and the consequences of those measures, however, leaves a lot to be desired. In my article, I will look at the steps that the Nordic countries took to protect their elderly and assess their success. I will further analyze those in the light of standard ethical theories. Public health crises often call for choices between two evils. Selecting patients for intensive care is one such choice, and again, it seems that for the elderly, the outcome was less than favorable. Overall, from the point of view of ethics, many countries failed miserably when it came to the treatment of the elderly. I will end my paper by discussing the lessons we can learn from the COVID-19 pandemic and suggests measures we need to take to offer genuine respect for the rights of the elderly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mathematical modeling has served as an epidemiological tool to enhance the modeling efforts of the social and economic impacts of the pandemic. This article reviews epidemiological network models, which are conceived as a flexible way of representing objects and their relationships. Many studies have used these models over the years, and they have also been used to explain COVID-19. Based on the information provided by the Web of Science database, exploratory, descriptive research based on the techniques and tools of bibliometric analysis of scientific production on epidemiological network models was carried out. The epidemiological models used in the papers are diverse, highlighting those using the SIS (Susceptible-Infected-Susceptible), SIR (Susceptible-Infected-Recovered) and SEIR (Susceptible-Exposed-Infected-Removed) models. No model can perfectly predict the future, but they provide a sufficiently accurate approximation for policy makers to determine the actions needed to curb the pandemic. This review will allow any researcher or specialist in epidemiological modeling to know the evolution and development of related work on this topic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The emergence of the new SARS-CoV-2 virus two years ago strongly affected economic life and labour markets around the world. The pandemic affected many sectors, including the mining industry. Coal companies have had to cope with the challenges and adapt their operations to the situation. Due to the peculiarities of the mines, not only to the hazardous factors and conditions prevailing underground but also to the large number of employees who usually move in groups in the plants, the emergence of a new threat caused by a biological agent posed a real challenge for them. The aim of this paper was to present the initiatives and measures taken in the coal mining sector to ensure the safety of workers during a pandemic. The guidelines for the operation of mining plants during the SARS-CoV-2 epidemic were analysed, as well as the identification of locations in mining plants particularly vulnerable to infection with the virus. We also presented how the pandemic period affected the operations of a selected coal company in Poland from an economic point of view. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is not simple to consider the world from only one side, but analyzing all sides can cloud comprehension without reaching deep insight found at the core. In a word as a whole, there is potential for telling the whole world in one word, i.e., data, leading to interpretations as phenomena and paradigms at the core of this review. The tug of war between the two sides explains that data represent the world, or vice versa, and present a fundamental view that systems or subsystems frame the world, even though they are encoded and composed of culture, rules, or approaches such as the threshold of democracy. When the COVID-19 pandemic posed a threat, human efforts contributed to finding potentially answers to questions presented by the world: what, who, where, when, why, and how (5 wh); a calling in the form of a challenge, where facts show something. All these questions resulted in research, education, and service activities, with their respective data frameworks producing results. This paper aims to reveal the meaning of the outcomes through an observation from an outside perspective. Therefore, like COVID-19 and its vaccines, the assertion of convexity and concave contradictions in the treatment of data leads to a mutually conjugate treatment of data. In this regard, statistics and artificial intelligence play separate and complementary roles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The date assumed as the beginning of the pandemic in Poland is 4 March 2020, the date of the first confirmed case of the virus. This article presents the actions undertaken by the management of underground hard coal mining plants concerning the risk of epidemic related to SARS-CoV-2. This work shows a set of implemented recommendations, guidelines and decisions, which were established after the appearance of the first wave of cases in Poland. What is more, it discusses measures aiming at reducing the risk of spreading the coronavirus among the mineworkers. The suggestions for different variants of the decision-making process concerning the pandemic and which have an enormous impact on the operating expenses of the company are also made. The paper presents the results of the study on actions taken in individual mining companies and good work practices recommended to be applied. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The COVID-19 pandemic has affected many aspects of human life around the world, due to its tremendous outcomes on public health and socio-economic activities. Policy makers have tried to develop efficient responses based on technologies and advanced pandemic control methodologies, to limit the wide spreading of the virus in urban areas. However, techniques such as social isolation and lockdown are short-term solutions that minimize the spread of the pandemic in cities and do not invert long-term issues that derive from climate change, air pollution and urban planning challenges that enhance the spreading ability. Thus, it seems crucial to understand what kind of factors assist or prevent the wide spreading of the virus. Although AI frameworks have a very efficient predictive ability as data-driven procedures, they often struggle to identify strong correlations among multidimensional data and provide robust explanations. In this paper, we propose