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The global COVID-19 pandemic has seen unprecedented state border closures and a proliferation of novel restrictions on human mobility both within and between states. This article examines the human rights implications for refugees and asylum seekers of one COVID-19 response measure within and beyond Australia: namely, the adoption of COVID-19 vaccination passport systems. We argue that the use of COVID-19 passport systems in 2021 intensified and entrenched the growing inequalities between states and people in the vaccine-rich Global North and vaccine-deprived Global South as well as between citizens and non-citizens within particular states. Using the concepts of ‘mobility injustice’ and ‘immunoprivilege’, we explore how COVID-19 passport systems created particular additional barriers for refugees to access asylum, to exercise their right to mobility and to realise their right to health. We thus call for ongoing vigilance against the potential for COVID-19 passport systems to be redeployed in future times of global pandemics or emergencies to the detriment of refugees, asylum seekers and undocumented people, both in Australia and globally, even while being touted as a means of protecting populations, opening international travel and granting greater freedoms.

Abstract This article examines how and why the covid-19 pandemic featured as a central issue in the Alternative for Germany's 2021 Bundestag election campaign. Using a wide range of political communication tools, the radical right party's opposition to public health policies against the pandemic ranged from a critique of hygienic measures to hosting coronavirus denialism and conspiracy myths suggesting that “the elite” had manufactured “corona hysteria” to subjugate the German people. Mirroring its general radicalization process toward an anti-system movement party, the AfD's campaign primarily gave voice to an ideologically driven, conspiracist, and authoritarian-nationalist core electorate, which has its center of gravity in the East. In the environment of an emerging “pandemic divide,” the party also sought to appeal to a robust minority of corona skeptics. More generally, the AfD's campaign points to the still underresearched role of science denialism and conspiracy myths in radical right mobilizations of a counterfactual age.

Longevity expectations (LE) are subjective assessments of future health status that can influence a number of individual health protective decisions. This is especially true during a pandemic such as COVID-19, as the risk of ill health depends more than ever on such protective decisions. This paper examines the causal effect of LE on some protective health behaviors and a number of decisions regarding forgoing health care using individual differences in LE. We use data from the Survey of Health Ageing and Retirement in Europe, and we draw on an instrumental variable strategy exploiting individual level information on parental age at death. Consistent with the

Virtual Reality (VR) is a robust tool for sponsoring Cultural Heritage sites. It enables immersive experiences in which the user can enjoy the cultural assets virtually, behaving as he/she would do in the real world. The covid-19 pandemic has shed light on the importance of using VR in cultural heritage, showing advantages for the users that can visit the site safely through specific devices. In this work, we present the processes that lead to the creation of an immersive app that makes explorable a famous cultural asset in Sicily, the church of SS. Crocifisso al Calvario. The application creation process will be described in each of its parts, beginning from the digital acquisition of the cultural asset to the development of the user interface. The application is provided for three different VR devices: smartphones equipped with cardboards, headsets, and CAVE. The paper is supported by the 3DLab-Sicilia project, whose main objective is to sponsor the creation, development, and validation of a sustainable infrastructure that interconnects three main Sicilian centres specialized in augmented and virtual reality.

From an Ancient Egyptian plague to the Black Death and Spanish flu, epidemics have often spurred societal transformations. Understanding why can help us create a better world after covid-19

From an Ancient Egyptian plague to the Black Death and Spanish flu, epidemics have often spurred societal transformations. Understanding why can help us create a better world after covid-19

The tenth Accounting History international conference (10AHIC) held in Paris in September 2019 on the theme of Accounting and Work was the last congress where the Accounting History community was able to meet in person, discuss their research in a ‘traditional’ mode which implied physical presence, and socialise — during a non-virtual, and memorable cruise on the Seine.Only a few months after the congress, the whole world was experiencing the unprecedented health crisis of SARS Covid-19, which was going to have a considerable and brutal impact on the way we operate, and on our lives. Moreover, our community was deeply affected by the loss of relatives, colleagues, and friends. In this special issue, we pay a humble tribute to one ofthem, our colleague Paul J. Miranti Jr., who promoted a unifying view of research traditions and paradigms, for the benefit of accounting history. This is a spirit that inspired us in presenting the contributions of our special issue.

Given the pervasiveness of mobile technologies, it is important for organizations to gain a better understanding of the potential benefits and unexpected negative consequences of mobile use. Recent research outlined that 76% of employees in the United States handled work-related e-mails during nonwork time, and this phenomenon has been further amplified by the COVID-19 pandemic, which emphasized the pivotal role of constant connectivity and distributed work arrangements. Our research aims at providing a better understanding of why individuals engage in excessive use of mobile devices for work purposes during nonwork time and to elucidate the effects of such behavior. Our results show that investing time and energy in family demands during work time reduces individuals’ ability to fulfill job demands and leads to excessive mobile use during nonwork time. Such excessive use increases the individual perception productivity, but it comes at a cost in terms of physiological, psychological, and relational well-being because it prevents individuals to restore their energies. Our results show also that a competitive climate within the organization exacerbates such negative effects on well-being, thus elucidating the pivotal role of organizational policies and interventions in supporting a responsible use of mobile technologies.

AbstractThe paper explores the tale of two 'epicentres’ – metropolitan New York and Lombardy – and seeks to depict the socio-demographic patterns that characterise the worst cases of infection, hospitalisation, and death during the first six months of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020. By drawing upon secondary data concerning sub-territorial units within the two regions – ZIP-code level and counties in New York and municipalities in Italy – the paper compares the characteristics of the two areas in an effort to understand both how they became the original major epicentres and how their experiences of the pandemic differed. We suspected initially that the pandemic in Lombardy was a function of a complex constellation of variables, such as the age of the population, the unexpected emergence of the virus, and features of the local health system. In New York, the pattern seemed to fit a more familiar dynamic, the kind one would expect from the course that most pandemics take: the poor suffer the worst. The paper tries to extend the understanding of the complex and not univocal mix of social variables that can facilitate the spread of a pandemic and make its effects extreme.