COVID-19 and the policy sciences: initial reactions and perspectives

Why do democracies respond differently to COVID-19? A comparison of the United States and South Korea

Background

COVID-19 has posed severe challenges to crisis management in democracies. Different democracies respond to the crisis differently. This article proposes an analytical framework to explain why democracies respond differently to the public health crisis and how different contextual factors affect crisis response in democracies.

Methods

By comparing COVID-19 responses in the US and South Korea, this article conducts a comparative case study with a most similar system design. The two countries have been selected as cases because they are both developed democracies with a robust healthcare system. However, different contextual factors in the two countries have created different crisis responses by shaping different crisis leadership and political and social solidarity. This study collected data from different sources, including government documents, official websites, leaders' speeches, research reports, academic articles and news media. We tried to enhance the reliability of the data by comparing different data sources.

Results

We found that individual, institutional and cultural dimensions of contextual factors can influence different crisis responses of democratic countries by shaping crisis leadership and political and social solidarity. On the individual and institutional dimensions, leadership style and governance structure shape crisis leadership (sense making, decision making and coordinating, and meaning making), which in turn influences crisis management. On the cultural dimension, political and social solidarity measured by political polarization and social cooperation are shaped by cultural and social norms.

Conclusion

Our findings indicate that democracies require strong crisis leadership and a high degree of political and social solidarity to tackle public health crises. A centralized and coordinated system, as well as a political elite leadership style shaped by rich crisis response experience, expertise and high sensitivity to crises are conducive to crisis management. Fostering a cultural and social norm that facilitates state-society collaboration can promote crisis management. These findings provide valuable insights for decision-makers to effectively respond to future pandemics.

Study on the logic and effectiveness of crisis learning in the promotion policy adjustment: an observation based on the adjustment of COVID-19 prevention policy in China

Background

As the impact of COVID-19 on normal production and living conditions diminishes, this serious emergency is come to an end. China's policy framework has facilitated positive adjustment over the past 3 years by timely modifying its emergency response to changes in viruses and epidemics. This paper aims to explore the logic of China's policy framework that promoted policy adjustment through crisis learning during COVID-19.

Methods

By gathering and classifying China's epidemic prevention policies throughout the past 3 years, integrating policy texts, and analyzing key events, this article examines the process of supporting policy adjustment through crisis learning in the policy system during COVID-19.

Results

The Chinese government's COVID-19 policy adjustment process can be divided into four stages, namely 'The period of stress response', 'The period of COVID-19 prevention and control', 'The period of regular prevention and control', and 'The period of overall adjustment'. The policy adjustments in each stage demonstrate the logic and effectiveness of crisis learning in the promotion policy adjustment. The study has determined that the motivational logic comprises three crucial elements: security requirements, accountability pressure, and reputation management. The institutional logic encompasses both the organizational and resourceful environments, and the institutional and cultural environment. Additionally, the behavioral logic of policy adaptation aligns with the strategy of crisis learning. Meanwhile, the logical framework of 'crisis learning-policy adjustment' can be verified using the Chinese government's policy adjustment in COVID-19 as an example.

Conclusion

Establishing an effective post-crisis learning system is crucial to improving the effectiveness of crisis response. There is a logical link between crisis learning and policy adjustment. The implementation of policy adjustment needs to be based on the results of crisis learning. Government departments are essential for crisis learning and policy adjustment.

What Can Public Health Administration Learn from the Decision-Making Processes during COVID-19?

Human decision-making is prone to biases and the use of heuristics that can result in making logical errors and erroneous causal connections, which were evident during COVID-19 policy developments and potentially contributed to the inadequate and costly responses to COVID-19. There are decision-making frameworks and tools that can improve organisational decision-making. It is currently unknown as to what extent public health administrations have been using these structured organisational-level decision-making processes to counter decision-making biases. Current reviews of COVID-19 policies could examine not just the content of policy decisions but also how decisions were made. We recommend that understanding whether these decision-making processes have been used in public health administration is key to policy reform and learning from the COVID-19 pandemic. This is a research and practice gap that has significant implications for a wide range of public health policy areas and potentially could have made a profound difference in COVID-19-related policy responses.

Conditions for health system resilience in the response to the COVID-19 pandemic in Mauritania

INTRODUCTION

A country's ability to manage a crisis depends on its level of resilience. Efforts are made to clarify the concept of health system resilience, but its operationalisation remains little studied. In the present research, we described the capacity of the local healthcare system in the Islamic Republic of Mauritania, in West Africa, to cope with the COVID-19 pandemic.

METHODS

We used a single case study with two health districts as units of analysis. A context analysis, a literature review and 33 semi-structured interviews were conducted. The data were analysed using a resilience conceptual framework.

RESULTS

The analysis indicates a certain capacity to manage the crisis, but significant gaps and challenges remain. The management of many uncertainties is largely dependent on the quality of the alignment of decision-makers at district level with the national level. Local management of COVID-19 in the context of Mauritania's fragile healthcare system has been skewed to awareness-raising and a surveillance system. Three other elements appear to be particularly important in building a resilient healthcare system: leadership capacity, community dynamics and the existence of a learning culture.

CONCLUSION

The COVID-19 pandemic has put a great deal of pressure on healthcare systems. Our study has shown the relevance of an in-depth contextual analysis to better identify the enabling environment and the capacities required to develop a certain level of resilience. The translation into practice of the skills required to build a resilient healthcare system remains to be further developed.

Predictors of mental health problems during the COVID-19 outbreak in Egypt in 2021

Background

With the widespread outbreak of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, many countries, including Egypt, have tried to restrict the virus by applying social distancing and precautionary measures. Understanding the impact of COVID-19-induced risks and social distancing measures on individuals' mental health will help mitigate the negative effects of crises by developing appropriate mental health services. This study aimed to investigate the most contributing factors that affected individuals' mental health and how individuals' mental health has changed over the lockdown period in Egypt in 2021.

Methods

The study draws on a nationally representative sample from the combined COVID-19 MENA Monitor Household Survey conducted by the Economic Research Forum. The data were collected in Egypt by phone over two waves in February 2021 and June 2021. The total number of respondents is 4,007 individuals. The target population is mobile phone owners aged 18-64 years. The 5-item World Health Organization Well-Being Index (WHO-5) is used to assess the individuals' mental health over the past 2 weeks during the pandemic. Penalized models (ridge and LASSO regressions) are used to identify the key drivers of mental health status during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Results

The mean value of mental health (MH) scores is 10.06 (95% CI: 9.90-10.23). The average MH score for men was significantly higher than for women by 0.87. Rural residents also had significantly higher MH scores than their urban counterparts (10.25 vs. 9.85). Middle-aged adults, the unemployed, and respondents in low-income households experienced the lowest MH scores (9.83, 9.29, and 9.23, respectively). Individuals' mental health has deteriorated due to the negative impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. Regression analysis demonstrated that experiencing food insecurity and a decrease in household income were independent influencing factors for individuals' mental health (p < 0.001). Furthermore, anxiety about economic status and worrying about contracting the virus had greater negative impacts on mental health scores (p < 0.001). In addition, women, middle-aged adults, urban residents, and those belonging to low-income households were at increased risk of poor mental health (p < 0.05).

