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In line with global advisories, the Nigerian authorities explored what could be termed a 'stringent' lockdown measure to contain the transmission of the COVID-19 pandemic and prevent a public health catastrophe. In this study, I examine the appositeness of the measure and its manner of implementation within the purview of the 1984 Siracusa Principles and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) on the derogation of human rights. The principles and ICCPR guarantee equitable access to basic healthcare for all citizens and obligate state parties to take actions to prevent potential harm to public health if such actions are necessary, lawful, evidence-based, non-discriminatory, unarbitrary, proportional, respectful of human dignity, and brief in timeframe. I argue that although the measure aligns with the principles, ICCPR and Nigeria's COVID-19 Regulations, 2020 - its manner of implementation typified gross human rights breaches, extrajudicial practices, and repressive state behaviours. However, this study offers a novel understanding of statecraft and citizens–government relations during the pandemic – pandemic policing and public health management – while emphasising that upholding human rights and strengthening democratic ideals are central to containing future pandemics successfully. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper rejects the cases made in recent volumes of this journal for incorporating political economy into youth studies. A brief review of young people's transitions from education into employment in the UK during and following the 2020 and 2021 lockdowns shows how youth transitions research engages routinely with changes and continuities in politics, state policies, the economy and labour markets. It is argued that the main weaknesses in current transitions research arise from our lack of an up-to-date class scheme within which to locate subjects' childhood origins and adult destinations. However, the paper illustrates how young researchers occupy a privileged position from which to identify emerging, consolidating and declining social classes. The conclusion is that youth studies must necessarily foreground young people, that it must engage with the outcomes of political and economic processes but has no need to 'dig deeper' into political economy for alleged underlying root causes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of the research was to examine changes in the usage patterns of public library collections during the COVID pandemic. Usage data for e-loans (e-books and e-audio books) and physical loans from two library networks in Sydney (Australia) for 2019–2021 was analyzed. While the use of physical collections dropped to less than half, the use of electronic collections increased by almost as much. E-loans peaked, and physical loans plummeted during lockdowns. However, the increase of e-loans was very small in terms of absolute volume (about a 44 k increase) compared to the decline in physical loans (about half a million decrease), and the use of physical collections did not reach pre-pandemic levels during the period studied. The analysis of subjects and genres of loaned items indicates that users were generally keen to continue reading the sorts of material they had been reading prior to the pandemic, even if this meant switching format, although there were some changes in genre and subject preferences during the lockdowns, which might have been influenced by the circumstances of the individual users. Readers appeared to show particular interest in various nonfiction topics in the initial lockdown (early 2020), with more practical considerations holding sway at this stage of the pandemic, whereas, by the time of the second lockdown (mid-2021), these considerations had been resolved to some extent, and been overtaken by a more "escapist," or at least a more recreational, attitude on the part of the average user. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]