the fusion of a heterogeneous, spatio-temporal dataset that combine data from eight European cities spanning from 1 January 2020 to 31 December 2021 and describe atmospheric, socio-economic, health, mobility and environmental factors all related to potential links with COVID-19. Remote sensing data are the key solution to monitor the availability on public green spaces between cities in the study period. So, we evaluate the benefits of NIR and RED bands of satellite images to calculate the NDVI and locate the percentage in vegetation cover on each city for each week of our 2-year study. This novel dataset is evaluated by a tree-based machine learning algorithm that utilizes ensemble learning and is trained to make robust predictions on daily cases and deaths. Comparisons with other machine learning techniques justify its robustness on the regression metrics RMSE and MAE. Furthermore, the explainable frameworks SHAP and LIME are utilized to locate potential positive or negative influence of the factors on global and local level, with respect to our model's predictive ability. A variation of SHAP, namely treeSHAP, is utilized for our tree-based algorithm to make fast and accurate explanations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper presents the results of sociological qualitative research on safety management in work organization. The focus was on how to adapt the workforce to the sanitary regime during the time of the COVID-19 pandemic in the lignite mining and energy sector in the Bełchatów poviat (Łódź voivodeship, Poland). The study aimed to identify the dimensions of safety and the work culture created in crisis conditions as perceived by workers. Based on the conducted analysis, the process of adapting employees to the new rules of work organization was reported, including the transition from fear and anxiety to control over threats and negative emotions. The essence of the research was to support institutional memory to consolidate the existing knowledge and use it in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Religions and religiosities are among the various social life spheres being affected by medical and political measures imposed during the health emergency. Involving a wide range of daily life dimensions and intertwining with fundamental aspects of individual and social existence, restrictions hit religions and religiosities in all those spaces where they find expression in our contemporary era. Pandemic restraints induced changes in the use of different public spaces: from school to home, from workplaces to places of worship, from prisons to squares, from hospitals to cemeteries. This also concerned the way religiosity could be performed, lived and shared in everyday life, for communities, families and individuals. In particular, during the pandemic, the role of religious environments became, once again, a place of material as well as spiritual support for migrants. And in this perspective, young people, i.e., second generations, played a prominent role, regaining prestige and recognition from adults. In fact, from being perceived as "far from religion and on the road to secularization", as one interviewee said, young people have been able to show how it is possible to reinterpret religion in emigration, without abandoning religious values. This paper discusses the results of preliminary research on the topic conducted in the first phase of the pandemic in Turin, a city that, for its history of immigration and consolidated presence of Muslim, Catholic and Orthodox communities, is an emblematic case of the Italian multicultural context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The heavy economic, social, and psychological toll of pandemic lockdowns around the world and their disproportionate effect on women are widely acknowledged, but different socioeconomic backgrounds and contexts may influence the degree to which stay-at-home measures impact their lives. Additionally, knowing that violence against women tends to increase during times of crisis, we are testing if the additional burden of victimization represents an added load to the perceived social impacts of the lockdown. Using 2021 survey data from a random sample of 1541 Portuguese women, the paper explores, through logistic regression models, the social impact of the lockdown on the lives of women, its socioeconomic determinants, and the role played by violence against women during the pandemic. The results show that the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown did not equally affect all facets of women's social lives, and women with higher education status and that experienced income reductions due to the measures taken to control the pandemic are more prone to experience a more severe negative impact of the lockdown on the various facets of their lives. Additionally, having been a victim during the pandemic partially mediates the effect of education and income reduction on the social outcomes of the lockdown. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Between 13 November 2020 and 11 February 2021, an online national survey of 2003 Asian Australians was conducted to measure the type and frequency of self-identified Asian Australians' experiences of racism during the COVID-19 pandemic. The survey also aimed to gauge the relationships between racist experiences and targets' mental health, wellbeing and sense of belonging. In this paper, we report findings on the type and frequency of online racist experiences and their associations with mental health, wellbeing and belonging. The survey found that 40 per cent of participants experienced racism during the COVID-19 pandemic. Within that group, 66 per cent experienced racism online. The demographic pattern of those most likely to experience online racism were younger age groups, males, those born in Australia, English speakers at home, non-Christians, and migrants who have been in Australia less than 20 years. Analysis also found a strong correlation between Asian Australians' experiences of online racism and poor mental health, wellbeing and belonging. The relationship between experiencing racism, non-belonging and morbidity were more pronounced for those who experienced online racism compared to those who experienced racism in other offline contexts. This points to the corrosive nature of online racism on social cohesion, health and belonging. