The highly contagious 2019 novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak has not only impacted health systems, economies, and governments, it has also rapidly grown into a global health crisis, which is now threatening the lives of millions of people globally. While, on one hand, medical institutions are critically attempting to find a cure, on the other hand, governments have introduced striking measures and policies to curtail the rapid spread of the disease. Although COVID-19 has achieved pandemic status and (...) is predominantly viewed as a biomedical issue, it is argued that it should also be treated as a psychological crisis. This paper also reviews the literature to examine and comment on the detrimental effects of isolation, which has been enforced as one of the primary preventative measures to manage the spread of COVID-19. This paper further outlines key recommendations that should be addressed across different levels to buffer against the known adverse effects of isolation, which is especially relevant for the current COVID-19 situation, where a large proportion of the global population is isolated, confined, and/or quarantined. (shrink)

The novel coronavirus disease has become a global pandemic, causing substantial anxiety. One potential factor in the spread of anxiety in response to a pandemic threat is emotion contagion, the finding that emotional experiences can be socially spread through conscious and unconscious pathways. Some individuals are more susceptible to social contagion effects and may be more likely to experience anxiety and other mental health symptoms in response to a pandemic threat. Therefore, we studied the relationship (...) between emotion contagion and mental health symptoms during the COVID-19 pandemic. We administered the Emotion Contagion Scale along with a measure of anxiety in response to COVID-19 and secondary outcome measures of depression, anxiety, stress, and obsessive-compulsive disorder symptoms. These measures were completed by a large student sample in the United States. Data were collected in the months of April and May of 2020 when the fear of COVID-19 was widespread. Results revealed that greater susceptibility to emotion contagion was associated with greater concern about the spread of COVID-19, more depression, anxiety, stress, and OCD symptoms. Consumption of media about COVID-19 also predicted anxiety about COVID-19, though results were not moderated by emotion contagion. However, emotion contagion did moderate the relationship between COVID-19-related media consumption and elevated OCD symptoms. Although limited by a cross-sectional design that precludes causal inferences, the present results highlight the need for study of how illness fears may be transmitted socially during a pandemic. (shrink)

ABSTRACT In the style of Swift and Wollstonecraft, I contribute to the growing pandemic literature on Hobbes by writing a feminist satire of the Leviathan for the age of the novel coronavirus. Hobbes's conceptions of the state of nature and the body politic are eerily relevant to the present political crises, especially in the United States. In a personal narrative that is both arch and absolutely serious, I reveal how a woman-empowering vision of a healthy global body (...) politic can be teased out of Hobbes's political thought and used to combat the fatalistic view of humanity's inevitable descent into a chaotic state of nature during times of crisis such as the Covid-19 pandemic. (shrink)

The outbreak of the novel coronavirus pandemic, otherwise known as COVID-19 brought about the use of new terminologies—new lexical items such as social distancing, self-isolation, and lockdown. In developed countries, basic social amenities to support these are taken for granted; this is not the case in West African countries. Instead, those suggested safeguards against contracting COVID-19 have exposed the infrastructural deficit in West African countries. In addition, and more profoundly, these safeguards against the disease have distorted the (...) traditional community-individuality balance. The enforcement of social distancing, self-isolation, and lockdown has made it impossible for West Africans to drift to their ancestral homes and villages, as is usually the case in times of crisis, with attendant consequences for communal life and traditional burial rites. This could be one of the reasons why some COVID-19 patients are escaping from isolation centres, since to die in such centres violates their bodily integrity at an ontological level. (shrink)

ABSTRACT The novel coronavirus pandemic is throwing into relief traditional notions and rhetorics of witness, visibility, recognition, and violence in human rights discourse. This essay articulates the ways in which the current pandemic is being framed rhetorically as a spectacular war, using rhetoric that obfuscates the structural violations that leads to the virus disproportionately impacting the precarious. It argues for a reframing of traditional paradigms of representation, recognition, and resistance toward a notion of everyday violence that (...) accounts for the accumulation of structural and material conditions of precarity as a human rights violation. (shrink)

This essay situates Foucault`s ideas of ‘biopower’ and ‘governmentality’ within the Indian context of the Covid emergency, analysing how the excesses of ‘biopolitical’ and the authoritarian forms of ‘governmentality’ evoke a radical re-reading of Foucault within Covid-infested India. We argue how pre-existing ‘discursive’ conditions of biomedical, digital, and neoliberal India facilitated more majoritarian and undemocratic forms of (bio)politics during the Indian experience of the pandemic, exposing the migrant workers in particular to tremendous ‘precarity’ and turning them into pandemicariat. To (...) meet our theoretical ends, we investigate through forging links between Foucauldian theory – consisting of a set of concepts like biopolitics, anatomo-politics, governmentality etc— and ideas like transmuted biosociality, truncated sociality, will to live, pandemicariat etc. Current conditions of truncated sociality render human bodies more ‘discursively’ available for ‘biomedical’ and ‘biopolitical’ interventions, disempowering people’s capacity to sustain the more synthetic biosocial substances of conviviality. However, following Agamben’s early controversial stance for braving the virus, we would like to envisage “life” to be more than “survival” alone. We would also argue that the hard times of the pandemic invoke a new grammar of the “will to live” that was practised by the pandemicariat against heavy odds. (shrink)

The novel Coronavirus disease has magnified the issue of financial insecurity. However, its effect on individual-organizational relations and, consequently, on organizational performance remains understudied. Thus, the purpose of this study was to explore the spillover effect of financial insecurity on the burnout–disengagement relationship during the pandemic. The authors investigate in particular whether the spillover effect influences the performance of moonlighting employees and also explore the mediating effect of disengagement on the relationship between financial insecurity and burnout interaction (...) effect and the performance. This study collected responses from 162 public and private sector employees who are engaged in moonlighting activities in Malaysia. The results from the partial least square structural equation modeling revealed greater levels of financial insecurity and burnout associated with greater levels of work disengagement. The analysis of the interaction-moderation effect showed that when financial insecurity rises, the burnout effect on work disengagement increases among moonlighters. Using the PROCESS macro model, the results displayed burnout as a predictor of extra-role performance via a moderated mediation relationship. Going forward, this study not only opens new avenues for research into the financial consequences of COVID-19 but also calls on managers to take proactive steps to mitigate the negative effect of the pandemic on the performance of moonlighting employees to keep them in the profession. (shrink)

