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This study aims to explore the real-time impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on measured air pollution in the three largest cities of Jordan (Amman, Irbid and Zarqa). It is hypothesized that a sharp decrease in the emitted amounts of particulate matter (PM 10 ), CO, NO 2 and SO 2 during COVID-19 pandemic will be obtained, this corresponds with the reduced traffic due to mandated business closures. To achieve this exploration a paired sample t-test is used to compare the concentration of these four pollutants in the three cities over the period from 15 March to 30 June during the years from 2016 to 2020. It is found that there is a significant difference between the emitted concentrations mean values of CO, PM 10 , SO 2 and NO 2 during the period of study. This was indicated by the values of p for each species, which was less than 5 % for all these pollutants. The maximum reduction in SO2 and NO2 concentration during the lockdown period was in Zarqa. Irbid city witnessed the highest percentage reduction in CO and PM10. Furthermore, the correlation test, independent variable importance of multilayer perceptron and global sensitivity analysis using Sobol analysis showed that metrological data (Humidity, wind speed, average temperature and pressure) have a direct relationship with concentrations of CO, PM10, SO2 and NO2 in Amman, Irbid and Zarqa before and after COVID-19 pandemic., (Copyright © 2021 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

This study aims to analyze the correlation between the daily confirmed COVID-19 cases in Jordan and metrological parameters including the average daily temperature (°C), maximum ambient temperature (°C), relative humidity (%), wind speed (m/s), pressure (kPa), and average daily solar radiation (W/m 2 ). This covers the first and the second waves in Jordan. The data were obtained from both the Jordanian Ministry of health and the Jordan Metrological Department. In this work, the Spearman correlation test was used for data analysis, since the normality assumption was not fulfilled. It was found that the most effective weather parameters on the active cases of COVID-19 in the initial wave transmission was the average daily solar radiation (r = - 0.503; p = 0.000), while all other tests for other parameters failed. In the second wave of COVID-19 transmission, it was found that the most effective weather parameter on the active cases of COVID-19 was the maximum temperature (r = 0.394; p = 0.028). This was followed by wind speed (r = 0.477; p = 0.007), pressure (r = - 0.429; p = 0.016), and average daily solar radiation (r = - 0.757; p = 0.000). Furthermore, the independent variable importance of multilayer perceptron showed that wind speed has a direct relationship with active cases. Conversely, areas characterized by low values of pressure and daily solar radiation exposure have a high rate of infection. Finally, a global sensitivity analysis using Sobol analysis showed that daily solar radiation has a high rate of active cases that support the virus' survival in both wave transmissions., (© 2021. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH, DE part of Springer Nature.)

Objective: This study aimed to assess the post-contact risk of nurses who provide care for patients diagnosed with COVID-19., Methods: This investigation employed a quantitative-descriptive design. The study sample was comprised of the frontline nurses in the COVID-19 center hospitals in the northern part of Saudi Arabia. Snowball sampling was used, resulting in 80 frontline nurses. A survey using a self-administered questionnaire in a Google form was employed to collect the data, which was collected from May 20 through June 25, 2020., Results: Some of the study participants were reported to have a history of both staying in the same household with each other (35%) and of traveling with a confirmed COVID-19 patient (20%). These participants were considered as community exposed to COVID-19. There were 8.8% who were classified as high risk due to failure in removing and replacing personal protective equipment (PPE); 6.3% were at high risk for not performing hand hygiene before and after touching COVID-19 patients, and 5% did not follow the recommended guidelines in performing hand hygiene after touching the patients' surroundings. In addition, 3.8% of the participants had an accident related to biological material, such as with splashes of biological fluid (in the eyes). These nurses were classified as high risk for COVID-19 virus infection, CONCLUSION: This study identifies practices that need improvement in combatting this virus. Since policies and guidelines may not always be optimal in all settings, a tailor-fitted guideline is appropriate. Nurse leaders, for example, need to establish an infection control system that provides real-time monitoring and facilitates immediate correction for nurses. Doing so will provide the nurses with a continuous awareness of predisposing themselves to acquiring the virus., (Copyright © 2021. Published by Elsevier Inc.)

Background: Knowledge, perception, and preventive behavior should be considered in the planning of effective educational interventions for the coronavirus disease of 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic and in increasing awareness about the health risks brought about by this disease. This research aimed to assess knowledge, perceptions, and preventive behavior toward the COVID-19 infection among student nurses. Methods: The study has quantitative, descriptive, and cross-sectional design. A convenience sample of 1,226 student nurses from seven universities in Saudi Arabia was surveyed from March 22 to April 4, 2020. A four-part online survey on demographic characteristics, perceptions, knowledge, and preventive behavior of Saudi student nurses was carried out. Results: Nearly all students were aware of the outbreak (99.2%), and most of them received information on COVID-19 primarily from social media (71.0%). Over three-fourths of the students were confident that the government (89.1%) and Ministry of Health (MOH) (86.5%) were doing a good job responding to the COVID-19 outbreak in the country. The overall average score in the knowledge questionnaire was 9.85 (SD = 1.62, range = 0-12), which is equivalent to 82.1%. The majority of the students always performed most of the preventive behavior identified in the survey, except "washing hands with soap and water for at least 20 s after blowing my nose, coughing, or sneezing" (39.2%) and "daily cleaning and disinfecting frequently touched surfaces" (41.6%). Being female, being in the fourth year, and gaining good perceived knowledge were associated with high actual COVID-19 knowledge. University, gender, age, academic level, and perceived COVID-19 knowledge were the associated factors. Conclusions: The findings of this study have provided baseline information on the current state of Saudi nursing students' perceptions, knowledge, and preventive behavior toward COVID-19 as the crisis is happening. The findings revealed some areas that should be focused on by nursing education, as well as health agencies, to ensure that the students have adequate knowledge and correct preventive behavior., Competing Interests: The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2020 Albaqawi, Alquwez, Balay-odao, Bajet, Alabdulaziz, Alsolami, Tumala, Alsharari, Tork, Felemban and Cruz.)

