‘We discovered places we never used before'. Home and parenting geographies during the 2020 lockdowns in Italy and Greece

The paper presents and discusses data from a qualitative study carried out in April and May 2020 with families under lockdown in Italy (N = 319) and Greece (N = 297). The research examined how confinement and restrictions on movement had impacted families' everyday geographies (with a particular focus on ‘liminal' places located between homes and public spaces, such as balconies, hallways, courtyards, backyards), as well as parents' most valued public spaces and propensity (and modes) to use them. Data were analysed following a top-down thematic approach. The results suggest that restricted access to public spaces (as enforced during the Greek and Italian lockdowns) may influence the signification of domestic places, prompt remodulation of the dialectic between public and private spheres, and bring to light the social value of families' (parents and children's) experiences in public spaces.

The semiotics of the anti-COVID-19 mask

The pandemic spreading of the COVID-19 virus has led to the global need to introduce, often by law, the medical face mask, which can undoubtedly be considered as "the object of 2020.” In a few months, most human faces around the world in the public space, but also often in the private space, have been covered with various kinds of protective masks. Very soon, these objects have become the centre of several discursive productions, going from medical reports to media coverage, from artistic representations to ironic memes. The medical face mask was not totally new in the west, where it was already present in special circumstances, like dentists' studios or emergency rooms, and was quite familiar in the east, especially in Japan, China, and Korea. Yet such massive introduction changed the meaning of the medical face mask in every context. Old habits were reconfigured or clashed with the new ones, giving rise to a novel syntax, semantics, and pragmatics of the human face in conjunction with this device and in the context of the global pandemic. The present paper offers an introduction to a semiotic mapping of such radical cultural change and its likely consequences.

Critical Commentary: Fickle spheres: The constant re/construction of the private and other new habits

The spread of the COVID-19 pandemic has allowed mechanisms of power and authority to enter new urban realms – especially the very relationships lived between friends and lovers in bedrooms and parks. All of a sudden, everyone has a right to know who we are close to, when and how, all for the sake of public health and safety, to ensure the further functioning of our established public health system. The new policies transform Western ideas of public and private spheres: our bedrooms have turned into the space of self-representation and workplaces at the same time. On the other hand, what had been known as public space before has turned into the space to be private in: a walk through the city alone or with an intimate person. Yet all of these tendencies come with increased surveillance, not only by our peers, but also through technologies such as tracing apps. The very possibility of privacy and 'active' publicity is being questioned, and, through this, the realm of the political. This paper traces the observed shifts in the nature of the private and public spheres through examples in German cities, tracing power via embodied experiences. Those traces are reorganised into three argumentative strands: re/constructing privacies, public space as non-place and the proliferation of the data body. Based on these observations the paper searches for emancipatory perspectives within the shifted spheres of urban social life. (English) [ FROM AUTHOR] 新冠疫情的蔓延使权力和权威机制进入了新的城市领域—尤其是朋友和恋人们之间在卧室和公园里的关系。突然之间，每个人都有权知道我们与谁、何时以及如何亲密接触，这一切都是以公共卫生和安全的名义，为了确保我们既定的公共卫生系统的进一步运作。新政策改变了西方对公共和私人领域的看法：我们的卧室同时变成了自我展示的空间和工作场所。另一方面，以前被称为公共空间的地方已经变成了私密的空间：独自或与亲密的人一起在城市中漫步。然而，所有这些趋势都伴随着越来越多的监控，不仅来自我们身边的人，还通过追踪应用程序等技术。隐私和"主动"曝光的可能性，进而政治领域正受到质疑。本文通过德国城市的例子（通过具身体验追踪权力）追踪观察到的私人和公共领域性质的变化。这些追踪被重组为三股争论：重新/构建隐私、作为非场所的公共空间和数据体的扩散。基于这些观察，本文在城市社会生活的变化范围内寻找解放性的视角。 (Chinese) [ FROM AUTHOR] Copyright of Urban Studies (Sage Publications, Ltd.) is the property of Sage Publications, Ltd. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full . (Copyright applies to all s.)

Governing Rural Poverty on Urban Streets: Guangzhou's Management of Beggars in the Reform Era

This study investigates how discourses on panhandling intertwine with the governance of beggars on China's urban streets. It focuses on local policy implementation in Guangzhou city, led by the bureau of civil affairs along with its centres for "custody and repatriation” and "assistance stations.” The study aims to understand how the state regulates panhandling and engages with beggars in public spaces. Exploring the internal logic of the state's approach and how it has changed during the 40 years of reform, it also considers the junctures at which contradictions and conflicts arise. Based on fieldwork data (2011 to 2014) and the analysis of government documents, yearbooks, academic and mass media discourses, I argue that the state's treatment of panhandlers poses a conundrum as welfare measures conflict with control. While several layers of state regulation and actors contradict each other and create grey areas of state-induced informality, people who beg for alms are continuously criminalized and excluded from public space.