Prior research has shown that narrative coherence is associated with more positive emotional responses in the face of traumatic or stressful experiences. However, most of these studies only examined narrative coherence after the stressor had already occurred. Given the outbreak of the novel coronavirus disease COVID-19 in March 2020 in Belgium and the presence of data obtained two years before (February 2018), we could use our baseline narrative coherence data to predict emotional well-being and perceived social support in (...) the midst of the pandemic. In a sample of emerging adults (NT1 = 278, NT2 = 198), higher baseline coherence of narratives about positive autobiographical experiences predicted relative increases in emotional well-being during the COVID-19 pandemic. Furthermore, the relation between the coherence of positive narratives and emotional well-being was partially mediated by perceived social support. These findings suggest that narrative coherence could be an enhancement factor for adaptive emotional coping with stressful situations, in part by evoking more supportive social reactions. This study demonstrates the importance of researching cognition (narrative coherence) and emotion (well-being) to shed light on pressing societal matters such as the global COVID-19 pandemic. (shrink)

ABSTRACT A new ‘political philosophy’ is indispensable to the ‘post-Corona world,’ and this paper tries to analyze the future of ‘liberal democracy’ in it. It shows that ‘liberal democracy’ faces a ‘global crisis’ that has begun before, but the ‘novel Coronavirus pandemic,’ as a setback for it, strongly encourages that crisis. ‘Liberalism’ and ‘democracy,’ which had long been assumed by ‘political philosophers’ to go together, are now becoming decoupled, and the ‘liberal values’ of ‘democracy’ are eroding. To (...) find why and how, this paper analyzes ‘authoritarianism,’ ‘totalitarianism,’ and the evils and propensities of ‘democracy’ that bring about further erosions of ‘liberal values.’ There may be difficult trade-offs to be made between ‘liberal’ and ‘authoritarian’ ‘values’ - and, after the experience of ‘Coronavirus,’ this paper shows the ‘illiberal or authoritarian democracy’ may become stronger. -/- KEYWORDS: democracy, liberalism, liberal democracy, illiberal democracy, the novel Coronavirus pandemic, Covid-19, authoritarianism, totalitarianism. -/- EXTENDED ABSTRACT For almost a century in West, ‘democracy’ has meant ‘liberal democracy’-a political system marked not only by ‘free and fair elections,’ but also by ‘liberal values.’ ‘Liberalism’ applied to the problem of the limits of the criminal law would require commitment to the presumption in favor of ‘liberty.’ If the word ‘liberal’ is to have any utility in this context, it should refer to one who has so powerful a commitment to ‘liberty’ that she is motivated to limit the number of acknowledged liberty-limiting or coercion-legitimizing principles as narrowly as possible. So, she only believes in ‘harm-principle’ as the morally relevant reason for criminal prohibitions. ‘Offense principle’ and ‘paternalistic’ and ‘moralistic’ considerations, when introduced as support for penal legislation, have no weight at all. So, it means ‘autonomy’ and ‘self-regarding vs. other-regarding actions distinction’ based on which the human is the owner of her mind and body and everything consenting adults do is beyond the realm of morality and law. It leads to ‘individual’ ‘basic rights and liberties’ such as ‘basic rights and liberties’ of ‘speech,’ ‘religion,’ and ‘property’ and ‘collective’ ‘basic rights and liberties’ such as ‘basic rights and liberties of assembly,’ ‘civil society,’ ‘political pluralism,’ ‘democratic institutions,’ and ‘non-governmental organizations.’ ‘Liberalism’ also believes in ‘equality of conditions, ‘equal and free participatory rights in political decision making,’ and ‘collective self-governance.’ It also believes in the ‘rule of law,’ a ‘separation of powers,’ and ‘checks and balances.’ However, even under fair and free elections, the elected leaders can be ‘populists,’ ‘ultra-nationalists,’ ‘racists,’ ‘fascists,’ and ‘authoritarians’ who do not respect ‘inviolable basic rights and liberties,’ and suppress ‘minorities.’ Democratically elected leaders can routinely ignore constitutional limits on their power and deprive their citizens of ‘basic rights and liberties.’ The two strands of ‘liberal democracy’ have been coming apart in the world, and the ‘liberal’ elements of ‘democracy’ have been fraying and eroding even before the ‘novel Coronavirus pandemic.’ Even before the Coronavirus hit, there was already much discussion of a crisis of ‘liberal democracy.’ In particular, there has been a debate about whether ‘liberalism’ and ‘democracy,’ which had long been assumed to go together, were becoming decoupled. This paper shows ‘liberal democracy’ faces a ‘global crisis’ that had begun before the ‘novel Coronavirus pandemic.’ It also analyzes ‘authoritarianism,’ ‘totalitarianism,’ ‘liberalism,’ and ‘democracy’ and shows that Covid-19 is a setback for ‘liberal democracy.’ What is striking about the current moment is that many of the ‘liberal’ elements of ‘democracy’ are so far holding up under immense pressure. ‘Illiberal democracies’ seemed to be emerging in many countries. This model of ‘illiberal democracy,’ in which elections continue to be held but some individual rights and liberties are curtailed, may emerge stronger from this new crisis. In that sense, the ‘pandemic’ may become a challenge not only to ‘democracy’ as such but also to ‘liberal democracy’ in particular – in other words, a system of popular sovereignty together with guaranteed basic rights, such as freedom of association and expression and checks and balances on executive power. ‘Authoritarian’ procedures may succeed in mitigating the spread of the ‘Coronavirus,’ but the world now faces another problem: that when the virus recedes, many ‘liberal democracies’ will be far less ‘liberal’ or ‘democratic’ than they were before. In times of crisis, ‘liberal values’ have been ignored temporarily in the name of executive power. However, the ‘temporary’ can become ‘permanent.’ In addition, if citizens lose their faith in the legitimacy of ‘liberal democracy’ as the best form of government, and think ‘liberal democracy’ cannot function effectively during a crisis, and ‘authoritarian regimes’ manage the crisis more decisively, the world will slide towards ‘illiberal or authoritarian democracy,’ and many ‘liberal democracies’ will be at grave risk of failure. There may now be difficult trade-offs to be made between those basic rights and security - and, after the experience of Covid-19, many citizens may choose security. (shrink)