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has had an immense impact on the treatment protocols of orthopedic and trauma departments, yet its specific effect on mortality in patients with hip fractures due to possible surgical delays is still unclear. The purpose of this paper was to investigate whether the COVID-19 pandemic worsened the mortality rate of hip fracture patients. Patients and methods: This study comprised 175 prospectively included patients who (1) suffered from hip fractures, (2) presented during the Austrian state of emergency period from 15 March 2020 to 30 May 2021, and (3) were admitted to a level I trauma center. This cohort was compared with a retrospective control group of 339 patients admitted for hip fractures during the same timeframe in 2017, 2018, and 2019. Results: An admission reduction of 22% in the COVID period compared with the pre-COVID period was evident (p = 0.018). The 30-day mortality rate was 14.67% (pre-COVID) compared with 15.18% (p = 0.381). No differences in surgical complication rates or relationships between comorbidity burden and survival were observed. There were no significant changes in demographic variables, except for admission rate, gender (p = 0.013), and place of accident (p = 0.049). Conclusion: Surgeons should be reassured to take COVID-19 precautions, as this study did not show higher perioperative mortality due to COVID-19 measures. Under the current circumstances, with possibly reduced surgical and hospital bed capacities, it is expected that hip fractures may continue to require a high degree of resources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Simple Summary: In the past two years, the COVID-19 incidence curves and reproduction number R t have been the main metrics used by policy makers and journalists to monitor the spread of this global pandemic. However, these metrics are not always reliable in the short term, because of a combination of delay in detection, administrative delays and random noise. In this article, we present a complete model of COVID-19 incidence, faithfully reconstructing the incidence curve and reproduction number from the renewal equation of the disease and precisely estimating the biases associated with periodic weekly bias, festive day bias and residual noise. The sanitary crisis of the past two years has focused the public's attention on quantitative indicators of the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic. The daily reproduction number R t , defined by the average number of new infections caused by a single infected individual at time t, is one of the best metrics for estimating the epidemic trend. In this paper, we provide a complete observation model for sampled epidemiological incidence signals obtained through periodic administrative measurements. The model is governed by the classic renewal equation using an empirical reproduction kernel, and subject to two perturbations: a time-varying gain with a weekly period and a white observation noise. We estimate this noise model and its parameters by extending a variational inversion of the model recovering its main driving variable R t . Using R t , a restored incidence curve, corrected of the weekly and festive day bias, can be deduced through the renewal equation. We verify experimentally on many countries that, once the weekly and festive days bias have been corrected, the difference between the incidence curve and its expected value is well approximated by an exponential distributed white noise multiplied by a power of the magnitude of the restored incidence curve. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A pneumonia outbreak was primarily reported in the fall of 2019 in Wuhan, Hubei province, China, with the identity SARS-CoV-2, a novel coronavirus. It quickly grew from a local epidemic to a global pandemic and was declared a public health emergency by the WHO. A total of three prominent waves were identified across the globe, with a slight temporal variability as per the geographical locations, and has impacted several sectors which connect the world. By March 2022, the coronavirus had infected 444.12 million people and claimed 6.01 million human lives worldwide, and these numbers have not yet stabilized. Our paper enlightens readers on the seven strains of human coronaviruses, with special emphasis on the three severe deadliest outbreaks (SARS-2002, MERS-2012, and COVID-19). This work attempts a comprehensive understanding of the coronavirus and its impact on the possible sectors that link the world through the economic chain, climate conditions, SDGs, recycling of the event, and mitigations. There are many points that are raised by the authors in the possible sectors, which are emerging or are as yet unnoticed and thus have not been taken into consideration. This comprehension will leave sets of new challenges and opportunities for the researchers in various streams, especially in earth sciences. Science-integrated research may help to prevent upcoming disasters as a by-product of (existing) epidemics in the form of coronavirus. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Patients with haemoglobin disorders, particularly β-thalassaemia or sickle cell disease (SCD) or combined forms, on account of their underlying disease pathology and associated (iron load mainly in the case of thalassaemia) co-morbidities are defined as high-risk individuals prone to develop more severe complications from coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19). Despite the fact that epidemiological evidence concerning severe acute respiratory syndrome-coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection in these patients is currently limited across the world, it is expected that COVID-19 pandemic will have a very serious, negative impact on national economies, healthcare and social systems and consequently significant respective repercussions on the patients particularly chronic ones, and their families. Although this may be a temporary challenge in some countries of high HDI and robust health, public health and social infrastructures, this can be a long term challenge with serious to tragic consequences in countries particularly devoid of universally covered heath care systems. Thalassaemia International Federation (TIF) in this present paper summarises the key challenges as expressed by the patients, their families and involved health care professionals themselves prior and consequent