Influence of Revitalization on the Social and Economic Well-Being of Residents: Case Study of Lithuania

The lack of public spaces, recreational areas, and sports facilities in older city neighborhoods, as well as the importance of people's social and economic well-being, have been exposed by the COVID-19 pandemic. Revitalization is used to update the physical environment of old neighborhoods;it improves not only the physical environment of the neighborhood, but also contributes to ensuring the social and economic well-being of the residents. The article aims to identify which typical revitalization project solutions, only referring to physical environmental improvement projects, improve the social and economic well-being of the residents. To achieve this goal, a statistical analysis of the Žirmūnai triangle residents was performed with obtained survey data. The hypothesized connections between typical revitalization solutions and changes in the social and economic well-being of the population were verified using Pearson's Chi-Square test. The results showed that the public spaces, sports, and playgrounds provided by revitalization were directly related to the social and economic well-being of the residents. As a result of this typical revitalization solution, 17% of the residents experienced an improvement in their economic well-being, 17% of the residents got to know their neighbors, and 95% of the residents indicated that they enjoy living in the neighborhood.

Planning and the Post-Pandemic City

The Covid-19 pandemic has left society dazed and confused. Self-evidently momentous, its multifaceted impacts upon the functioning and experience of city living have been swift and deep. This has precipitated a range of laudable research in planning, which, among other foci, has sought to examine how the disruption is amplifying inequities (Cole et al., Citation2020), improving urban environmental quality (Sharifi & Khavarian-Garmsir, Citation2020) and generating enhanced demand for public space (Sepe, Citation2021;Ugolini et al., Citation2020). The pandemic has also heightened interest in re-engaging planning with its roots in public health (Lennon, Citation2020;Scott, Citation2020). Here, an emerging strand of research is exploring how to better proof our cities from the ill-effects of future contagions (Bereitschaft & Scheller, Citation2020;Martínez & Short, Citation2021). Yet, there is another dimension to the pandemic that may have impacts which shake the very foundations of how we think cities could and should evolve. This results from the current great experiment in spatial reorganisation that stretches well beyond the requirement of social distancing. Specifically, never before in a time of peace have so many peoples' lives been so comprehensively decoupled from their places of work for such an extensive period of time. Indeed, while the effects of social distancing are immediately apparent in how we have found new ways to negotiate spaces, it is perhaps remote working that will have the longest impact on our cities. This was alluded to but not elaborated on in a recent superb editorial by Jill Grant in this journal (Grant, Citation2020). Hence, I propose in this short comment piece to extend this line of speculation.For centuries cities have pulled people into their orbit in search of employment, education and new experiences. Conventionally conceived as places of opportunity, cities are seen to thrive where a critical threshold of population and capital spawn dynamic and diverse economies and cultures, in which residents flourish in choice and convenience. Yet despite such lofty descriptions, for most cities it is employment that is the magnet and motor of urban land use that heavily influences where people live, shop and recreate. These two cardinal poles of home and work have long dictated how people flow around and use urban spaces: from school runs to restaurants;from retail to recreation. It is this spatial relationship embedded in the daily patterns of life that helps create and carry communities. But if people are no longer limited by their place or time of work, will it follow that they will choose to lumber themselves with the outsized mortgages, additional expenses and stresses of urban living?

Privates: Theorizing Private Space in Trans Care

By "space," I mean a physical or digital, real or imagined, virtual and material environment in which social relations—individual or collective—can take place. Private property in the form of the home and land ownership—also a core element of American capitalist colonialist dream—continued to define legal claims to land that furthered policing, racial segregation, cisheteropatriarchal marriage, and other state violence. [...]community publics presume designers can produce environmentally-determined "community," Third, liberal publics are accessible to all—in a fictional world where everyone is equal. Relatedly, when nineteenth century, WASP, upper-class policies, laws, and norms deemed sex a private matter, gay men were forced to create their own counterpublics for their sexual rendezvous.

No Place for Hate California: A Model for Community-Centered Policymaking

These are just three of more than 11,000 reports of hate against Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders (AAPIs) shared with the Stop AAPI Hate coalition during the first two years of the COVID-19 pandemic. Many more acts continue to go unreported, making the actual number much higher-potentially in the millions. Reports of anti-AAPI hate come from all fifty states and the District of Columbia, with nearly 40 percent from California. In response to the rise in hate against AAPI communities, Stop AAPI Hate introduced No Place for Hate California, a package of first-in-the-nation, state-level policy proposals. Together, these proposals take a gender-based, public health, and civil rights approach to addressing the racialized and sexualized verbal harassment experienced by AAPIs (especially AAPI women) in public, which comprise a majority of the reports submitted to Stop AAPI Hate. Stop AAPI Hate partnered with state legislators and mobilized a coalition of over fifty community-based organizations.