As we write, U.S. cities and states with extensive community transmission of Covid‐19 are in harm's way—not only because of the disease itself but also because of prior and current failures to act. During the 2009 influenza pandemic, public health agencies and hospitals developed but never adequately implemented preparedness plans. Focused on efficiency in a competitive market, health systems had few incentives to maintain stockpiles of essential medical equipment. Just‐in‐time economic models resulted in storage of only those supplies needed (...) then. At the same time, global purchasing in search of lower prices reduced the number of U.S. suppliers, with hospitals dependent on foreign companies. There is still a possibility that the pandemic will be manageably bad rather than unmanageably catastrophic in this country. Immediate, powerful, and sustained federal action could make the difference. (shrink)

Slavoj Žižek’s new book [...] was written at the beginning of the COVID-19 crisis and quickly rushed into publication in an effort to provide the public with a philosophical engagement with the opportunities and challenges of the novel coronavirus and the social, political, and technological responses that have been marshalled to contend with the panic that has accompanied it.

The novel coronavirus pandemic is intensifying all over the world, but some countries, including China, have developed extensive and successful experience in controlling this pandemic. In this context, some questions arise naturally: What can countries caught up in the epidemic learn from China’s experience? In regions where the outbreak is under control, what would lead to a resurgence of the epidemic? To address these issues, we investigate China’s experience in anticontagion interventions and reopening process, focusing on (...) the coevolution of epidemic and awareness during COVID-19 outbreak. Through an empirical analysis based on large-scale data and simulation based on a metapopulation and multilayer network model, we ascertain the impact of human movements and awareness diffusion on the epidemic, elucidate the inherent patterns and effective interventions of different epidemic prevention methods, and highlight the crunch time of each measure. The results are also employed to analyze COVID-19 evolution in other countries so as to find unified rules in complex situations around the world and provide advice on anticontagion and reopening policies. Our findings explain some key mechanisms of epidemic prevention and may help the epidemic analysis and decision-making in various countries suffering from COVID-19. (shrink)

Since early 2020, the Covid-19 pandemic has affected our world in multiple ways. What we know and how we know it has shifted on a global scale. How we move throughout the world has been restricted and locked down. How we see one another has changed the cultural narrative in numerous countries throughout the world. As we seek to rid ourselves of the novel coronavirus infecting our everyday, three significant paradigm shifts have mutated our realities and imaginaries (...) in which we dwell. With millions dead or sickened by the evolving Covid-19 virus, we are a different world now than we were. As guest editors for this Special Issue, Visible Mutations of the Information Imaginary: Knowledge, Movement, and Cultural Discourse in the Wake of Covid-19, we pay tribute to the millions affected by these changes by offering this collection of scholarship as a critical path forward. We examine three primary areas in which life, law, and legality have mutated with results that demand our immediate attention. The first section of contributing articles, Knowledge, engages with the dissemination of knowledge and information as either fact or fiction in lexicons and media outlets throughout the world. The second section, Movement, focuses on aspects of motion and its restriction in terms of bodies, legislation, access, and the threat of viral contamination across borders and within communities. The third section, Cultural Discourse, considers the visibility of viral spread ranging from masks that cover the face to the separation of bodies through social distancing to the politicization of religion and vaccination. What once were normative cultural positionalities of space and politics have been volatized by institutionalized risk reduction and the confrontation of the unknown in the tenuous unforeseeable realm we now globally inhabit: L'idée se fait jour qu’il s’agit au moins autant d’une syndémie que d’une pandémie. Alors que la pandémie est une épidémie qui touche une partie importante de la population mondiale, une syndémie caractérise un entrelacement de maladie, de facteurs biologiques et environnementaux qui, par leur synergie, aggravent les conséquences de ces maladies sur la population. Ost F. We hope that this Special Issue helps to contribute as a vital source of critical engagement with the effects of the new pandemic lexicon and re-emerging, yet irrevocably mutated public and private spaces and relationships to each another. (shrink)

The novel coronavirus pandemic (COVID-19) has had far-reaching effects on public health around the world. Attempts to prevent the spread of the disease by quarantine have led to large-scale global socioeconomic disrup- tion. During the outbreak, public authorities and politicians have struggled with how to manage widespread ignorance regarding the virus. Drawing on insights from social epistemology and the emerging interdisciplinary field of ignorance studies, this article provides evidence that the temporality of non- knowing and its intersection (...) with knowing is a force that leads political decision-making during a crisis. Illuminating the epistemic analysis with statements given by the Finnish government to the media in decision- making documents and in press conferences, this paper proposes that a crisis situation, itself, seems to demand from political decision-makers dynamic action while simultaneously knowing little (‘non-knowing’) about the different fronts of tackling the pandemic. We conclude that non-knowing must be recognized explicitly as an enduring and central condition in deci- sion-making, which we call ‘epistemic humility.’. (shrink)

As the sustained and devastating extent of the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic becomes apparent, a key focus of public scrutiny in the UK has centred on the novel legal and regulatory measures introduced in response to the virus. When those measures were first implemented in March 2020 by the UK Government, it was thought that human rights obligations would limit excesses of governmental action and that the public had more to fear from unwarranted intrusion into civil liberties. (...) However, within the first year of the pandemic’s devastation in the UK, a different picture has emerged: rather than through action, it is governmentalinactionthat has given rise to greater human rights concerns. The UK Government has been roundly criticized for its inadequate response, including missteps in decision-making, delayed implementation and poor enforcement of lockdown measures, abandonment of testing, shortages of critical resources and inadequate test and trace methods. In this article, we analyse the UK Government’s missteps and compare them with published international guidance; we also contrast the UK’s decisions with those taken by several other countries to understand how its actions and inactions have contributed to unfavourable outcomes. Using an analytical perspective that demonstrates how human rights are both a protection from the power of the state and a requirement that governmental powers are used to protect the lives, health and wellbeing of citizens, we argue that the UK Government’s failure to exercise their powers competently allowed the virus to spread without ensuring the country had the means to manage a high case load. This abject failure has led to one of the highest rates of deaths per capita worldwide. We offer several lessons that can be learnt from this unfortunate, but preventable, situation. (shrink)