This Forum explores the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the Higher Education (HE) sector through the experiences and perspectives in China, Malaysia and the UK, with schools and universities closed and teaching moved online with very short notice. Authors were given an open brief as to the nature of their contribution, reflecting the still evolving 'pandemic pedagogy' phenomenon. Reflecting different national contexts reified in the emergency response to education disruption, the three perspectives in this Forum individually and collectively shed light on the implications of contrasting states of university governance and overall HE development.

Introduction: Insights into the knowledge and attitudes of students can be achieved by analyzing their general understanding and prevention of the coronavirus. Therefore, it is imperative to identify attributes that influence the development of healthy behaviors among students. This study aimed to determine the dynamics of knowledge and attitudes of student nurses concerning the COVID-19 vaccine. Methods: This descriptive-cross sectional study involved 250 student nurses from the University of Hail, Nursing College, selected by convenience sampling. The data were collected between August and September 2021 using questionnaires. The data were analysed using a t-test, one-way ANOVA, and Pearson’s correlation test with a significance level of 0.05. Results: The study results showed that participants have good knowledge (mean = 3.09; SD = 0.88) and attitudes (mean = 8.62; SD = 1.83). Gender(except for knowledge), marital status, and age were not relevant as explanatory factors of knowledge and attitude. There was a significant difference in both knowledge (F = 2.233; p < 0.005) and attitude (F = 3.918; p < 0.004) associated with the course year. There was no significant relationship between knowledge and attitude (r = -0.013; p-value = 0.834). Conclusions: This information is critical for educators as they design techniques to help students put their knowledge into practice. In this way, educators may help health students develop skills and encourage students to become accountable health professionals who can support current societal healthcare demands.

This study aims to correlate weather variables with COVID-19 active cases by using Artificial neural network (ANN) method. Three types of Artificial Neural Network namely; Elman, NARX, and Feedforward networks, were designed and tested using MATLAB software. The COVID-19 active cases in Jordan data was obtained from the Ministry of Health in Jordan, while that of the weather data was obtained from Jordan Metrological Department. Both data were used in the development process of the models to approximate and estimate the actual performance of proposed models. The obtained results from training part were used to validate the ANN results. The performance of the three models was compared was decided based on the three statistics of metrology variables (R, RMSE, and MBE). Using the average daily temperature and wind speed as the input indicators to the network provided, it was found that Elman model exhibits the best performance and most accurate coefficient of correlation (R) and hence the most accurate correlation between weather variables and COVID-19 active cases in Jordan. while the predictive capability of Feedforward and NARX models were the least. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Knowledge, perception, and preventive behavior should be considered in the planning of effective educational interventions for the coronavirus disease of 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic and in increasing awareness about the health risks brought about by this disease. This research aimed to assess knowledge, perceptions, and preventive behavior toward the COVID-19 infection among student nurses.Methods: The study has quantitative, descriptive, and cross-sectional design. A convenience sample of 1,226 student nurses from seven universities in Saudi Arabia was surveyed from March 22 to April 4, 2020. A four-part online survey on demographic characteristics, perceptions, knowledge, and preventive behavior of Saudi student nurses was carried out.Results: Nearly all students were aware of the outbreak (99.2%), and most of them received information on COVID-19 primarily from social media (71.0%). Over three-fourths of the students were confident that the government (89.1%) and Ministry of Health (MOH) (86.5%) were doing a good job responding to the COVID-19 outbreak in the country. The overall average score in the knowledge questionnaire was 9.85 (SD = 1.62, range = 0–12), which is equivalent to 82.1%. The majority of the students always performed most of the preventive behavior identified in the survey, except “washing hands with soap and water for at least 20 s after blowing my nose, coughing, or sneezing” (39.2%) and “daily cleaning and disinfecting frequently touched surfaces” (41.6%). Being female, being in the fourth year, and gaining good perceived knowledge were associated with high actual COVID-19 knowledge. University, gender, age, academic level, and perceived COVID-19 knowledge were the associated factors.Conclusions: The findings of this study have provided baseline information on the current state of Saudi nursing students' perceptions, knowledge, and preventive behavior toward COVID-19 as the crisis is happening. The findings revealed some areas that should be focused on by nursing education, as well as health agencies, to ensure that the students have adequate knowledge and correct preventive behavior.