Conclusion

The findings reveal the importance of providing mental health services to support these vulnerable groups during crises and activating social protection policies to protect their food security, incomes, and livelihoods. A gendered policy response to the pandemic is also required to address the mental pressures incurred by women.

The corona pandemic and participatory governance: Responding to the vulnerabilities of secondary school students in Europe

Adolescents in secondary schools have limited susceptibility to the SARS-COV-2 virus, but paradoxically are considered to be carrying the highest psychosocial burden during this pandemic. The aim of our European multi-country qualitative research was to investigate the COVID-19 crisis response in secondary schools and the role of national, regional, and local stakeholders in contributing to a participatory governance approach. We carried out 11 months of qualitative fieldwork, which included 90 respondents from the Netherlands, Ireland, and Finland for in-depth interviews and/or group discussions. Participant observation was conducted in four secondary schools to explore the interplay of day-to-day formal and informal practices of crisis governance. Our findings contribute to a better understanding of what efforts were made to facilitate participatory governance and where a bottom-up approach would have served useful in successfully implementing the COVID-19 mitigation strategies. Moreover, we show how these mitigation strategies have led to unintended consequences, such as students' difficulties with isolation and associated mental health problems, and the struggles of socialization when returning to a physical school environment. Our findings highlight the importance of the school environment in the socio-emotional developments of adolescents. We introduce the TAPIC-R model to analyze good governance, advancing the existing TAPIC model with an emphasis on the role of resilience in shaping participatory governance. We argue this is urgently needed during crises to strengthen engagement of the community, including vulnerable groups and achieve positive outcomes within and across policy structures and action domains.

Exploratory Descriptive Analysis of Smart Speaker Utilization in the Emergency Department During the COVID-19 Pandemic

BACKGROUND

In March 2020, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office for Civil Rights stated that they would use discretion when enforcing the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act regarding remote communication technologies that promoted telehealth delivery during the COVID-19 pandemic. This was in an effort to protect patients, clinicians, and staff. More recently, smart speakers-voice-activated, hands-free devices-are being proposed as productivity tools within hospitals.

OBJECTIVE

We aimed to characterize the novel use of smart speakers in the emergency department (ED).

METHODS

A retrospective observational study of Amazon Echo Show® utilization from May 2020 to October 2020 in a large academic Northeast health system ED. Voice commands and queries were classified as either patient care-related or non-patient care-related, and then further subcategorized to explore the content of given commands.

RESULTS

Of 1232 commands analyzed, 200 (16.23%) were determined to be patient care-related. Of these commands, 155 (77.5%) were clinical in nature (i.e., "drop in on triage") and 23 (11.5%) were environment-enhancing commands (i.e., "play calming sounds"). Among non-patient care-related commands, 644 (62.4%) were for entertainment. Among all commands, 804 (65.3%) were during night-shift hours, which was statistically significant (p < 0.001).

CONCLUSIONS

Smart speakers showed notable engagement, primarily being used for patient communication and entertainment. Future studies should examine content of patient care conversations using these devices, effects on frontline staff wellbeing, productivity, patient satisfaction, and even explore opportunities for "smart" hospital rooms.

What Do MBA Program in Southeast Asia Scholars Propose for Future COVID-19 Research in Academic Publications? A Topic Analysis Based on Autoencoder

To analyze the directions for future research suggested and to project future research plans, we extract relevant text from these publications with respect to COVID-19-related research based on 54,136 relevant academic journals published from the initial outbreak of COVID-19 in January 2020 until December 2020. First, we extract and preprocess the corpus and then determine that, according to the Elbow method, the optimal number of clusters is 7. Then, we construct a text clustering model based on an autoencoder, with the support of an artificial neural network. Distance measurements, such as correlation, cosine, Braycurtis, and Jaccard are compared, and the clustering results are evaluated with normal mutual information. The results show that cosine similarity has the best effect on clustering of COVID-19-related documents. A topic model analysis shows that the directions of future research can mainly be grouped into the following seven categories: infectivity testing, genome analysis, vaccine testing, diagnosis and infection characteristics, pandemic management, nursing care, and clinical testing. Among them, the topics of pandemic management, diagnosis and infection characteristics, and clinical testing trended upward in proportion to future directions. The topic of vaccine testing remains steady over the observation window, whereas other topics (infectivity testing, genome analysis, and nursing care) slowly trended downward. Among all the topics, medical research comprises 80%, and about 20% of the topics are related to public management, government functions, and economic development. This study enriches our scientific understanding of COVID-19 and helps us to effectively predict future scientific research output on COVID-19.

Unfolding and modeling the recovery process after COVID lockdowns

Lockdown is a common policy used to deter the spread of COVID-19. However, the question of how our society comes back to life after a lockdown remains an open one. Understanding how cities bounce back from lockdown is critical for promoting the global economy and preparing for future pandemics. Here, we propose a novel computational method based on electricity data to study the recovery process, and conduct a case study on the city of Hangzhou. With the designed Recovery Index, we find a variety of recovery patterns in main sectors. One of the main reasons for this difference is policy; therefore, we aim to answer the question of how policies can best facilitate the recovery of society. We first analyze how policy affects sectors and employ a change-point detection algorithm to provide a non-subjective approach to policy assessment. Furthermore, we design a model that can predict future recovery, allowing policies to be adjusted accordingly in advance. Specifically, we develop a deep neural network, TPG, to model recovery trends, which utilizes the graph structure learning to perceive influences between sectors. Simulation experiments using our model offer insights for policy-making: the government should prioritize supporting sectors that have greater influence on others and are influential on the whole economy.

The effects of COVID-19 stressors and family life on anxiety and depression one-year into the COVID-19 pandemic

The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of Coronavirus (COVID-19)-related stressors and family health on adult anxiety and depressive symptoms 1 year into the pandemic. The sample consisted of 442 adults living in the United States who were recruited via Amazon Mechanical Turk. Data were analyzed using multiple logistic regression. Results indicated that compared to a sample 1 month into the pandemic, participants in the current sample reported worse family health and increases in both positive and negative perceptions of the pandemic on family life and routines. COVID-19 stressors and perceived negative effects of the pandemic on family life increased the odds for moderate-to-severe depression and anxiety while having more family health resources decreased the odds for depression and anxiety symptoms. Participants reported lower odds for worse depression and anxiety since the beginning of the pandemic when they reported more positive family meaning due to the pandemic. The results suggest a need to consider the impact of family life on mental health in pandemics and other disasters.

Following the Science? Examining the Issuance of Stay-At-Home Orders Related to COVID-19 by U.S. Governors

Informed by the public health policymaking literature, this study's objective is to identify scientific, political, social, economic, and external factors related to U.S. governors' decisions to issue stay-at-home orders (SAHOs) in response to the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. Public health experts advocate for social distancing to slow the spread of infectious diseases, but government mandates to social distance can impose substantial social and economic costs. This study uses event history analysis to investigate the issuance of COVID-19-related gubernatorial SAHOs during a 41-day period in the 50 U.S. states. The findings indicate that scientific, political, and economic factors were associated with the issuance of SAHOs, but that external considerations played the largest role, particularly those related to the timing of other governors' decisions. This study offers evidence about how some U.S. political leaders balance public health concerns against other considerations and, more broadly, how state governments address crisis-level issues.