to COVID-19 pandemic, describes its response during the pandemic and expresses its position in support of its global patient community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The current pandemic is sustained in dichotomies and distancing, as most of us awkwardly have recently experienced. Moreover, COVID-19 has definitely put the spotlight on social inequalities that are underpinning our society and it has highlighted the escalation of the state surveillance capability and new forms of oppression too. The discrimination ingrained in our societies, built on a historically defined regime of racialized oppression and structural disadvantage of racialized citizens and migrants, was produced well before the coronavirus, but it is now casting a different shade, reinforcing forms of exclusions, highlighting the pandemic as a political issue. Hence, this paper addresses a range of political perspectives of the lived experiences in and through social space with examples of narratives in language which capture the everyday political experiences of the pandemic within Europe. The kind of language used and its profound effect on the growing discourse regarding COVID-19 is the main focus in this paper. I here explore the intertwining of language and politics during the pandemic and bring out the countervailing narratives that seem to be in constant tension. I then ask where this takes us, not only in terms of scholarship and expansion of knowledge, but also with a pragmatic edge to it, trying to figure out how is it possible for us to achieve some sort of cognitive shift in our approach in order to learn from this challenge and from this new perspective. Methodologically, as well as looking at existing data, references to attitudes in general are made. A theoretical discussion on migration and language, and the kind of intersection between them, is offered, from the point of view of critical theory, before pointing to the metaphors used, the implications they allow, and how all these fit together, in the form of a concluding discussion. Metaphor or not, the power of language in its ramifications of articulations about the pandemic and the idea of distance underlines COVID-19 as a deeply political issue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The challenges of the world economy and their societies, after the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic have led policy-makers to seek for effective solutions. This paper examines the oil price volatility response to the COVID-19 pandemic and stock market volatility using daily data. A general econometric panel model is applied to investigate the relationship between COVID-19 infection and death announcements with oil price volatility. The paper uses data from six geographical zones, Europe, Africa, Asia, North America, South America, and Oceania for the period 21 January 2020 until 13 May 2021 and the empirical findings show that COVID-19 deaths affected oil volatility significantly. This conclusion is confirmed by a second stage analysis applied separately for each geographical area. The only geographical area where the existence of correlation is not confirmed between the rate of increase in deaths and the volatility of the price of crude oil is Asia. The conclusions of this study clearly suggest that COVID-19 is a new risk component on top of economic and market uncertainty that affects oil prices and volatility. Overall, our results are useful for policy-makers, especially in the case of a new wave of infection and deaths in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses and provides some analytical studies for a modified fractional-order SIRD mathematical model of the COVID-19 epidemic in the sense of the Caputo–Katugampola fractional derivative that allows treating of the biological models of infectious diseases and unifies the Hadamard and Caputo fractional derivatives into a single form. By considering the vaccine parameter of the suspected population, we compute and derive several stability results based on some symmetrical parameters that satisfy some conditions that prevent the pandemic. The paper also investigates the problem of the existence and uniqueness of solutions for the modified SIRD model. It does so by applying the properties of Schauder's and Banach's fixed point theorems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The COVID-19 pandemic represents not just a global health crisis, but may signal the beginning of a new era of economic activity, the potential consequences of which we currently do not fully understand. In this context, the mid-to-long-range impacts of the pandemic on the energy sector have been studied extensively in the last few months. Despite these efforts, the pandemic still raises many open questions concerning the long-term operation and planning of power systems. For instance, how will the pandemic affect the integration of renewable energy sources? Should current power system expansion plans change in light of the COVID-19 pandemic? What new tools should be provided to support system operators during global health crises? It is the purpose of this paper to better understand the many aspects of these open questions by reviewing the relevant recent literature and by analyzing measured data. We point out the main challenges that the pandemic introduced by presenting patterns of electricity generation and demand, frequency deviations, and load forecasting. Moreover, we suggest directions for future research that may assist in coping with the mentioned challenges. We hope that this paper will trigger fruitful discussions and encourage further research on these important emerging topics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Several outbreak prediction models for COVID-19 are being used by officials around the world to make informed decisions and enforce relevant control measures. Among the standard models for COVID-19 global pandemic prediction, simple epidemiological and statistical models have received more attention by authorities, and these models are popular in the media. Due to a high level of uncertainty and lack of essential data, standard models have shown low accuracy for long-term prediction. Although the literature includes several attempts to address this issue, the essential generalization and robustness abilities of existing models need to be improved. This paper presents a comparative analysis