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Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), the disease arising from the beta coronavirus severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), has presented a major challenge to health-care systems and societies across the world. Although previous highly pathogenic coronaviruses have emerged, namely severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 1 and Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus, neither had the spread nor the persistence to result in large clinical trials of drug therapy. Much of our therapeutic knowledge in these viruses was therefore informed by inference from observational, in vitro, and experimental model studies. As a result, when SARS-CoV-2 emerged with a noted high morbidity and mortality, initial therapeutic drug treatment was often empiric. There are currently over 4400 trials concerning COVID-19 registered on the World Health Organization international clinical trials registry, and while not all these are interventional therapeutic trials, this illustrates the desire of the international clinical-scientific community to develop systematic and evidence-based approaches for the management of this major threat. This chapter discusses the broad strategies of therapeutic pharmacological approaches suggested, namely antiviral therapy, antiinflammatories, and immunomodulatory. Nonpharmacological approaches are also to be discussed. Then, it reviews the approaches to trials and trial design, the development and use of core outcome sets, and regulation of trials in pandemic settings. It reviews the publication and preprint availability of completed trials before discussing the ethics of empiric treatment outside the context of trials.

As a reflection of shifting and fluid experiences in time and space, live streaming can reduce losses in the tourism industry associated with travel restrictions during the COVID-19 pandemic. Compared with the use of live streaming activities in entertainment, shopping, sport, e-sport, religious, educational, and academic settings, the tourism context has yet to be explored. This study takes China as a case to examine tourism practices related to live streaming. Specifically, 48,114 social media posts were subjected to systematic content analysis. The dataset contained live streaming content related to 147 countries and 34 Chinese provincial administrative regions between 2010 and 2021. Findings revealed the following: (1) the development of tourism live streaming in China can be classified into germination, exploration, and opportunity stages and (4) live streaming tools and attractions constituted the core of the identified semantic network and had the strongest regulation capabilities in tourism live streaming activities. Findings shed light on latent cultural meanings in social media communications, where tourism live streaming features high-frequency linguistic signs. (3) users’ perceptions of tourism live streaming content involved institutions, live streaming tools, live streaming attractions, the live streaming economy, people, facilities and information, time, and regions (2) live content mainly evoked positive emotions, whereas negative sentiment resulted from illegal or boring content

Background: This research prioritization aimed to identify major research gaps in maternal, newborn, child and adolescent health (MNCAH) to help mitigate the direct and indirect effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. Methods: We adapted the Child Health and Nutrition Research Initiative methodology. We defined scope, domains, themes and scoring criteria. We approached diverse global experts via email to submit their research ideas in MNCAH and MNCAH-related cross-cutting/health systems area. We curated the research ideas as research questions (RQs) and sent them to the consenting experts for scoring via the online link. For each RQ, the research priority score (RPS) was calculated as an average of individual criterion scores and ranked based on RPS in each area. Results: We identified top-ranked 10 RQs in each maternal, newborn, and child and adolescent health and 5 in the cross-cutting/health systems area. In maternal health, indirect effects on care, measures to improve care, health risks and outcomes, and preventing and managing SARS-CoV-2 infection/COVID-19 disease were priority RQs. In newborn health, clinical characterization and managing SARS-CoV-2 infection/COVID-19 disease, mode of transmission and interventions to prevent transmission were the focus. For child and adolescent health, top-ranked RQs were indirect effects on care, clinical status and outcomes, interventions to protect against SARS-CoV-2 infection/COVID-19 disease, and educational institute-related RQs. The cross-cutting RQs were the effects of the pandemic on availability, access, care-seeking and utilization of MNCAH services and potential solutions. Conclusions: We call on partners, including governments, non-governmental organizations, research institutes, and donors, to address this urgent research agenda.

The prevention and control of COVID-19 in megacities is under large pressure because of tens of millions and high-density populations. The majority of epidemic prevention and control policies implemented focused on travel restrictions, which severely affected urban mobility during the epidemic. Considering the impacts of epidemic and associated control policies, this study analyzes the relationship between COVID-19, travel of residents, Point of Interest (POI), and social activities from the perspective of taxi travel. First, changes in the characteristics of taxi trips at different periods were analyzed. Next, the relationship between POIs and taxi travels was established by the Geographic Information System (GIS) method, and the spatial lag model (SLM) was introduced to explore the changes in taxi travel driving force. Then, a social activities recovery level evaluation model was proposed based on the taxi travel datasets to evaluate the recovery of social activities. The results demonstrated that the number of taxi trips dropped sharply, and the travel speed, travel time, and spatial distribution of taxi trips had been significantly influenced during the epidemic period. The spatial correlation between taxi trips was gradually weakened after the outbreak of the epidemic, and the consumption travel demand of people significantly decreased while the travel demand for community life increased dramatically. The evaluation score of social activity is increased from 8.12 to 74.43 during the post-epidemic period, which may take 3&ndash 6 months to be fully recovered as a normal period. Results and models proposed in this study may provide references for the optimization of epidemic control policies and recovery of public transport in megacities during the post-epidemic period.