Using Punctuated Equilibrium Theory: Policy Momentum in Traditional Medicare Telehealth Reimbursement During COVID-19

This article seeks to understand the changes in federal health care policy that led to greater telehealth adoption during COVID-19 pandemic. For decades, telehealth was identified as a possibility for increasing health care access, but the policies needed for greater telehealth reimbursement were stalled until the public health emergency was declared. Applying the dynamic concepts within punctuated equilibrium theory (PET) model to traditional fee-for-service Medicare policy, the influential factors are identified and specify how policy change occurred as a response to the pandemic, resulting in swift and large-scale changes in Medicare telehealth reimbursement requirements and widespread telehealth adoption. The model also explains how the same forces that led to Medicare policy response are at work to maintain and broaden or contract and limit the future of telehealth reimbursement as the public health emergency recedes.

Harnessing the Power of Words to Address the COVID-19 Crisis

Behavioral public administration theory suggests that seemingly irrelevant word choice manipulations can influence behavior. We contend that the power of words has frequently been overlooked in the COVID-19 crisis. Given that most decisions mobilize System 1 cognition, words can be an important tool in pursuing socially-desirable outcomes. Beyond their substantive content, words choice matters because language operates largely via automatic processes. Based on findings from this literature, words can be harnessed to induce behavioral change aligned with public health objectives. We elucidate several mechanisms through which these effects are likely to occur and suggests concrete applications to the COVID-19 crisis.

Consequences of the Early Phase of the COVID-19 Pandemic for Home-Healthcare Recipients in Norway: A Nursing Perspective

Municipal home-healthcare services are becoming increasingly important as growing numbers of people are receiving healthcare services in their home. The COVID-19 pandemic represented a challenge for this group, both in terms of care providers being restricted in performing their duties and care receivers declining services for fear of being infected. Furthermore, preparedness plans were not always in place. The purpose of this study is to investigate the consequences for recipients of home healthcare in Norway of the actual level of COVID-19 infection spread in the local population, as observed by licensed nurses working in home-healthcare services. Approximately 2100 nurses answered the survey. The most common adverse consequences for home-healthcare recipients were increased isolation and loneliness, increased health concerns, and the loss of respite care services. An increased burden for relatives/next of kin and fewer physical meetings with service providers were frequently observed and reported as well. This study shows that there were more adverse consequences for service users in municipalities with higher levels of contagion than in those with lower levels of contagion. This indicates that the municipalities adapted measures to the local rate of contagion, in line with local municipal preparedness strategies.

How has the sustainability of countries changed after COVID-19? Evidence from the pandemics' first year

The Covid-19 crisis has caused several social-related issues; the sanitary is, perhaps, the most significant one. Lockdowns and vaccination were implemented to fight the Covid-19 virus. From a sustainability perspective, Covid-19 has been considered a meaningful crisis driver that has affected nations' economies and social and natural capitals. The literature presents clues that effects appear to be different among countries. Recognizing its importance as public policies for sustainability, this study aims to assess how the sustainability of countries has changed after Covid-19, focusing on countries' economic power that reflects their capacity to face the crisis. A sample of 89 countries is considered, and 2019-2020 are set as base years for data gathering, which covers the first year of the Covid-19 crisis. Sustainability is conceptually supported and represented by a 3-D cube. The natural environment is expressed by the ecological footprint (EF) method, the economic capital by the gross domestic product (GDP), and the social capital by the happiness index. Results show that sustainability of economies was negatively affected after first year of Covid-19 crisis, but in different magnitudes, according to nations' economic power. While the sustainability of the wealthiest economies was slightly changed during 2019-2020 but maintained within the named 'useful-order' world (environmentally unsustainable, productive, and happy), the poorest economies pushed about 169 million people into the worst performance, reaching the 'ineffective' world (environmentally unsustainable, unproductive, and unhappy). Numbers highlight the inequalities of sustainability performance among countries, according to their capacity to face the Covid-19 crisis. The shield of the richest evaluated countries comprising 5 % of the world population is more powerful than the shield of the poorest evaluated countries carrying 67 % of the world population. Results claims for efforts to make different policies and provide economic support differently for countries, since although we are all under the same storm, but in different boats.

Influence on emergency digit replantation and outcome assessment after COVID-19 virus nucleic acid testing normalization

Objective

The study aims to compare the implementation and prognosis of emergency digit replantation surgery before and after normalized corona virus disease 2019 (COVID-19) nucleic acid testing for patients taking emergency operation and to explore the influence of normalized COVID-19 nucleic acid testing on replantation surgery.

Method

Normalized COVID-19 nucleic acid testing for patients taking emergency operation has been carried out since 1 August 2021 at our hospital, which means each patient who needs emergency surgical treatment has to obtain either positive or negative results of COVID-19 nucleic acid before entering the operating room. This research reviewed and compared the prognosis of the injured extremity that had emergency severed digit replantation between June and September 2021, at the Shanghai Sixth People's Hospital Affiliated to Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, and analyzed the impact of normalized COVID-19 nucleic acid testing on the outcome of the replanted fingers of different severity using disability of arm-shoulder-hand (DASH) and hand injury severity scoring (HISS) scoring systems.

Results

A total of 54 cases with 74 severed replanted phalanges were included replanted by the research group between 1 August and 30 September 2021, without any COVID-19 suspected/confirmed case detected. Compared with previous period (1 June to 31 July, 2021), although the interval between emergency visits and emergency replantation did increase significantly after normalized COVID-19 nucleic acid testing [(3.83 ± 0.94) to (1.77 ± 0.67) h, P < 0.05], we observed no significant difference in the improvement rate of the DASH scoring of the disabled upper extremity 3-month postoperatively (P = 0.538) nor in the complication rate (P = 0.344). Moreover, there was no significant difference in the improvement rate of the DASH scoring of the disabled upper extremity 3-month postoperatively in patients with different traumatic severities before and after normalized COVID-19 nucleic acid testing (moderate P = 0.269, severe P = 0.055, major P = 0.149).

Conclusion

Despite the preoperative delay, the policy of COVID-19 nucleic acid testing normalization does not have explicit influence on the short-term outcomes of emergency digit replantation surgery. With this evidence, microsurgeons could pay attention to the patients' anxiety and spend more effort in comforting them during the prolonged preoperative wait. These insights may have implications for other emergency department resource management whenever a social crisis occurs.

Health communication needs for COVID-19 prevention and control among college students

Objectives: During the early COVID-19 pandemic, college students had to switch to an online learning and online communication environment facing the chances of information overload, misinformation or conflicting information about COVID-19. This study aims to assess the communication needs that have arisen among college students to shed light on the development of a health communication campaign tailored toward college students. Methods: A series of 10 focus group discussions were conducted with 38 total participants. Each group has 2-6 undergraduate or graduate student participants. Nvivo was used to analyze the transcripts. Results: The students reported that they received conflicting information or misinformation. They requested messages with language that was easy to understand with infographics while being culturally appropriate. They advocated for regular and concise email updates from campus leadership. Most participants also preferred COVID-19 control and prevention information on social media. Conclusion: This study revealed the current status and the needs for health information about COVID-19 prevention and control among college students.