The pandemic reveals; the novel coronavirus pandemic has brought the historically rooted inequities of our society to the forefront. We argue that an intersectional analysis is needed to further help peel back the veil that the pandemic has begun to reveal. We identify structural gendered racism—the totality of interconnectedness between structural racism and structural sexism in shaping race and gender inequities—as a root cause of health problems among Black women and other women of color, which (...) has been amplified during the pandemic. We show that women of color occupy disadvantaged positions within households, occupations, and health care institutions, and therefore face heightened risk for COVID-19 and lowered resources for mitigating the impact of the deadly virus. Intersectional analyses and solutions must be centered to also reveal, we hope, a new way forward. (shrink)

We all now know that the novel coronavirus is anything but a common cold. The pandemic has created many new obligations for all of us, several of which come with serious costs to our quality of life. But in some cases, the guidance and the law are open to a degree of interpretation, leaving us to decide what is the ethical course of action. Because of the high cost of some of the obligations, a conflict of interest (...) can arise between what we want to do and what it is right to do. And so, some people choose to respect only the letter of the law, but not the spirit, or not to respect even the spirit of the guidelines. This paper identifies and describes the new obligations imposed on us all by the pandemic, considers their costs in terms of the good life, and provides an ethical analysis of two personal and two public cases in terms of the letter and spirit of the guidance and legislation. (shrink)

The Infectious Diseases Act entered into force officially on 14 November 2018 in Bangladesh. The Act is designed to raise awareness of, prevent, control, and eradicate infectious or communicable diseases to address public health emergencies and reduce health risks. A novel coronavirus disease was first identified in Bangladesh on 8 March 2020, and the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare issued a gazette on 23 March, listing COVID-19 as an infectious disease and addressing COVID-19 as a public health (...) emergency. The gazette empowers the government to monitor the spread of infection. Despite there being an infrastructure of research ethics committees in almost all hospitals in Bangladesh, a lack of such committees in the clinical setting often forces healthcare professionals to allocate scarce healthcare resources to the task. These personnel are often either influenced by materialistic matters or guided by the emergency policies, without reaching a consensus on how to allocate scarce resources in times of need, especially in the time of the COVID-19 pandemic. Ethical dilemmas often arise when a number of patients with COVID-19, especially in poor and middle-class areas, are denied care while elites are prioritized to receive such scarce resources. Resource allocation in healthcare during the COVID-19 pandemic in Bangladesh appears to be unethical and in direct conflict with the biomedical principles of non-maleficence and procedural justice. The findings of this study suggest that the Act needs substantive changes in the stipulation of policy directing hospitals in the provision of resource allocation framework. Furthermore, parliament should produce guidance outlining how to successfully implement the law with the aim of protecting public health in times of emergency, especially the COVID-19 pandemic. (shrink)

Due to the novel coronavirus pandemic, the lockdown engendered has had a vicious impact on the global economy. This analysis’ prime intention is to evaluate the impact of the United States’ economic and health crisis as a result of COVID-19 on its financial stability. Additionally, the investigation analyzed the spillover impact of the worldwide economic slowdown experienced by COVID-19 on the United States’ financial volatility. The study applied an autoregressive distributed lag model and discovered that the economic (...) and health crises that occurred in the United States portentously upset the future expectations of its investors. Conspicuously, the health crisis in Spain and Italy were ominous spillovers of the United States’ financial instability in the short-run. Likewise, an economic crisis ensued in the United Kingdom because of COVID-19 causing spillover for the United States markets’ financial instability. The examination evaluated that Asian and African nations’ economic crises perilously affects the United States’ financial stability. The study determined that financial instability occurred in the United States due to its own economic and health crises persisted for a longer period than financial disequilibrium that occurred in other nations. The analysis suggested some strategies of smart lockdown that the government of the United States and other nations should follow to restart the economic cycle through tighter controls to minimize losses by following the steps of preparing a lockdown checklist, monitoring completion of lockdown tasks, and complete a close-down stock take or count. (shrink)

The occurrence of the novel severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 at the end of 2019 comes along with many challenges. Besides worry for one’s own health and the well-being of the family, all measures applied to limit the spread of the coronavirus affected daily life. School closures, economic shutdown and contact restrictions have led to high levels of stress. The impact on health and families has been widely discussed. However, population-based data are scarce. Here, we have assessed (...) health, quality of life and intrafamilial relations depending on the COVID-19 pandemic. Using a three-step random-route approach, a population-based sample of 2,515 persons was recruited during the second COVID-19 wave in Germany in winter 2020/21. While the majority of participants reported no change in their health status and the relationship with their partner and children, more than half of participants reported a decreased quality of life since the beginning of the pandemic. Female gender, age above 60 years, a low household income, not living with a partner and the experience of childhood adversity were associated with a higher risk for a worsening of health, quality of life and intrafamilial relations. These had already been well-established risk factors ahead of the pandemic. In order to avoid further increase of inequality in our society and more devastating impact of the pandemic on health and intrafamilial relations, low-level support and intervention programs are urgently needed. (shrink)

DISEASE X is the codename given by the World Health Organisation to a pathogen currently unknown to science that could cause havoc to humankind. Emerging infections are sending us multiple warnings that another Disease X is looming. We've had SARS in 2002, H5N1 bird flu in 2004, H1N1 'swine flu' in 2009, MERS in 2012, Ebola in 2014, Zika in 2015 and now COVID-19. These events are not freak events, but are happening continually, and at an increasing cadence. Written by (...) a long-standing ex-Reuters global health and science correspondent, DISEASE X will use privileged access to the body leading international efforts to control viruses, the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI), and its CEO, Dr Richard Hatchett. CEPI seed-funded three successful COVID vaccines, including Astra-Zeneca and Moderna. DISEASE X will explore the emergence of the novel coronavirus and the crisis it caused, analysing the responses of global health organisations and experts, including the WHO, national governments such as Britain, China and the USA, COVAX, the global vaccine allocation facility, pharmaceutical companies, and leading research scientists. Weaving in insights from the likes of Bill Gates, Sir Jeremy Farrar, Dr Anthony Fauci and Sir Patrick Vallance, the book will explain how the world's public health scientists are embarking on a 100 Days Mission to snuff out future threats before they become deadly pandemics. This is the inside story written for the public. (shrink)