After steep drops and then rebounds in transportation-related CO$_2$ emissions over the first half of 2020, a second wave of COVID-19 this fall has caused further -- but less substantial -- emissions reductions. Here, we use near-real-time estimates of daily emissions to explore differences in human behavior and restriction policies over the course of 2020.

The recent COVID-19 pandemic has driven researchers from different spectrum to develop novel solutions that can improve detection and understanding of SARS-CoV-2 virus. In this article we propose the use of Intelligent Reflector Surface (IRS) emitting terahertz signals to detect airborne respiratory aerosol cloud that are secreted from people. Our proposed approach makes use of future IRS infrastructure to extend beyond communication functionality by adding environmental scanning for aerosol clouds. Simulations have also been conducted to analyze the accuracy of aerosol cloud detection based on a signal scanning and path optimization algorithm. Utilizing IRS for detecting respiratory aerosol cloud can lead to new added value of telecommunication infrastructures for sensor monitoring data that can be used for public health. Comment: 7 pages, 6 figures. This work has been submitted to the IEEE for possible publication

Abstract Background A major component of rolled-out COVID-19 pandemic response and preparedness is the administration of vaccines. Globally, resistance towards vaccination programs are well known and documented. This study sought to evaluate the effects of general vaccine health perceptions and the confidence in COVID-19 vaccine safety towards uptake in Ghana. MethodsA cross sectional online survey involving 620 Ghanaians was conducted. The data was subjected to both descriptive (frequency, percentages, and chi-square tests) and inferential (nested binary logistic regression) analyses. Results The preliminary findings showed that 80.32% of participants believed that vaccines were healthy and 73.06% had confidence in a COVID-19 vaccine safety, although 81.19% of the respondents were particularly concerned about the source of the vaccine. Other evidence revealed that 78.55% and 71.45% of respondents indicated their willingness for mandatory and voluntary COVID-19 vaccine uptake or shot respectively. In all operationalized regression models, Ghanaians who believed that vaccines are healthy and those who had confidence in a COVID-19 vaccine safety were more likely to take a mandatory or voluntary COVID-19 vaccine compared to those who thought and believed otherwise. ConclusionIndividual preferences and/or intentions toward COVID-19 vaccine uptake and uptake route (i.e., mandatory, voluntary) were influenced by multifaceted determinants: biosocial (age, marital status, education), socio-cultural (religion) and contextual (geographical zone, source of vaccine as a concern) factors. To consolidate and possibly increase vaccine uptake in response to the COVID-19 pandemic in Ghana, health education and promotion programs should aim at creating awareness on the benefits of vaccine uptake while addressing the health and safety concerns on the potential side effects through evidence-based community messaging from credible sources. It is important to show specific commitment to transparency and reliable information to build public trust by decision-makers.

Silvicultural herbicides are used in Integrated Vegetation Management (IVM) to suppress vegetation that competes with trees for growing space, light, nutrients, water, and other resources in managed forests. While the toxicity and environmental impacts of silvicultural herbicides have been widely studied, far less is known about their effects on culturally significant plants important to Indigenous Peoples in the Canadian Boreal Forest Region. The main objective of this thesis is to assess the silvicultural use of herbicides on ethnobotanical species in the Canadian boreal. I identified 914 ethnobotanical plants in the Canadian boreal, including plants used as food, medicines, tools, art and culture, and for spiritual purposes. Most of these plants are not considered threatened globally or in Canada but are vulnerable to decline or elimination following herbicide spraying in managed forests. The results of my thesis support restricting herbicide spraying as an IVM practice in areas important to Indigenous Peoples. Professor Robin Roth for providing funding for my thesis, through the Conservation through Reconciliation Partnership (CRP), Graduate Coordinators in the Department of Geography, Geomatics and Environment - Drs. Noella Gray and Aaron Berg for funding support that I received from the department and additional financial support from the University of Guelph’s College of Social and Applied Human Sciences (CSAHS) COVID-19 Delay Assistance Program

Australian regulations strictly limit early withdrawals from retirement plan accounts. However, in 2020, the Government made otherwise illiquid plan balances temporarily liquid, offering emergency relief during the pandemic. The COVID-19 Early Release Scheme allowed participants in financial hardship easy access to up to $A20,000 of savings over two rounds. We use administrative and survey data from a large retirement plan to describe how and why participants withdrew savings under the scheme. A majority report that they needed the money immediately but around one quarter said they anticipated future needs. Most thought about the decision for less than a week, acted soon after each round opened, and withdrew as much as they could. Many people did not estimate, or appear to have mis-estimated, the impact the withdrawal could have on their retirement savings. Our findings offer insights into preferences for liquidity. They also raise questions about whether the features of the early release scheme, and their implied endorsement by the Government, influenced some withdrawers more than personal deliberations over financial welfare.