Predictors of Mental Health Help-Seeking During COVID-19: Social Support, Emotion Regulation, and Mental Health Symptoms

Little is known about factors that contribute to mental health help-seeking during disasters beyond attitudes toward counseling. The COVID-19 (SARS-CoV-2) global pandemic dramatically impacted individuals, families, and communities worldwide. The pandemic led to significant disruptions to family routines, and evidence suggests an increase in instances of mental health symptoms, like depression and anxiety, and poor utilization of mental health services. To better understand psychological factors associated with help-seeking during the COVID-19 pandemic, researchers surveyed respondents (n = 1,533 at time 1) about their mental health and help-seeking using Amazon's MTurk platform. The results indicated that individuals with higher levels of anxiety rate their likelihood of help-seeking as higher and those who do seek psychological help report higher levels of depression. Further, those who began new treatment for behavioral health difficulties during the COVID-19 pandemic reported lower social support and less clarity about how they felt (specifically, emotional clarity when upset). Implications for clinical researchers and public health are discussed.

Municipal Pathways in Response to COVID-19: A Strategic Management Perspective on Local Public Administration Resilience

This paper aims to understand the different resilience pathways local governments may take during moments of crisis, specifically focusing on the COVID-19 pandemic. Through survey responses from local administrations in Wallonia, Belgium, we consider how varied contexts led to different strategic resilience pathways. These pathways range from static (i.e., no strategy) to innovative change. Our findings highlight that digital technology solutions may play a role in supporting resilience across the different pathways. Therefore, we adapt strategic public management literature to suggest propositions for future research to test the specific role that digital technologies play in supporting resilience within local administrations.

Impact of social and cultural factors on incidence, transmission and control of Coronavirus disease in Iran: a qualitative study

INTRODUCTION

COVID-19 pandemic has had mixed reactions from nations, people and governments about ways to cope with, prevent and control the disease. The current study identifies social, cultural and policy factors affecting the incidence and control of Coronavirus disease in Iran.

METHODS

A qualitative study consists of content analysis as well as the views of 20 experienced and knowledgeable subjects specialized in social and cultural health management. The data were gathered using three semi-structured interviews and then continued by 17 semi-structured interviews. Data analysis was done using Graneheim approach. After each interview, the recorded audio files transcript and reviewed. Then codes extracted and divided to categories and sub-categories.

RESULTS

There are distinct social and cultural factors in coping with Coronavirus disease. These consisted of three categories of governance, individual and community related factors. A total of 17 subcategories and 215 primary codes that were extracted from the text of interviews as variables of the study and in relation to the research question. Ten subdomains of governance including vaccination, political issues, knowledge, support services, administrative services, transportation, health and treatment, culturalization, legislation and, managerial and financial policies impacted the spread and mitigation of the pandemic at various levels.

CONCLUSION

The management of pandemics requires a comprehensive capacity for identifying and determining social and cultural criteria. A healthy partnership between governments and the community may be required to remove unnecessary obstacles that hinder public health attempt to alleviate the risk. The obtained criteria and indicators from this study may be utilized by policy makers in an attempt to strengthen protocols for mitigating pandemics. Further studies may be warranted to confirm these findings.

Spatial governance for COVID-19 prevention and control in China's development zones

Mandatory policy networks are an important collaborative governance model for crisis response. To reveal the operation and effectiveness of public sector-led crisis governance at the development zone level, this study draws on collaborative governance theory to develop a theoretical framework that reveals the external constraints, collaborative dynamics, collaborative actions, and collaborative outcomes of crisis governance in development zones. Based on qualitative research methods, this study analyzes pandemic prevention policy documents issued during the pandemic by China's national economic and technological development zones and their localities to reflect the complete process of governance. The findings indicate that a mandatory policy network, guided by a local governance framework, facilitated the rapid achievement of collaboration in development zones in responding to the crisis. Top-down leadership developed over time in the public sector, and the responsiveness and innovation of enterprises and social organizations played an important role in collaborative governance. Wins at each stage of the governance process are necessary for the continuation of collaborative actions and can drive the adaptation of a collaborative approach in development zones.

Pathways to policy integration: a subsystem approach

Researchers in public policy and public administration agree that policy integration is a process. Nevertheless, scholars have given limited attention to political aspects that facilitate or impede integration. This paper aims at filling that gap, by looking at how different theories of the policy process can help in explaining the process of policy integration as shaped by policy subsystems. By building on insights from theories of the policy process, we develop pathways regarding adoption and implementation in policy integration that account for the politicization and the role of actors and subsystems in the policy process. Our main argument is that policy integration is in permanent political tension with the sectoral logic of policymaking, which predominantly happens between actors in subsystems. Policy integration is, thus, not a single moment when those tensions are solved once and for all, but a political process that requires deliberate efforts to overcome the pull toward sector-specific problem definition, policymaking, implementation, and evaluation.

What predicts people’s belief in COVID-19 misinformation? A retrospective study using a nationwide online survey among adults residing in the United States

Background

Tackling infodemics with flooding misinformation is key to managing the COVID-19 pandemic. Yet only a few studies have attempted to understand the characteristics of the people who believe in misinformation.

Methods

Data was used from an online survey that was administered in April 2020 to 6518 English-speaking adult participants in the United States. We created binary variables to represent four misinformation categories related to COVID-19: general COVID-19-related, vaccine/anti-vaccine, COVID-19 as an act of bioterrorism, and mode of transmission. Using binary logistic regression and the LASSO regularization, we then identified the important predictors of belief in each type of misinformation. Nested vector bootstrapping approach was used to estimate the standard error of the LASSO coefficients.

Results

About 30% of our sample reported believing in at least one type of COVID-19-related misinformation. Belief in one type of misinformation was not strongly associated with belief in other types. We also identified 58 demographic and socioeconomic factors that predicted people’s susceptibility to at least one type of COVID-19 misinformation. Different groups, characterized by distinct sets of predictors, were susceptible to different types of misinformation. There were 25 predictors for general COVID-19 misinformation, 42 for COVID-19 vaccine, 36 for COVID-19 as an act of bioterrorism, and 27 for mode of COVID-transmission.

Conclusion

Our findings confirm the existence of groups with unique characteristics that believe in different types of COVID-19 misinformation. Findings are readily applicable by policymakers to inform careful targeting of misinformation mitigation strategies.

Count on trust: the indirect effect of trust in government on policy compliance with health behavior instructions

Trust in government is considered a prominent factor for enhancing public compliance with government policies and instructions. The Coronavirus pandemic demonstrates the crucial role public compliance with governmentally issued health guidelines has in mitigating the pandemic. However, the mechanism explaining the trust-compliance association, particularly in regard to health-behavior compliance, is unclear. This article develops a new theoretical model, the Mediated Trust Model (MTM), for explaining the relationship between trust in government and public compliance with health instructions. The model extends the classic Health Belief Model for predicting health behavior by claiming that the perceptions regarding the instructions' costs, benefits and one's ability to perform them are affected by trust in government and mediate the trust-compliance association. The MTM was tested in four cross-sectional studies performed during the first 20 months of the Coronavirus pandemic in Israel on 3732 participants, for various health instructions. Implications for public health literature, policy compliance theory and policy makers are discussed.