BackgroundThe outbreak of novel coronavirus disease 2019 has caused a global panic and public concern due to its mortality ratio and lack of treatments/vaccines. Reduced levels of physical activity have been reported during the outbreak, affecting the normal daily pattern.ObjectiveTo investigate the relationship of physical activity level with sleep quality and the effects of reduction physical activity levels on sleep quality.MethodsA Google form was used to address personal information, COVID-19 personal care, physical activity, and mental health of 1,907 (...) adult volunteers. Binary logistic regression was used to verify the association of physical activity parameters and sleep quality.ResultsInsufficient physical activity levels were a risk factor to have disturbed sleep pattern [OR: 1.28, 95% CI ]; however, when the BMI was added to the analysis, there was no more statistical difference [OR: 1.23, 95% CI ]. On the other hand, we found that the reduction of physical activity levels was associated with negative changes in sleep quality [OR: 1.73, 95% CI ], regardless all the confounders [OR: 1.30, 95% CI ], unless when feeling of depression was added in Model 6 [OR: 1.28, 95% CI ].ConclusionDisruption in daily physical activity routine, rather than physical activity level, negatively influences sleep quality during the COVID-19 quarantine. (shrink)

Even if religiosity has long been introduced as the major cause for backwardness by anti-religion philosophers, the divine religion has been an important source of value for individuals and society, encouraging them to shape economic and sociocultural outcomes. In this manner, religiosity and religious capital (RC) are the stimuli for society-wide development. Against this background, religion can have positive implications for enriching individual and social economy. Assigning tasks, providing guidance on productivity and more effort, living a purposeful life, establishing effective (...) socio-economic institutions and assessing functional behaviours in organisational settings are accordingly among the ways in which RC induces economic behaviours. On the other hand, job engagement (JE) has been one of the relatively common concepts within the novel approaches to human resource management. Considering employment and the promotion of standard Islamic culture, how religion and JE are associated is thus of utmost importance. Hence, this study aimed to investigate the effect of RC on JE among 2500 Malaysian Muslim nurses working in Kuala Lumpur and Penang hospitals during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic in 2021, as the statistical population selected via random sampling. A standardised questionnaire was also administered as the data collection tool, whose validity and reliability were confirmed. The SPSS and LISREL software packages were further utilised to analyse the data. The study results revealed that RC had a significant positive effect on nurses’ JE in the course of COVID-19 (p = 0.83, t = 11.94).Contribution: The research findings suggest that reinforcing RC in Islamic societies, such as Malaysia, even during the COVID-19 pandemic, affects nurses’ sense of hope, faith and beliefs regarding their capabilities to achieve career success. (shrink)

The novel coronavirus (COVID-19) has imperatively shaken the behavior of the global financial markets. This study estimated the impact of COVID-19 on the behavior of the financial markets of Europe and the US. The results revealed that the returns of the S&P 500 index have been greatly affected by a lockdown in the US owing to COVID-19. However, the health crisis generated due to the novel coronavirus significantly decreased the stock returns of the Nasdaq Composite index. (...) The results also showed that the economic crisis generated from the pandemic in Spain has had more impact on the IBEX 35 as compared to the health crisis itself. On the other hand, in the long-run, Italy’s stock markets are more affected by the health crisis as contrasted with the economic crisis, while, in the short-run, both lockdown conditions and economic instability lower the stock returns of FTSE MIB. The UK stock markets witnessed that in the short-run, deficiency of health management systems imperatively damaged the stock returns of the London Stock Exchange. The investigation revealed that deficiency of health systems and lockdown conditions have imperatively damaged the structure of financial markets, inferring that sustainable development of these nations is at risk due to COVID-19. The study suggested that governments should allocate more of their budget to the health sector to overcome a health crisis in the future. (shrink)

The novel coronavirus of 2019 exposed, in an undeniable way, the severity of racial inequities in America’s healthcare system. As the urgency of the pandemic grew, administrators, clinicians, and ethicists became concerned with upholding the ethical principle of “most lives saved” by re-visiting crisis standards of care and triage protocols. Yet a colorblind, race-neutral approach to “most lives saved” is inherently inequitable because it reflects the normality and invisibility of ‘whiteness’ while simultaneously disregarding the burdens of ‘Blackness’. (...) As written, the crisis standards of care adopted by States are racist policies because they contribute to a history that treats Black Americans are inherently less than. This paper will unpack the idealized fairness and equity pursued by CSC, while also considering the use of modified Sequential Organ Failure Assessment as a measure of objective equality in the context of a healthcare system that is built on systemic racism and the potential dangers this can have on Black Americans with COVID-19. (shrink)

The novel coronavirus disease is impactful on all aspects of individuals’ lives, particularly mental health due to the fear and spirituality associated with the pandemic. Thus, purpose of this study was to identify the relationship among fear, spirituality, and mental health on COVID-19 among adults in Malaysia. This study also examines spirituality as a mediator in relationship between fear and mental health. The study involved around 280 adults in Malaysia. This research is a quantitative study. Data analysis (...) method has been used for data analysis. Based on descriptive analysis, mental health questionnaire indicated that 60.0% of them are at a poor level of mental health whereas 57.5% of respondents showed a moderate level of COVID-19 fear, and 60.4% of respondents owned moderate level of spiritual well-being. The results also demonstrated that respondents that have a high level of fear would have a high level of mental health; interestingly, those with a high level of spirituality will have a lower level of mental health. Findings indicated that spirituality significantly mediated the relationship between fear and mental health. This research will help to demonstrate how important spirituality values to control mental health to be more positive among adults in Malaysia. The main contributions of this study are to help come out with new intervention method for those who are mentally ill and need help. (shrink)

In 2019 a novel coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2, spread around the world and a global pandemic was declared early in 2020. Currently, the pandemic has still not been brought under control. Over time, many new words have seeped into ordinary language and old words have changed their meanings. In this article, I trace the semantic development of the word ‘endemic’ which spread from science discourse into political discourse and then into public discourse and became a euphemism. People are (...) told that they should now ‘live with’ the pandemic, a pandemic that is no longer dangerous, because it has turned endemic. This euphemistic use of ‘endemic’ has serious consequences for pandemic management and disease control, not only in countries like the UK, where the word has, indeed, become ‘endemic’, but around the world, as the word has the social function of concealing the circulation of the virus and normalising the spread of infection, even death. (shrink)