of machine learning and soft computing models to predict the COVID-19 outbreak as an alternative to susceptible–infected–recovered (SIR) and susceptible-exposed-infectious-removed (SEIR) models. Among a wide range of machine learning models investigated, two models showed promising results (i.e., multi-layered perceptron, MLP; and adaptive network-based fuzzy inference system, ANFIS). Based on the results reported here, and due to the highly complex nature of the COVID-19 outbreak and variation in its behavior across nations, this study suggests machine learning as an effective tool to model the outbreak. This paper provides an initial benchmarking to demonstrate the potential of machine learning for future research. This paper further suggests that a genuine novelty in outbreak prediction can be realized by integrating machine learning and SEIR models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Maskne, a newly coined term deriving from the contraction of mask-related acne, is a form of mechanical acne resulting from continuous textile–skin adherence and friction. Prolonged mask use heats up the face environment, thus modifying skin microbiota and sebum production. Although effective prevalence is unknown, since the pandemic began and the prolonged use of masks was extended to the general population, maskne has been a frequent topic of consultation among dermatologists. This term has been successfully introduced into common language, with more than 200,000 hashtags on social media, where it is also possible to find "home remedies" that can worsen this dermatosis. The aim of this paper is to discuss the pathogenesis, address clinicians on the correct differential diagnoses among facial dermatoses, and move towards the correct therapy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper deals with the mathematical modeling of the second wave of COVID-19 and verifies the current Omicron variant pandemic data in India. We also we discussed such as uniformly bounded of the system, Equilibrium analysis and basic reproduction number R 0 . We calculated the analytic solutions by HPM (homotopy perturbation method) and used Mathematica 12 software for numerical analysis up to 8th order approximation. It checked the error values of the approximation while the system has residual error, absolute error and h curve initial derivation of square error at up to 8th order approximation. The basic reproduction number ranges between 0.8454 and 2.0317 to form numerical simulation, it helps to identify the whole system fluctuations. Finally, our proposed model validated (from real life data) the highly affected five states of COVID-19 and the Omicron variant. The algorithm guidelines are used for international arrivals, with Omicron variant cases updated by the Union Health Ministry in January 2022. Right now, the third wave is underway in India, and we conclude that it may peak by the end of May 2022. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The microbiota is of interest for the development of a therapeutic strategy against SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) due to its impact on the host immune system. Proven communications of the gut microbiota with the pulmonary microbiota (gut–lung axis) and the pathway of neural connections between the gut and brain (gut–brain axis) may be important in the face of the pandemic. SARS-CoV-2 was shown to affect almost all organs because of the presence of a host receptor known as angiotensin converting enzyme 2 (ACE2). The ACE2 receptor is mainly present in the brush border of intestinal enterocytes, ciliary cells, and type II alveolar epithelial cells in the lungs. The transport function of ACE2 has been linked to the ecology of gut microbes in the digestive tract, suggesting that COVID-19 may be related to the gut microbiota. The severity of COVID-19 may be associated with a number of comorbidities, such as hypertension, diabetes, obesity, and/or old age; therefore, attention is also paid to multiple morbidities and the modulation of microbiota through comorbidities and medications. This paper reviews the research in the context of the state of the intestinal microbiota and its impact on the cells of the immune system during the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Transmission of the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) occurs through respiratory droplets passed directly from person to person or indirectly through fomites, such as common use surfaces or objects. The aim of this study was to determine the virucidal efficacy of blue LED (405 nm) and far-UVC (222 nm) light in comparison to standard UVC (254 nm) irradiation for the inactivation of feline infectious peritonitis virus (FIPV) on different matrices as a model for SARS-CoV-2. Wet or dried FIPV on stainless steel, plastic, or paper discs, in the presence or absence of artificial saliva, were exposed to various wavelengths of light for different time periods (1–90 min). Dual activity of blue LED and far-UVC lights were virucidal for most wet and dried FIPV within 4 to 16 min on all matrices. Individual action of blue LED and far-UVC lights were virucidal for wet FIPV but required longer irradiation times (8–90 min) to reach a 4-log reduction. In comparison, LED (265 nm) and germicidal UVC (254 nm) were virucidal on almost all matrices for both wet and dried FIPV within 1 min exposure. UVC was more effective for the disinfection of surfaces as compared to blue LED and far-UVC individually or together. However, dual action of blue LED and far-UVC was virucidal. This combination of lights could be used as a safer alternative to traditional UVC. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Irish society went into one of the most stringent lockdowns in March 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and barring a few weeks, remains highly restricted at time of writing. This has produced a wide range of challenges for those affected by eating disorders, as well as treatment services and Bodywhys, The Eating Disorders Association of Ireland. Current research indicates that COVID-19 has impacted across three key areas—the experience of those with an eating disorder, the experience of service provision, and the impact on the family situation. Drawing on monitoring and evaluation data gathered by Bodywhys, this paper details the challenges faced by those affected by eating disorders in Ireland and how the organisation responded to these challenges, providing support in various forms to people with eating disorders and their families. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Our paper aims to investigate the impact of COVID-19 on private sector companies in terms of sales, production, finance and employment. We check whether the country and industry in which companies operate, government financial support and loan access matter to the behaviour and performances of companies during the pandemic. We use a microdata set from a worldwide survey of more than 15,729 companies conducted between April and September 2020 by the World Bank. Logistic regression is used to assess which factors increase the likelihood of businesses suffering due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Our results show that COVID-19 negatively impacts the performance of companies in almost all countries analysed, but a stronger effect is observed among firms from developing countries. The pandemic is more harmful to firms providing services than those representing the manufacturing sector. Due to the pandemic, firms suffer mainly in sales and liquidity decrease rather than employment reduction. The increase in the number of temporary workers is an important factor that significantly reduces the probability of sales, exports or supply decline. The analysis results indicate policy tools supporting enterprises during the pandemic, such as increasing the flexibility of the labour market or directing aid to developing countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, I explore how India's complex regime of control and management of religious institutions and communities—ironically, particularly Hindu institutions—influences the capacity of these institutions to promote various dimensions of human flourishing and socio-economic uplift among the most marginalized. In addition, I provide an overview of India's highly varied landscape when it comes to the freedom of religious institutions from state control, and in particular discuss how some minority religious institutions experience fewer government constraints on some aspects of their freedom to self-identify and self-govern, especially when compared to some majority institutions, such as Hindu temples. Although some minority institutions still face constraints on certain aspects of their operations, the freedom they have to manage their internal affairs can, at times, translate into greater agility and the ability to innovate and flourish in the context of 21st-century India. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Simple Summary: Intranasal vaccination is one of the methods used to stimulate mucosal immunity. It has been widely practised to control many human and animal respiratory diseases. Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a highly contagious respiratory disease caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), which resulted in a global pandemic. COVID-19 has reminded some veterinarians of various contagious veterinary diseases, including coronavirus infections in animals. This article discusses the control of highly contagious diseases of veterinary importance with emphasis on an intranasal vaccination approach, and the potential of implementing similar strategies in human medicine to control the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. The world is currently facing an ongoing coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. The disease is a highly contagious respiratory disease which is caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). Current control measures used by many countries include social distancing, wearing face masks, frequent hand washing, self-isolation, and vaccination. The current commercially available vaccines are injectable vaccines, although a few intranasal vaccines are in trial stages. The reported side effects of COVID-19 vaccines, perceptions towards the safety of the vaccines, and frequent mutation of the virus may lead to poor herd immunity. In veterinary medicine, attaining herd immunity is one of the main considerations in disease control, and herd immunity depends on the use of efficacious vaccines and the vaccination coverage in a population. Hence, many aerosol or intranasal vaccines have been developed to control veterinary respiratory diseases such as Newcastle disease, rinderpest, infectious bronchitis, and haemorrhagic septicaemia. Different vaccine technologies could be employed to improve vaccination coverage, including the usage of an intranasal live recombinant vaccine or live mutant vaccine. This paper discusses the potential use of intranasal vaccination strategies against human COVID-19, based on a veterinary intranasal vaccine strategy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The year 2020 was marked by the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic. After months of uncontrolled spread worldwide, a clear conclusion is that controlling the mobility of the general population can slow down the propagation of the pandemic. Tracking the location of the population enables better use of mobility limitation policies and the prediction of potential hotspots, as well as improved alert services to individuals that may have been exposed to the virus. With mobility in their core functionality and a high degree of penetration of mobile devices within the general population, cellular networks are an invaluable asset for this purpose. This paper shows an overview of the possibilities offered by cellular networks for the massive tacking of the population at different levels. The major privacy concerns are also reviewed and a specific use case is shown, correlating mobility and number of cases in the province of Málaga (Spain). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