Rohingya refugees in the pandemic: Crisis and policy responses

The purpose of this article is to demonstrate how a lack of policy attention has exacerbated the extreme circumstances faced by the Rohingya and how they can contribute to deterioration of their health, livelihood, and education, as well as their repatriation to their homeland. This article is based on data collected from field observations and interviews prior to and during the pandemic. This study confirms that the Rohingya refugee populations endure a higher level of suffering from lack of food security and livelihood, lack of basic amenities and financial resources, and accommodation is overcrowded compared with the pre-pandemic period. The lack of a specific policy for the Rohingya has compounded the current situation in Bangladesh. This research is crucial for countries receiving refugees as well as the countries from which they flee and other actors.

Topic modeling and sentiment analysis of Chinese people’s attitudes toward volunteerism amid the COVID-19 pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic has created an urgent need for volunteers to complement overwhelmed public health systems. This study aims to explore Chinese people’s attitudes toward volunteerism amid the COVID-19 pandemic. To this end, we identify the latent topics in volunteerism-related microblogs on Weibo, the Chinese equivalent of Twitter using the topic modeling analysis via Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA). To further investigate the public sentiment toward the topics generated by LDA, we also conducted sentiment analysis on the sample posts using the open-source natural language processing (NLP) technique from Baidu. Through an in-depth analysis of 91,933 Weibo posts, this study captures 10 topics that are, in turn, distributed into five factors associated with volunteerism in China as motive fulfillment (n = 31,661, 34.44%), fear of COVID-19 (n = 22,597, 24.58%), individual characteristic (n = 17,688, 19.24%), government support (n = 15,482, 16.84%), and community effect (n = 4,505, 4.90%). The results show that motive fulfillment, government support, and community effect are the factors that could enhance positive attitudes toward volunteerism since the topics related to these factors report high proportions of positive emotion. Fear of COVID-19 and individual characteristic are the factors inducing negative sentiment toward volunteerism as the topics related to these factors show relatively high proportions of negative emotion. The provision of tailored strategies based on the factors could potentially enhance Chinese people’s willingness to participate in volunteer activities during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Public health communication in Canada during the COVID-19 pandemic

OBJECTIVES

Communication is central to the implementation and effectiveness of public health measures. Informed by theories of good governance, COVID-19 pandemic public health messaging in 3 Canadian provinces is assessed for its potential to encourage or undermine public trust and adherence.

METHODS

This study employed a mixed-methods constant comparative approach to triangulate epidemiological COVID-19 data and qualitative data from news releases, press briefings, and key informant interviews. Communications were analyzed from January 2020 to October 2021 in Nova Scotia, Ontario, and Alberta. Interview data came from 34 semi-structured key informant interviews with public health actors across Canada. Team-based coding and thematic analysis were conducted to analyze communications and interview transcripts.

RESULTS

Four main themes emerged as integral to good communication: transparency, promptness, clarity, and engagement of diverse communities. Our data indicate that a lack of transparency surrounding evidence and public health decision-making, delays in public health communications, unclear and inconsistent terminology and activities within and across jurisdictions, and communications that did not consider or engage diverse communities' perspectives may have decreased the effectiveness of public health communications and adherence to public health measures throughout the COVID-19 pandemic.

CONCLUSION

This study suggests that increased federal guidance with wider jurisdictional collaboration backed by transparent evidence could improve the effectiveness of communication practices by instilling public trust and adherence with public health measures. Effective communication should be transparent, supported by reliable evidence, prompt, clear, consistent, and sensitive to diverse values. Improved communication training, established engagement infrastructure, and increased collaborations and diversity of decision-makers and communicators are recommended.

The Impact of China's Legal System on Public Health and Quality of Life during the COVID-19 Pandemic: An Empirical Study

(1) Background: During the COVID-19 pandemic, the methods used to ensure the quality of public health and life changed. This study used empirical research methods to analyze the development of China's legal system during the COVID-19 pandemic and its impact on the quality of public health and life and to clarify its importance in ensuring the quality of public health and life. (2) Materials and Methods: This study analyzed the development of China's rule of law system during the COVID-19 pandemic by using two authoritative databases, the Peking University Magic Key Database and the China Judicial Documents Network, and examined the scope of public health and quality of life under this system. (3) Results: During the COVID-19 pandemic, China's rule of law system, with the main objective of controlling the pandemic, developed rapidly, effectively ensuring the quality of public health and life in different areas. As part of this system, the administrative activities of government departments played a key role. (4) Conclusions: During the period of the COVID-19 pandemic, China's legal system protected the quality of public health and life from the impact of the pandemic in many areas. Meanwhile, along with the important role of government administrative law enforcement activities in the prevention and control of a pandemic, the quality of public health and life should also be protected against illegal administrative acts in the future.

The Effect of Governmental Health Measures on Public Behaviour During the COVID-19 Pandemic Outbreak

BACKGROUND

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic resulted in radical changes in many aspects of life. To deal with this, each country has implemented continuous health measures from the beginning of the outbreak. Discovering how governmental actions impacted public behaviour during the outbreak stage is the purpose of this study.

METHODS

This study uses a hybrid large-scale data visualisation method to analyse public behaviour (epidemic concerns, self-protection, and mobility trends), using the data provided by multiple authorities. Meanwhile, a content analysis method is used to qualitatively code the health measures of three countries with severe early epidemic outbreaks from different continents, namely China, Italy, and the United States. Eight dimensions are coded to rate the mobility restrictions implemented in the above countries.

RESULTS

(1) Governmental measures did not immediately persuade the public to change their behaviours during the COVID-19 epidemic. Instead, the public behaviour proceeded in a three-phase rule, which is typically witnessed in an epidemic outbreak, namely the wait-and-see phase, the surge phase and the slow-release phase. (2) The strictness of the mobility restrictions of the three countries can be ranked as follows: Hubei Province in China (with an average score of 8.5 out of 10), Lombardy in Italy (7.125), and New York State in the United States (5.375). Strict mobility restrictions are more likely to cause a surge of population outflow from the epidemic area in the short term, whereas the effect of mobility restrictions is positively related to the stringency of policies in the long term.

CONCLUSION

The public showed generally lawful behaviour during regional epidemic outbreaks and blockades. Meanwhile public behaviour was deeply affected by the actions of local governments, rather than the global pandemic situation. The contextual differences between the various countries are important factors that influence the effects of the different governments' health measures.

Stakeholders analysis of COVID-19 management and control: a case of Iran

Background

The COVID-19 pandemic is a multi-faceted phenomenon with many political, economic and social consequences. Success in managing and controlling this pandemic depends on the coordinated efforts of many organizations and institutions. Therefore, this study aimed to identify and analyze the actors and stakeholders related to managing and controlling this pandemic in Iran.

Methods

This mix-method stakeholder analysis was conducted in 2021 nationwide as retrospectively. The purposive sampling method was applied when inviting eligible participants to participate in the study. Our study was conducted in two phases. In the qualitative phase, data were collected using a semi-structured interview. An interview guide was developed based on the WHO stakeholder analysis framework. In the quantitative phase, we used a questionnaire developed based on the study framework. Each question was scored on a 5-point Likert scale, with a score greater than 4 was considered as high, 3–4 was considered as moderate, and 1–3 was considered as low. Data were analyzed using framework analysis, WHO stakeholders’ analysis framework and MENDELOW matrix. MAXQDA qualitative data analysis software Version 11 and Policy Maker software (Version. 4) were used for data analysis.