The novel coronavirus disease that emerged at the end of 2019 began threatening the health and lives of millions of people after a few weeks. However, social and economic problems derived from COVID-19 have changed the development of individuals and the whole country. This study examines the work conditions of Taiwanese versus mainland China employees, and evaluates the relationship between support mechanisms and subjective wellbeing from a social cognitive career theory perspective. In this study, a total of 623 (...) Taiwanese questionnaires and 513 mainland China questionnaires were collected to compare the two sample groups in terms of the development of employees’ subjective wellbeing. The results show that the Taiwanese sample had more significant development paths compared to mainland China employees in terms of prior knowledge, perceived organizational support, self-efficacy, employee employability, subjective wellbeing, and job performance. Finally, based on the conclusions, this study proposes some specific suggestions on theoretical mode for future studies. (shrink)

As face shields are dusted off and conferences go virtual again, Omicron reminds us how the once-novel coronavirus ruptured our collective idea of medical training. For nearly 2 years, social media...

The pandemic caused by the SARS-CoV2 novel coronavirus is creating a global crisis. There is a global ambience of uncertainty and anxiety. In addition, nations have imposed strict and restrictive public health measures including lockdowns. In this heightened time of vulnerability, public cooperation to preventive measures depends on trust and confidence in the health system. Trust is the optimistic acceptance of the vulnerability in the belief that the health system has best intentions. On the other hand, confidence (...) is assessed based on previous experiences with the health system. Trust and confidence in the health system motivate people to accept the public health interventions and cooperate with them. Building trust and confidence therefore becomes an ethical imperative. This article analyses the COVID-19 pandemic in the south Indian state of Tamil Nadu and the state’s response to this pandemic. Further, it applies the Trust-Confidence-Cooperation framework of risk management to analyse the influence of public trust and confidence on the Tamil Nadu health system in the context of the preventive strategies adopted by the state. Finally, the article proposes a six-pronged strategy to build trust and confidence in health system functions to improve cooperation to pandemic containment measures. (shrink)

The novel coronavirus is an infectious disease that spread across the world, bringing with it serious mental health problems for men and women. Women in Pakistan are infected with COVID-19 at a much lower rate than men, yet report worse mental health. To explain this paradox, we surveyed 190 participants shortly following the country lockdown, focusing on perceptions of the COVID-19 impact and positive adjustment. Measures used in this study included the Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Well-being Scale and Distress Tolerance (...) Scale. Factor analysis revealed five distinct areas related to COVID-19, which did not differ by sex. However, men reported higher levels of both distress tolerance and well-being than women. High endorsement of actions to protect against COVID-19 was related to lower distress tolerance scores, but in different ways for men and women. Men, but not women, who endorsed more protective measures to stop the pandemic reported higher DTS absorption scores, and therefore being more consumed by distress; women who endorsed more protective measures to stop the pandemic reported less acceptance of distress than men, as reflected in DTS appraisal scores. An in-depth analysis of women’s beliefs and behaviors related to COVID-19 is warranted to understand why Pakistani women who are infected with COVID-19 at lower rates than men show more mental health symptoms. (shrink)

The outbreak of the novel coronavirus disease and the efforts to contain the raging pandemic raise not only health, but also existential concerns. The present work sets out to examine how the pandemic impacts on the African socio-cultural life. The approach is analytical, phenomenological and above all conversational. For the African, the pandemic has two-pronged, positive and negative existential implications. On the one hand, the search for a possible cure and a vaccine for the (...) class='Hi'>novel coronavirus disease, when interpreted from the anthropological point of view, present an opportunity for cultural creativity in the areas of medicine and therapeutics. African traditional medicine as a cultural element is, here, referenced.On the other hand, it is discovered that the isolationist tendency of the pandemic, aggravated by another ‘virus of disinformation’ ─ an infodemics, threatens the social relations within the African world that is largely interdependent. The work argues that a fruitful utilization of the good cultural traits the pandemic brings can serve to boost the African self-confidence and cultural pride. The positive cultural traits that trail the pandemic can be absorbed to enrich the African culture whereas the negative traits should be jettisoned. Keywords: COVID-19 pandemic, African identity, equality, anthropology, medicine, and cultural pride. (shrink)

The sensible and conflicting scenario of the pandemic postulated many challenges to societies around the world in 2020. Part of this problem refers to how the differences between politics and science are not comprehended in their particularities. The recognition of limits and power of science and politics can not only contribute to reaching the actions and strategies facing novel coronavirus but also optimized many domains of society.

Background: The novel coronavirus disease 2019 posed an unprecedented threat to Chinese healthcare professionals. Nevertheless, few studies notably focused on the mental health conditions of nurses and explored protective factors to prevent posttraumatic stress and psychological distress. This study aimed to explore the prevalence and the predictive factors especially defensive predictors associated with posttraumatic stress and psychological distress in nurses during the COVID-19 pandemic.Methods: In this online study, 1,728 nurses were included in the final analysis. Posttraumatic stress (...) disorder checklist for Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 5th Edition and Self-Reporting Questionnaire was used to assess posttraumatic stress and psychological distress.Results: The results demonstrated that the prevalence of posttraumatic stress and psychological distress in nurses throughout China between February 1, 2020 and February 13, 2020 was 39.12 and 24.36%, respectively. Multivariate logistic regression indicated that insomnia, high panic intensity, and high impact of the COVID-19 pandemic were risk predictors of posttraumatic stress and psychological distress in nurses. Married participants had a 1.58 times increased risk of having posttraumatic stress when compared with the single participants. Frontline medical staff were more likely to suffer from psychological distress. The adequate exercise was a protective predictor of psychological distress [adjusted odds ratio = 0.655, 95% CI = 0.486–0.883], but not with posttraumatic stress. High-quality diet was a protective predictor of posttraumatic stress and psychological distress.Conclusions: Our study revealed the prevalence and factors associated with posttraumatic stress and psychological distress in nurses during the COVID-19 pandemic. Low panic intensity, low level of impact, satisfactory sleep, adequate exercise, and better diet were protective factors of posttraumatic stress and psychological distress. It indicated that the psychological status of nurses should be monitored, and protective factors associated with posttraumatic stress and psychological distress should be increased. (shrink)