COVID-19 has driven several global offline communities to go online. Restrictions to the free movement of people in response to the coronavirus pandemic triggered a profound rethinking of jobs, products and services, and among them, the activities of religious communities, which are well consolidated in the offline sphere. In Spain, since the lockdown established by the government in March 2020, the Catholic Church has reinvented its activity, as all the churches and other places of worship have been closed. This constituted a considerable challenge, considering the history and dynamics of the institution. This paper aims to analyze how Catholicism, as one of the most consolidated offline communities, reworked its communication, going online in a matter of days. With this objective, researchers surveyed each and every one of the 70 Spanish dioceses, taking them as representatives of the global Catholic community in the country. Their responses are complemented with an in-depth interview with the Director of Communications at the Spanish Conference of Bishops. The results highlight the huge and unprecedented step towards the digitalization of the community through consistent, creative and efficient action. New methods, platforms and languages have been implemented, even broadening community membership. Despite an offline essence that is still detected in some decisions, this pandemic has brought a new communicative paradigm to the Spanish Catholic community. Digitalization has been consolidated whilst preserving the best aspects of direct contact and action. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Gender, religion, and migration are perplexing issues, especially in this era of the COVID-19 pandemic in which gendered and religious dynamics are emerging within migrant communities across the world. The relations between these three concepts are explored within this bleak time that has exposed previously neglected dynamics present in migrant communities living in distant host countries in Asia, Europe, and the United States of America. In this paper, we discuss the intricacies within religion and gender among migrant communities and the gendered impacts that COVID-19 has had on the aforementioned migrant communities. Through a secondary desk review analysis of the diverse emerging literature, we show that there are gendered implications of the pandemic measures taken by governments as migrant communities occupy unique translocalities. Overall, the intersection of religion, gender, and migration underscores religion reproducing gender roles among the migrants. The reproduction of gender in religious institutions disadvantage women amidst the COVID-19 pandemic. The analysis confirmed the trivial fact that migrant women continue to suffer disproportionately due to increased unemployment and disease burden coupled with religious practices that continue to advance the upward mobility of male migrants. There is a need to recast the place of migrant women in this era, and lastly, religion plays a renewed role among migrant communities especially for women who have enhanced their social positions and organizational skills through it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we use an SIRD model to analyze the evolution of the COVID-19 pandemic in Spain, caused by a new virus called SARS-CoV-2 from the coronavirus family. This model is governed by a nonlinear system of differential equations that allows us to detect trends in the pandemic and make reliable predictions of the evolution of the infection in the short term. This work shows this evolution of the infection in various changing stages throughout the period of maximum alert in Spain. It also shows a quick adaptation of the parameters that define the disease in several stages. In addition, the model confirms the effectiveness of quarantine to avoid the exponential expansion of the pandemic and reduce the number of deaths. The analysis shows good short-term predictions using the SIRD model, which are useful to influence the evolution of the epidemic and thus carry out actions that help reduce its harmful effects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The importance of tourism for development is widely recognized. Travel restrictions imposed to contain the spread of COVID-19 have brought tourism to a halt. Tourism is one of the key sectors driving change in Africa and is based exclusively on natural assets, with wildlife being the main attraction. Economic activities, therefore, are clustered around conservation and protected areas. We used night-time light data as a proxy measure for economic activity to assess change due to the pandemic. Our analysis shows that overall, 75 percent of the 8427 protected areas saw a decrease in light intensity in varying degrees in all countries and across IUCN protected area categories, including in popular protected area destinations, indicating a reduction in tourism-related economic activities. As countries discuss COVID-19 recovery, the methods using spatially explicit data illustrated in this paper can assess the extent of change, inform decision-making, and prioritize recovery efforts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The worldwide spread of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 forced most countries to intervene with policies and actions—including lockdowns, social-distancing and smart working measures—aimed at mitigating the health system and socio-economic disruption risks. The electricity sector was impacted as well, with performance largely reflecting the changes in the industrial and commercial sectors operations and in the social behavior patterns. The most immediate consequences concerned the power demand profiles, the generation mix composition and the electricity price trends. As a matter of fact, the electricity sectors experienced a foretaste of the future, with higher renewable energy penetration and concerns for security of supply. This paper presents a systemic approach toward assessing the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on the power sector. This is aimed at supporting decision making—particularly for policy makers, regulators, and system operators—by quantifying shorter term effects and identifying longer term impacts of the pandemic waves on the power system. Various metrics are defined in different areas—system operation, security, and electricity markets—to quantify those impacts. The methodology is finally applied to the European power system to produce a comparative assessment of the effects of the lockdown in the European context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines people's privacy concerns, perceptions of social benefits, and acceptance of various COVID-19 control measures that harness location information using data collected through an online survey in the U.S. and South Korea. The results indicate that people have higher privacy concerns for methods that use more sensitive and private information. The results also reveal