Results

A total of 48 stakeholders were identified. Ministry of Health (MoH), National Headquarters for Coronavirus Control (NHCC) had the highest participation level, high supportive position, and knowledge of the subject. The Parliament of Iran (PoI), Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), and Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB) had the highest power/influence during the Covid-19 epidemic. Only two stakeholders (6.06%) had high participation, and 18.18% had moderate participation. All stakeholders except for the NHCC and the MoH lacked appropriate knowledge of the subject. Furthermore, only three stakeholders (9.09%) had high power/influence.

Conclusion

Given the multidimensional nature of Covid-19, most institutions and organizations were involved in managing this pandemic. Stakeholders with high power/authority and resources had a low/moderate participation level and a moderate supportive position. Moreover, organizations with a high supportive position and participation had low power/authority and resources to cope with COVID-19.

Supplementary Information

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12889-022-14219-0.

COVID19 in Latin America: informal settlements and the politics of urbicide

Informal settlements in Latin America express pandemic idiosyncrasies, calling global attention to historical problems related to a specific urbanization pattern. This article stresses COVID19 implications in the main urban planning canon: the notion of densification as an urban solution. Traditionally invisible social groups and territories acquire relevance, but now as a source of biological risk. Urban density appears as a contradictory trigger point, outlining new debates about informal settlements and their metrics. Evidence shows that trends in health discourse are striving to legitimize and enhance "urbicides" in this scenario, already underway through State action or inaction.

The impact of accountability on local officials' behavior in the pandemic prevention and control in China based on utility maximization

Background

The COVID-19 pandemic is a public health crisis and an inspection of national governance systems and crisis response capabilities of countries globally. China has adopted a tough accountability system for officials and has succeeded in containing the spread of the pandemic. This study aimed to assess the impact of accountability on local officials’ behavior in the pandemic prevention and control based on the official promotion tournament theory and utility maximization analysis framework.

Methods

The panel data of 237 Chinese cities were extracted with local officials’ characteristics, confirmed cases, Baidu migration index, Baidu search index according to city names, and data were excluded with local officials’ relocation or sub-provincial cities between January 1, 2020 and May 5, 2020. Promotion gain and accountability cost were constructed by adopting promotion speed indicator, and the research hypotheses were assumed based on the utility maximization. It was the first time to apply the interaction model to empirically investigate the relationship between the promotion speed of local officials and the COVID-19 confirmed cases.

Results

Our study showed that the promotion speed of provincial governors and mayors significantly affected the number of confirmed cases (β = − 11.615, P < 0.01). There was a significant interaction between the promotion speeds of provincial governors and mayors (β = − 2594.1, P < 0.01), indicating that they had a coordinated effect on the pandemic control. Additionally, mayors with different promotion speeds made a significant difference in controlling the imported cases and those who promoted faster better controlled the imported cases (β = − 0.841, P < 0.01). Mayors with full-time postgraduate education, titles, and majors in science and engineering had a better effect on controlling the number of confirmed cases.

Conclusions

Our study provides evidence that the official accountability system has played an important role in containing the pandemic, which suggests that local officials motivated by the accountability system would respond to the pandemic actively for higher utility. Furthermore, provincial governors and mayors have played a coordinated effect in pandemic control. The above evidences reveal that implementing the official accountability system could improve the government’s emergency management capability and the efficiency of pandemic control. Therefore, adopting a strict accountability system could be effective in pandemic containment globally, especially in centralized countries.

A Review of Challenges and Approaches to Effective Medical Solid Waste Management During the COVID-19 Pandemic in India

With the emergence of the Covid-19 pandemic, medical solid waste management became a crucial element to control the spread of the virus. Lack of manpower, infrastructure, and knowledge have jeopardised the waste management system in India. In this respect, the present study intends to recollect and discusses the policies and guidelines of solid waste management by outlining the challenges associated with its implementation. The study adopted a review approach, where a collective appraisal and analysis of prior research, reports, lead to the evaluation of the present situation and advocated remedial measures. The study discussed measures recommended by various international organisations for effective medical waste management to deal with the present situation, as well as to eliminate and confront similar challenges in the event of future probable epidemics. Moreover, the study is a guide to the policymakers, regulatory authorities and the community for efficient medical waste management during and post-pandemic days.

Doing ageing research in pandemic times: a reflexive approach towards research ethics during the COVID-19 pandemic

The outbreak of COVID-19 has had a significant impact on societies and individual lives across the globe. In this paper, we address the impact of the pandemic and the protective measures on empirical social scientific ageing research through the lens of ‘ethically important moments’. One of the most crucial measures for preventing the spread of the virus includes social distancing; therefore, empirical research methods based on person-to-person direct contact (as in interviews) and first-hand observation have been scaled back since 2020. For ageing research, the challenges are particularly pronounced due to the ongoing discussion regarding vulnerabilities associated with higher age and age-based discrimination. Hence, many researchers focusing on ageing are facing some difficult questions: How and under what conditions can we carry on with empirical research without putting our research participants and ourselves at risk? Firstly, we systematically identify the key dimensions and challenges that have shaped social scientific research during the lockdowns associated with the COVID-19 pandemic: fragmentation, fluidity, ambiguity and uncertainty. Then, using insights from two international research projects, we illustrate and critically reflect on the ethically important moments and practical dilemmas that have resulted from these pandemic challenges when researching with and about older adults.

Analyzing the Characteristics of Policies and Political Institutions for the Prevention and Control Governance of the COVID-19 Pandemic: Evidence from China

This study explores the institutional reasons for and logical mechanism of the Chinese government's rapid positive results and major strategic achievements in coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic prevention and control. Based on the ROST Content Mining System version 6.0 (ROST) and VOSviewer V1.6.1 (VOSviewer), we conduct an econometric visualization analysis of COVID-19 pandemic prevention and control policies to explore which strengths of Chinese political institutions have been brought into play by the Chinese government and how to systematically analyze the approaches by which these strengths support effective public governance. The findings show that: (1) "institutional strength", "medical terminology", "policy content", "policy implementation object", "policy implementation requirement", and "policy-making and implementation actor" are the six groups of high-frequency keywords in prevention and control policies. (2) The occurrences, links, and total link strength of the seven Chinese institutional strength keywords are very high. These results mean that the Chinese government has made full use of its institutional strengths to prevent and control COVID-19. These findings indicate that institutional strengths are critical to public health crisis prevention and control. They also illustrate that institutional strength is the prerequisite and key factor for achieving effective governance in the policy process. Scientific policymaking, efficient policy implementation, and strict oversight are undeniably necessary for effective governance during public health crises.

