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Dress code is standard in the Australian public sector, with smart business casual the norm. However, over the last two years, as many workers relocated to the home office, bedroom or kitchen table during the COVID-19 pandemic , work attire has taken on new meaning. A key but under-researched advantage of remote working has been the relaxing in many professions dress codes, with ‘COVID casual’ becoming the norm for many workers. This report highlights the role of dress codes, appearance, and aesthetics in the Australian public sector and the refashioning of professional attire in the age of remote work.

Considerable concerns relating to the duration of protective immunity against severe acute respiratory syndrome-coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) exist, with evidence of antibody titers declining rapidly after infection and reports of reinfection. Here, we monitor the antibody responses against SARS-CoV-2 receptor-binding domain (RBD) for up to 6 months after infection. While antibody titers are maintained, _13% of the cohort's neutralizing responses return to background. However, encouragingly, in a selected subset of 13 participants, 12 have detectable RBD-specific memory B cells and these generally are increasing out to 6 months. Furthermore, we are able to generate monoclonal antibodies with SARS-CoV-2 neutralizing capacity from these memory B cells. Overall, our study suggests that the loss of neutralizing antibodies in plasma may be countered by the maintenance of neutralizing capacity in the memory B cell repertoire.

Public health agencies tasked with improving the health of communities are poorly supported by many ‘business-as-usual’ funding practices. It is commonplace to call for more funding for health promotion, but additional funding could do more harm than good if, at the same time, we do not critically examine the micro-processes that lead to health enablement – micro-processes that are instigated or amplified by funding. We are currently engaged in a university-and-policy research partnership to identify how funding mechanisms may better serve the practice of community-based health promotion. We propose three primary considerations to inform the way funds are used to enable community-based health promotion. The first is a broader understanding and legitimising of the ‘soft infrastructure’ or resources required to enhance a community’s capacity for change. The second is recognition of social relationships as key to increasing the availability and management of resources within communities. The third consideration understands communities to be complex systems and argues that funding models are needed to support the dynamic evolution of these systems. By neglecting these considerations, current funding practices may inadvertently privilege communities with pre-existing capacity for change, potentially perpetuating inequalities in health. To begin to address these issues, aspects of funding processes (e.g., stability, guidance, evaluation, and feedback requirements) could be designed to better support the flourishing of community practice. Above all, funders must recognise that they are actors in the health system and they, like other actors, should be reflexive and accountable for their actions.

Student Summer Research Awards, University College Dublin, Ireland, 28 September 2021 An abundance of literature is being published reporting the negative mental health sequelae of the COVID-19 pandemic. This surge in mental health problems will likely present to primary care over the coming months. Initiatives are being proposed nationally and internationally to tackle this problem. It is of utmost importance for general practitioners to have interventions in place which can improve care of these mental illnesses. This research aims to undertake a scoping review of the literature to examine interventions which could be implemented in general practice post COVID-19 to improve care of mental health disorders arising from the pandemic.