that people's perceptions of social benefits are low when their privacy concerns are high, indicating a trade-off relationship between privacy concerns and perceived social benefits. Moreover, the acceptance by South Koreans for most mitigation methods is significantly higher than that by people in the U.S. Lastly, the regression results indicate that South Koreans (compared to people in the U.S.) and people with a stronger collectivist orientation tend to have higher acceptance for the control measures because they have lower privacy concerns and perceive greater social benefits for the measures. These findings advance our understanding of the important role of geographic context and culture as well as people's experiences of the mitigation measures applied to control a previous pandemic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Simple Summary: Since the inception of COVID-19, the international and national agencies across the globe have issued several guidelines and recommendations for the public as well as to the healthcare professionals. The fast spreading nature of this disease has brought various changes in the screening and treatment protocols in medicine and dentistry. Oral radiology is an integral part of oral screening and various dental treatment strategies. During oral radiology procedures, oral radiologists/radiology technicians come in direct contact with the patient as well as their body fluids such as saliva. It increases the risk of disease transmission from patients to oral radiologist and vice versa. Hence, proper infection control protocol should be implemented with new guidelines. This paper explains the practices to be followed in the oral radiology clinics at various stages whether in commercial set up or academic institute. Additionally, it explains the various precautions and new recommendations to be taken during various radiographic techniques. To add more, emphasis the importance of safe distancing, barrier protection and decontamination to be followed in dental clinics to prevent the spread of infection. Furthermore, the feasibility and procedure of online teaching methods for oral radiology clinics has been discussed. The pandemic of Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) has emerged as a global catastrophe that is plaguing mankind. In the past eight months since the world discovered about COVID-19, we learned a lot about server acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS CoV-2) and perhaps there is much more to discover and understand about the virus. With the current understanding of the disease, we assume it will remain in an active state of transmission and progression among the community for a long time. Thus, it is advisable to adopt the disease's prevention protocol in our daily and work routine. During this pandemic patient requiring dental treatment cannot be neglected and the role of dental imaging is crucial in delivering treatment. Hence, this article attempts to provide an evidence-based compilation about the mode of transmission and clinical features of COVID-19. It also throws light on the potential source of disease transmission in the dental radiology setting. In addition, it suggests preventive measures to curb the infection and infrastructural model of the clinical setting that will assist in achieving control over the disease transmission. This article intends to project a strategy about protocols, infrastructure, and daily activities in a dental radiology office that institutions can adopt with modifications according to their local scenario. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Given the importance of perceived susceptibility to a disease in adopting preventive behaviors, and the negative impact of optimism bias on prevention, this paper aimed to explore to what extent comparative optimism bias (understood as the tendency to assess a lower probability for oneself to experience negative health events compared to others) is present in the specific context of the Covid-19 pandemic, in two countries with different profiles in terms of the spread of the disease: Italy and Romania. After identifying optimism bias in both countries, we tested whether it depends on respondents' characteristics like gender, age, education, health status and whether or not they have the opportunity to work from home. We surveyed 1126 Romanians and 742 Italians, and found that optimism bias depends on self-reported health status, and that optimism bias increases with age. Inconclusive evidences were found regarding gender and education level, as well as the option to work from home. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The COVID-19 pandemic has inevitably caused those involved in cancer care to change clinical practice in order to minimize the risk of infection while maintaining cancer treatment as a priority. General advice during the pandemic suggests that most patients continue with ongoing therapies or planned surgeries, while follow-up visits may instead be delayed until the resolution of the outbreak. We conducted a literature search using PubMed to identify articles published in English language that reported on care recommendations for cancer patients during the COVID-19 pandemic from its inception up to 1st June 2020, using the terms "(cancer or tumor) AND (COVID 19)". Articles were selected for relevance and split into five categories: (1) personal recommendations of single or multiple authors, (2) recommendations of single authoritative centers, (3) recommendations of panels of experts or of multiple regional comprehensive centers, (4) recommendations of multicenter cooperative groups, (5) official guidelines or recommendations of health authorities. Of the 97 included studies, 10 were personal recommendations of single or multiple independent authors, 16 were practice recommendations of single authoritative cancer centers, 35 were recommendations provided by panel of experts or of multiple regional comprehensive centers, 19 were cooperative group position papers, and finally, 17 were official guidelines statements. The COVID-19 pandemic is a global emergency, and has rapidly modified our clinical practice. Delaying unnecessary treatment, minimizing toxicity, and identifying care priorities for surgery, radiotherapy, and systemic therapies must be viewed as basic priorities in the COVID-19 era. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]