Systematic review on ensuring the global food security and covid-19 pandemic resilient food systems: towards accomplishing sustainable development goals targets

Covid-19, one of the most critical and widespread global pandemics, has resulted in extraordinary risk corollaries engulfing millions of people's lives and has caused an unprecedented economic downturn while amplifying food insecurity. A systematic review of 132 scientific communications was performed over a 15-year period, using articles from the ScienceDirect and Web of Science databases (2006-2021). In addition, 24 policy briefs, country papers, and publications from the UN, WHO, FAO, and OECD were cited. The aim of this paper is to provide a comprehensive review of existing literature on the adverse effects of the Covid-19 pandemic on agricultural food systems, as well as potential strategies for building robust, resilient, and sustainable food systems to ensure global food security, safety, and endeavors regarding future global emergencies, as well as new research policies while achieving SDG targets. This would fill a research gap while also having long-term implications for health, agricultural, and food resilience policy development in a rapidly changing world. Covid-19 demonstrates how human, animal, and environmental health are all interconnected, emphasizing the need for one health legislation and a paradigm shift in planetary health. Furthermore, it identifies potential mechanisms for rebuilding better systems by shifting priorities toward policy coherence, innovative food system governance, re-engineering market access, and nexus thinking in the food system approach. According to our findings, the COVID-19 posed unavoidable impediments to achieving SDG targets for food security and household poverty.

Graphical abstract

Telemedicine in Neurosurgical Trauma during the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Single-Center Experience

Telemedicine is a rapid tool that reduces the time until treatment for patients, which is especially useful for neurosurgical trauma. The aim of our study was to evaluate the use of telemedicine in neurosurgery during the COVID-19 pandemic compared with the pre-pandemic era. We assessed the utilization of telemedicine at the Department of Neurosurgery at University Hospital Center Osijek in Croatia over a timespan of one year prior to the COVID-19 pandemic and the first year of the pandemic, starting with the date of first lockdown in Croatia. For each time period, the total number of consults and specific clinical inquiries were recorded and adequately grouped as well as comprehensive patient characteristics. There were 336 consults in the pre-pandemic period and 504 in the pandemic period. The number of trauma-related consults during COVID-19 measures was significantly higher than the pre-pandemic era (288 and 138, respectively, p < 0.0001). Neurosurgical trauma patients requiring consults in the pandemic period were significantly older than before the pandemic (64.9 ± 18.5 and 60.6 ± 19.1, respectively, p = 0.03). Significantly, the number of admissions to our center and urgent surgeries did not significantly differ between these periods. Telemedicine is a cost-effective tool in the neurosurgical evaluation of patients, especially for trauma. The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated telemedicine implementation and improved neurosurgical trauma treatments.

COVID-19 pandemic disruptions to working lives: A multilevel examination of impacts across career stages

Since early 2020 the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted societies worldwide. As we moved from expecting the closure of society to be a short-term one to experiencing it as a longer-term phenomenon, we lacked understanding about how the pandemic has affected the working lives and wellbeing of employees in different life and career stages. Drawing from lifespan development approaches and Job Demands-Resources (JD-R), we considered the effect this profound disruption had on stress, burnout, and job satisfaction across career stages over time. We took a multi-level approach to the analysis of three waves of data. Disruptions were a predictor of stress and negatively affected disengagement and job satisfaction over time. We found differences in the ways in which people in different career stages reacted to these disruptions and adjusted over time. Job autonomy positively influenced wellbeing over time, however POS contributed to growth in burnout disengagement and exhaustion and lower job satisfaction over time. We discuss the implications of our findings for workplaces managing in the aftermath of external shocks going forward.

Predictors of children's emotion regulation outcomes during COVID-19: Role of conflict within the family

Objective

This work aimed to analyze the role of family conflict on children's emotion regulation and stress outcomes during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Background

The COVID-19 pandemic brought novel stress to families. The stress experienced could impact family relationships-specifically, perceptions of closeness and patterns of conflict. Positive family environment and high-quality family relationships are associated with adaptive coping and lower levels of stress among children.

Method

Data were collected online from 110 participants at baseline and again 30 days later. Associations between parent-child relationship, sibling relationships, and child stress and emotion regulation outcomes 30 days later were tested through multiple stepwise regression.

Results

Both significant regression models suggest that parent-child conflict is the strongest predictor of child stress and negativity over the 30-day assessment period. Sibling conflict predicted child stress but not negativity.

Conclusion

Family conflict during the COVID-19 pandemic influenced children's emotion regulation outcomes as seen through significant associations between child-parent conflict, sibling conflict, perceived child stress, and children's negativity.

Implications

Family scientists and practitioners should consider interventions that help parents teach their children how to cope with their own stresses and emotions after conflict.

Expert-Led Module Improves Non-STEM Undergraduate Perception of and Willingness to Receive COVID-19 Vaccines

As evidence mounted that existing prevention methods would be insufficient to end the COVID-19 pandemic, it became clear that vaccines would be critical to achieve and maintain reduced rates of infection. However, vaccine-hesitant sentiments have become widespread, particularly in populations with lower scientific literacy. The non-STEM major (called non-major) college students represent one such population who rely on one or more science classes to develop their scientific literacy and thus, become candidates of interest for the success of the COVID-19 vaccine campaign. As these students have fewer opportunities to learn how to identify reputable scientific sources or judge the validity of novel scientific findings, it is particularly important that these skills are included in the science courses offered to non-majors. Two concurrent non-major biology courses (N = 98) at the University of Alabama at Birmingham in Spring 2021 completed Likert questionnaires with open-ended questions prior to and after an expert-led Vaccine Awareness educational intervention addressing vaccine-related concerns. In the module, experts gave presentations about COVID-19 related to microbiology, epidemiological factors, and professional experiences relating to COVID-19. Ten students agreed to participate in post-semester one-on-one interviews. Student interviews revealed that students perceived guest lecturers as providing more information and assurance. Questionnaire data showed an increase in student willingness to accept a COVID-19 vaccine as well as increased student perception of the COVID-19 vaccines as both safe and effective (Wilcoxon Rank Sum Test, p < 0.05). However, the questionnaire data revealed 10 of 98 students remained vaccine-resistant, and these students expressed insufficient research and side effects as leading vaccination concerns. Overall, we show expert-led modules can be effective in increasing non-majors willingness to accept COVID-19 vaccines. Future research should explore the experiences of non-majors and guest lectures, particularly as they relate to vaccination and vaccine concerns.

Government dissemination of epidemic information as a policy instrument during COVID-19 pandemic: Evidence from Chinese cities

COVID-19 has given rise to a surge in the number of policy instruments used to deal with the pandemic at different levels of governments globally. While much attention has been placed on travel bans, lockdown, social distancing, and economic stimulus packages, government dissemination of epidemic information as a policy instrument has received less attention. Based on 14,637 news items collected from the portals of 79 municipal governments in China, this study aims to 1) conduct a content analysis of news items and construct three key attributes of governments' practices of epidemic information dissemination, namely, comprehensiveness, responsiveness, and the protection of privacy, and 2) study the patterns and determinants of the dissemination of epidemic information. Our results show that these cities vary substantially in how they disseminate statistical data and information on individual cases of COVID-19 infections within their localities, which are shaped by government performance in open data, severity of the pandemic, cities' administrative level, population, and health sector capacities. The findings generate theoretical and policy implications for government dissemination of epidemic information.