The global spread of the novel coronavirus is affected by the spread of related misinformation—the so-called COVID-19 Infodemic—that makes populations more vulnerable to the disease through resistance to mitigation efforts. Here, we analyze the prevalence and diffusion of links to low-credibility content about the pandemic across two major social media platforms, Twitter and Facebook. We characterize cross-platform similarities and differences in popular sources, diffusion patterns, influencers, coordination, and automation. Comparing the two platforms, we find divergence among the (...) prevalence of popular low-credibility sources and suspicious videos. A minority of accounts and pages exert a strong influence on each platform. These misinformation “superspreaders” are often associated with the low-credibility sources and tend to be verified by the platforms. On both platforms, there is evidence of coordinated sharing of Infodemic content. The overt nature of this manipulation points to the need for societal-level solutions in addition to mitigation strategies within the platforms. However, we highlight limits imposed by inconsistent data-access policies on our capability to study harmful manipulations of information ecosystems. (shrink)

When faced with adverse circumstances, there may be a tendency for individuals, agencies, and governments to search for a target to assign blame. Our focus will be on the novel coronavirus outbreak, where racial groups, political parties, countries, and minorities have been blamed for spreading, producing or creating the virus. Blame—here defined as attributing causality, responsibility, intent, or foresight to someone/something for a fault or wrong—has already begun to damage modern society and medical practice in the context of (...) the COVID-19 outbreak. Evidence from past and current pandemics suggest that this tendency to seek blame affects international relations, promotes unwarranted devaluation of health professionals, and prompts a spike of racism and discrimination. By drawing on social and cognitive psychology theories, we provide a framework that helps to understand the effect of blame in pandemics, when people blame, whom they blame, and how blame detrimentally affects the COVID-19 response. Ultimately, we provide a path to inform health messaging to reduce blaming tendencies, based on social psychological principles for health communication. (shrink)

COVID‐19, caused by a novel coronavirus named SARS‐CoV‐2, was identified in December 2019, in Wuhan, China. It was first confirmed in sub‐Saharan Africa in Nigeria on 27 February 2020 and has since spread quickly to all sub‐Saharan African countries, causing more than 111,309 confirmed cases and 2,498 deaths as of 03 June 2020. The lessons learned during the recent Ebola virus disease (EVD) outbreaks in some sub‐Saharan African countries were expected to shape and influence the region’s responses to (...) COVID‐19 pandemic. However, some of the challenges associated with the management of the EVD outbreaks persist and create obstacles for the effective management of the COVID‐19 pandemic. This article describes the commonalities between the EVD epidemics and COVID‐19 pandemic, with a view to draw on lessons learned to effectively tackle the ongoing pandemic. Key successes, failures and lessons learned from previous EVD outbreaks are discussed. Recommendations on how these lessons can be translated to strengthen the COVID‐19 response in sub‐Saharan Africa are provided. (shrink)

Since the outbreak of the novel coronavirus disease at the beginning of December 2019, there have been more than 28.69 million cumulative confirmed cases worldwide as of 12th September 2020, affecting over 200 countries and regions with more than 920,463 deaths. The COVID-19 pandemic has been sweeping worldwide with unexpected rapidity. In this paper, a hybrid modelling strategy based on tessellation structure- configured SEIR model is adopted to estimate the scale of the pandemic spread. Building on (...) the data pertaining to the global pandemic transmission over the last six months around the world, key impact factors in the transmission and control procedure have been analysed, including isolation rate, number of the infected cases before taking prevention measures, degree of contact scope, and medical level, so as to capture the fundamental factor influencing the pandemic. The quantitative evaluation allowed us to illustrate the magnitude of risks of pandemic and to recommend appropriate national health policy of prevention measures for effectively controlling both intra- and interregional pandemic spread. Our modelling results clearly indicate that the early-stage preventive measures are the most effective action to be taken to contain the pandemic spread of the highly contagious nature of the COVID-19. (shrink)

In ‘Does zero-COVID neglect health disparities?’ we made the case that strict zero-COVID policies implemented during the coronavirus 2019 disease (COVID-19) pandemic raise health equity concerns so serious that these policies are not ethically sustainable.1 Zero-COVID, which has dominated many Pacific Rim societies, sets zero deaths from COVID-19 as a goal, and aims to reach it by forcefully containing transmission through short-term lockdowns, followed by stringent find, test, trace and isolate methods. Since the paper appeared in 2021, the (...) Omicron variant and subvariants took hold, making a strict zero goal unattainable and leading many countries to abandon it. Careful ethical analysis of zero-COVID’s impact remains crucially important, however, not only because the novel coronavirus continues to surprise us, but also to ensure lessons learnt from this pandemic are carried forward to future pandemics. In ‘Zero-COVID and health inequities’,2 Schaefer argues that it is possible to pursue zero-COVID yet offset any negative impacts on disadvantaged groups. Citing Singapore, where zero-COVID led to outbreaks in crowded and unsanitary migrant workers dormitories, Schaefer notes the government offset these effects, setting up less densely populated ‘quick build dormitories’ that caused daily case counts to drop, even while zero-COVID remained …. (shrink)

Pandemic ethics raises unresolved, fundamental, and controversial questions. The defining feature of a pandemic is its scale—the simultaneous threat to millions or even billions of lives. That scale creates and necessitates awful choices since the wellbeing and lives of all cannot be protected. Central to decisions are questions of the value of life, but also core human rights doctrines including the right to health, individual freedom and autonomy. Whether allocating limited supplies of ventilators, novel treatments, and vaccines (...) or making policies that restrict movement and freedom, which values are most important? How should risk and burden be distributed? Should society save the greatest number of lives or accept higher deaths for the sake of other ethical values? These questions touched the lives of billions during the COVID pandemic. However, children who were home-schooled during the coronavirus outbreak will almost certainly face another pandemic in their lifetime – one at least as bad, and potentially much worse than this one. In this volume, bioethicists Dominic Wilkinson and Julian Savulescu have gathered leading philosophers, lawyers, economists, and bioethicists to address the global response to the pandemic, questions of liberty, how to balance competing ethical values and considerations of equality and inequality. The book critically reviews the COVID-19 pandemic to identify key lessons for “Disease X”, the currently unknown but serious global threat that lies ahead. (shrink)

Currently whole world is facing immense crisis caused by the unprecedented pandemic coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). This pandemic with its unique features has raised distinct ethical issues and the whole scenario has altered according to its pressing novel features. This paper aims to analyze the emerging ethical issues raised by the recent worldwide pandemic outbreak of SARS-COV-2. I have differentiated and analyzed the unprecedented emerging ethical issues from three aspects. First, there are ethical issues which (...) arise due to the sudden imposition of preventive measures such as isolation, quarantine, and social distancing by public health authorities. It is indeed problematic to suddenly adopt the ‘new normal’ in our usual social life. Secondly, there are moral dilemmas which occur when physicians and health care workers try to maintain just allocation of the limited medications to treat large number of patients. Finally, the challenge of policy makers on the effective implementation of the policies that gain trust from people. Here, the role of administrative policy makers is to recognize the moral values in decision-making within the ethically challenging situations when the usual approved behaviors are dangerous to others. I analyze the importance of the virtue of solidarity, benevolence, honesty, and equity to deal with this crisis. (shrink)

The aim of the present study was to investigate relationships among epidemic risk perception, perceived stress, mental health, future time perspective, and confidence in society during the novel coronavirus disease pandemic in China. Especially, we wonder that whether perceived stress mediates associations between epidemic risk perception and mental health and that whether future time perspective and confidence in society moderate the link between perceived stress and mental health. This cross-sectional study was conducted among 693 Chinese adults aged (...) 18–60 years. The results showed that epidemic risk perception was positively related to perceived stress, depression, and anxiety. The correlations between epidemic risk perception and depression and anxiety were reduced when perceived stress was included, suggesting that perceived stress mediated these relationships. Moreover, the boundary conditions for the associations among perceived stress, depression, and anxiety were found in the study. Specifically, positive future time perspective could buffer the negative effects of perceived stress on depression, and confidence in society could weaken the negative effects of perceived stress on anxiety. Based on these findings, practical guidance and theoretical implications are provided for the public to maintain mental health during COVID-19 pandemic. Limitations and future directions are also discussed. (shrink)

Inspired by Said’s concept of exile, Camus’ 1947 novel The Plague, and testimonies from our students, this paper explores the striking similarities between experiences of exile and the COVID-19 pandemic. Both exile and the pandemic are seen as intrusive forces causing rupture and discontinuity in one’s life at the physical, psychological and socio-cultural levels. This paper demonstrates that for many Palestinians – including us and our students – the pandemic manifests what Freud termed ‘repetition compulsion’. That (...) is, many of our students interpret the detrimental and precarious impact of the pandemic as a complex form of exile, a nuanced understanding that blends a historical, communal memory of displacement with a present, universal crisis. This paper further explains that the themes of exile and displacement in Camus’ The Plague provide us and our students with a focal point to examine the striking, albeit anachronistic, similarities between the pandemic caused by Israeli occupation and the COVID-19 virus. This uncanny relationship between the pandemic and exile is further substantiated by the fact that the pandemic has provided cover, or at least distraction, for the escalation of oppressive political actions, thus deepening the entrenchment of a physical and psychological ‘exile’ for Palestinians. (shrink)

The novel pandemic called “Coronavirus Disease 2019”, as a global public health emergency and global threat, has affected many countries in unpredictable ways and impacted on physical activity behaviors to various extents. Specific populations including refugees, asylum seekers, and prisoners, are vulnerable groups with multiple complex health needs and worse health outcomes with respect to the general population worldwide and at high risk of death from the “Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome-related Coronavirus type 2”. Governments around the (...) world have been implementing preventive healthcare policies, including physical and social distancing, isolation, and confinement, to mitigate against the burden imposed by the COVID-19 outbreak. This pandemic period is characterized by reduced or lack of movement. During this period of lockdown, PA can represent an immunotherapy and a preventative approach to avoid the harmful effects of inactivity due to the pandemic. Moreover, PA could be prescribed to improve the immune system of specific populations, which particularly experience the condition of being confined. The present narrative review discusses the potential impacts of COVID-19 pandemic on these specific populations’ health status and the importance of performing PA/exercise to reduce the deleterious effects of COVID-19 pandemic. In addition, we aim to provide useful recommendations on PA/exercise for these specific populations to maintain their level of independence, physical, and mental health as well as their wellbeing. (shrink)

The role of a journal like HPLS during the novel coronavirus pandemic should serve as a means for scholars in different fields and professions to consider historically and critically what is happening as it unfolds. Surely it cannot tackle all the possible issues related to the pandemic, in particular to the COVID-19 pandemic, but it does have a responsibility to foster the best possible dialogue about the various issues related to the history and philosophy of (...) the life sciences, and thus to solicit contributions from potential authors working in different parts of the world and belonging to different cultural traditions. Only a real plurality of perspectives should allow for a better, large-scale comprehension of what the COVID-19 pandemic is. (shrink)

The novel coronavirus and its disease, COVID-19, have revealed how many health systems are ill equipped to respond to a population’s health needs. While the Catholic Church has nearly two thousand years of robust engagement in health care, it has been lacking in the realm of global public health. The Catholic Church’s health care ministries have been preoccupied with responding to illness by offering immediate relief to medical suffering. It is necessary to complement the focus on interpersonal healing (...) by transforming the social structures that perpetuate patterns of illness. By drawing on their social teachings, Catholic health care ministries offer a unique contribution to global public health. This paper will develop four contributions for global public health and analyze them in light of the COVID-19 pandemic. (shrink)

Few novel or emerging infectious diseases have posed such vital ethical challenges so quickly and dramatically as the novel coronavirus SARS‐CoV‐2. The World Health Organization declared a public health emergency of international concern and recently classified Covid‐19 as a worldwide pandemic. As of this writing, the epidemic has not yet peaked in the United States, but community transmission is widespread. President Trump declared a national emergency as fifty governors declared state emergencies. In the coming weeks, hospitals (...) will become overrun, stretched to their capacities. When the health system becomes stretched beyond capacity, how can we ethically allocate scarce health goods and services? How can we ensure that marginalized populations can access the care they need? What ethical duties do we owe to vulnerable people separated from their families and communities? And how do we ethically and legally balance public health with civil liberties? (shrink)