Pandemic responses at the subnational level: Exploring politics, administration, and politicization in Swedish municipalities

The Swedish response to the pandemic at the national level has attracted considerable international attention, but little focus has been placed on the way municipalities dealt with the crisis. Using Hay's dimensions of politicization, namely the capacity for human agency, deliberation in the public domain, and social context, we analyze the politicization of the municipal response to the pandemic in Sweden. We do this based on the analysis of the decision making process to activate (or not) an extraordinary crisis management committee. We find inter alia, that (i) only a quarter of the municipalities activated the committee while a majority of them had an alternate special organization in place; (ii) support to the existing organizational structure was more salient than creating an extraordinary organization, and (iii) a robust municipal structure was deemed to be one able to withstand shocks without resorting to extraordinary governance arrangements. We find a 'conditioned politicization' of the response, privileging administration over politics.

Antimicrobial Resistance as a Global Health Threat: The Need to Learn Lessons from the COVID-19 Pandemic

The global COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated existing health, social, and economic challenges and threatened progress towards achieving the UN sustainable development goals. We discuss lessons learned from the COVID-19 pandemic for global policymaking for health security governance, with a particular focus on antimicrobial resistance. We identify One Health as the primary foundation of public health risk management owing to the collaborative, multidisciplinary, and multisectoral efforts that underpin the One Health approach and that enhance understanding of the complex interactions at the human-animal-environment interface. We discuss the narrow human-centric focus of the One Health approach, highlight the underrepresentation of the environmental sector in One Health networks, and encourage greater representation from the environmental sector. Furthermore, we highlight the importance of the social sciences for health security research and the need for effective communication and trust. Finally, we underscore the importance of strengthened and collaborative health, social care, and disaster management systems. The application of these lessons will facilitate holistic, multisectoral, collaborative, and ethical actions on antimicrobial resistance.

Handling COVID-19 in the capital city of Jakarta with innovation policy: the scale of social restrictions policy

This study aimed to examine the dominant innovation policy elements of the social restrictions to fight the COVID-19 pandemic in Jakarta. The data was obtained using a Computer-Aided Qualitative Data Analysis Software named the NVivo 12 Plus application, accompanied by purposive sampling from four online media sources. These sites, namely Detik.com, Kompas.com, Liputan6.com, and Kumparan.com, were accessed for their provision of information about the COVID-19 social restriction policy in DKI Jakarta. Subsequently, the results showed that the Jakarta government's decision on the Large-Scale Social Restriction-PSBB Stage 1-5 and PPKM Stage consider relative advantage and trialability aspects. Following the proposed policy design, the Jakarta Government expects an easier adoption of the innovation in slowing the spread of the virus. Relative advantage and trialability were revealed to enable developing countries to manage or control the number of pandemic cases and the ensuing economic impact, as well as innovate their policies in practical cases based on the field situation. This study only focused on Jakarta as one of the South East capital cities that successfully dealt with COVID-19. Therefore, future studies should obtain policy designs from other continents that successfully tackled the pandemic in different situations.

Socio-economic impact of Covid-19 on the fishing sector: A case study of a region highly dependent on fishing in Spain

Galicia is the most important fishing region in Spain. Nearly 50% of the volume of catches and of the national fishing fleet are concentrated in this region. During the Covid-19 pandemic, the fishing sector had the status of an essential sector and was not forced to stop its activity by the national Government. However, its economic performance has deteriorated in 2020. This article aims to analyze the impact of the pandemic on the extractive fishing sector in Galicia. For this purpose, the performance of the main economic and financial variables of the 246 companies that constitute this industry has been studied. The companies pertain to different extractive sectors (the national, offshore and large-scale fleets) and are in 9 different areas (Vigo, Pontevedra, Arousa, Muros, Fisterra, Costa da Morte, A Coruña-Ferrol, Cedeira and A Mariña). The results of the analysis show that the 9 fishing zones share a generalized negative trend but that there is heterogeneity in the results. Among the most determining factors are the predominant fleet extract, the target species caught, or the perception of public subsidies.

Explaining Resistance to the COVID-19 Preventive Measures: A Psychological Reactance Perspective

This paper examines the impact that psychological reactance has on the COVID-19 adherence-related behavior and vaccine motivations of the residents of Saudi Arabia. A cross-sectional, online survey was administered, and 604 usable responses were analyzed to discover the level of psychological reactance, and its impact on adherence to COVID-19 preventive measures and vaccine intentions. Results of the Kruskal–Wallis H test demonstrated statistically significant evidence (p < 0.05) of differences between the mean ranks for four out of seven key COVID-19 preventive measures studied, and four out of five items related to vaccine motivations, as a result of psychological reactance. These results suggest that while the majority of the population is adhering to COVID-19 preventive measures, for the subset of the population that are not fully compliant, psychological reactance is a significant factor in influencing behavior. Governments are, therefore, recommended to ensure that their public health messages are autonomy supporting, and take into consideration psychological and personality-based differences in individuals.

Interactive Governance Between and Within Governmental Levels and Functions: A Social Network Analysis of China's Case Against COVID-19

COVID-19 has created long-lasting yet unprecedented challenges worldwide. In addition to scientific efforts, political efforts and public administration are also crucial to contain the disease. Therefore, understanding how multi-level governance systems respond to this public health crisis is vital to combat COVID-19. This study focuses on China and applies social network analysis to illustrate interactive governance between and within levels and functions of government, confirming and extending the existing Type I and Type II definition of multi-level governance theory. We characterize four interaction patterns-vertical, inter-functional, intra-functional, and hybrid-with the dominant pattern differing across governmental functions and evolving as the pandemic progressed. Empirical results reveal that financial departments of different levels of government interact through the vertical pattern. At the same time, intra-functional interaction also exists in provincial financial departments. The supervision departments typically adopt the inter-functional pattern at all levels. At the cross-level and cross-function aspects, the hybrid interaction pattern prevails in the medical function and plays a fair part in the security, welfare, and economic function. This study is one of the first to summarize the interaction patterns in a multi-level setting, providing practical implications for which pattern should be applied to which governmental levels/functions under what pandemic condition.

The Trump Administration and the COVID-19 crisis: Exploring the warning-response problems and missed opportunities of a public health emergency

This article examines the Trump Administration's inability to mount a timely and effective response to the COVID-19 outbreak, despite ample warning. Through an empirical exploration guided by three explanatory perspectives-psychological, bureau-organizational, and agenda-political-developed from the strategic surprise, public administration, and crisis management literature, the authors seek to shed light on the mechanisms that contributed to the underestimation of the coronavirus threat by the Trump Administration and the slow and mismanaged federal response. The analysis highlights the extent to which the factors identified by previous studies of policy surprise and failure in other security domains are relevant for health security. The paper concludes by addressing the crucial role of executive leadership as an underlying factor in all three perspectives and discussing why the US president is ultimately responsible for ensuring a healthy policy process to guard against the pathologies implicated in the federal government's sub-optimal response to the COVID-19 crisis.

The Two Pandemics: the Disparate Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic and the K-Shaped Recovery

When Covid-19 appeared in the USA at the beginning of 2020, there was no treatment or vaccine. The only way to deal with the virus was containment, which resulted in business and agency closures. The impact on the economy was enormous, particularly on the lives of minorities and financially vulnerable people. The present study investigated the impact of COVID-19 on the lives of vulnerable people through qualitative interviews of major social service and healthcare agencies. The results show how the pandemic furthered existing disparities in access to a variety of services and supports.