Design Criteria for Layout of Public Enclosed Spaces Through Physical Distancing in Preventing COVID-19 Transmission in Shopping Malls

COVID-19 is a respiratory disease that has a high rate of infection caused by SARS-CoV-2 virus. The virus is known to infect a person through spreading of small liquid particles or droplets from an infected person when they talk, cough, sneeze, or breathe. Therefore, it is important to slow down rate of infection through physical distancing between individuals. The main objective of this writing is to identify the current layout of enclosed public spaces that incorporates physical distancing and to determine the layout criteria for spatial design in shopping complexes to address the spread of infectious diseases such as COVID-19 following the new norm lifestyle. Shopping complexes are large and compact in design that is limited to the general use of air conditioning which can increases the threat of an outbreaks, especially to those under the high -risk category. This makes shopping complexes a risky and unsafe space. This study uses qualitative method and involves observation and focus group interview session. The interview session includes 5 Professional Architects as respondents. Both techniques will be analyzed descriptively through thematic analysis. Through this study, there are design criteria identified in preventing the spread of COVID-19. The findings of this study are expected to open the minds of architects and private developers as well as the government to make critical revisions in the design of closed public spaces especially in shopping complexes, to provide safe and healthy spaces designed for the public.

Face Mask Wearing in Kampala, Uganda

Wearing a face mask within public spaces can prevent COVID-19 infection. However, a considerable number of people continue not to wear a face mask in public spaces. This study uses data from 1054 urban respondents in the Greater Kampala Metropolitan area to investigate wearing a face mask inside public spaces. Results from a binary logistic regression model indicate that respondents who agreed (yes) that wearing a face mask evokes emotional feelings were more likely (OR = 1.73;95% CI = 1.16-2.59) to wear a face mask in public spaces than their counterparts who disagreed that wearing a face mask evokes emotional feelings. Results call for the need to raise awareness about face mask wearing and its efficacy to prevent COVID-19 infection. Our findings also call for integration of psychosocial support into programming on prevention and response to COVID-19 to particularly address the emotional aspects related to face mask wearing. © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022.

Face mask detection using deep convolutional neural network and multi-stage image processing

• A customized image dataset is built for research on face mask detection. • The dataset is manually labeled to provide high annotation accuracy. • For Face mask detection customized CNN with multi-step image processing is used. • The performance of the proposed CNN is compared with YOLO v3 and Faster R-CNN. • Two publicly available datasets including MAFA and MOXA used for validation. Face mask detection has several applications including real-time surveillance, biometrics, etc. Face mask detection is also useful for surveillance of the public to ensure face mask wearing in public places. Ensuring that people are wearing a face mask is not possible with monitoring staff;instead, automatic systems are a much better choice for face mask detection and monitoring to help manage public behaviour and contribute to restricting the outbreak of COVID-19. Despite the availability of several such systems, the lack of a real image dataset is a big hurdle to validating state-of-the-art face mask detection systems. In addition, using the simulated datasets lack the analysis needed for real-world scenarios. This study builds a new dataset namely RILFD by taking real pictures using a camera and annotating them with two labels (with mask, without mask) which are publicly available for future research. In addition, this study investigates various machine learning models and off-the-shelf deep learning models YOLOv3 and Faster R-CNN for the detection of face masks. The customized CNN models in combination with the 4 steps of image processing are proposed for face mask detection. The proposed approach outperforms other models and proved its robustness with a 97.5% of accuracy score in face mask detection on the RILFD dataset and two publicly available datasets (MAFA and MOXA). [ FROM AUTHOR] Copyright of Image & Vision Computing is the property of Elsevier B.V. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full . (Copyright applies to all s.)

Introduction: Domestication of War

This Special Section broadens and qualifies the terms through which the relationship between home and militarization has been understood. We do this by joining a vibrant and growing field of transdisciplinary scholars who address the militarization of everyday life by attending to domesticity and practices of domestication. We grapple with how the home naturalizes and becomes a catalyst for militarism: How do ordinary and domestic objects, technologies, spaces, and infrastructures make violence feel at home in the world? We are concerned with the domestic life of militarization as oikos: the household, habitat, and milieu of violent material relationships that are both ongoing and latent. The domestic is not just a discrete, private space;it also extends into public spaces like neighborhoods, local businesses, waste disposal infrastructures, hospices, and crop fields. Developed within an editorial process rooted in a feminist ethos, the articles collected here provide critical and alternative methodologies and disciplinary forms for considering militarism's aesthetics, affects, and modes of appearance. This collection resists conventional spatialities, temporalities, and incarnations of war while calling attention to the obscuring of violence through practices of care and marketing operations.

Leveraging the Power of Online Qualitative Inquiry in Mixed Methods Research: Novel Prospects and Challenges Amidst COVID-19

The rare circumstances of COVID-19 have transformed research toward increased dependence on online spaces. This article examines related challenges and opportunities, focusing on how philosophical and ethical implications are differentially manifest amid crisis. Anchored by a transformative perspective, our framework recognizes heightened vulnerabilities amid COVID-19;it seeks dexterous strategies for implementing qualitative strands that adapt well to a virtual context while remaining philosophically grounded and ethical. Our findings highlight issues of unequal access, disembodiment, safety and vulnerability, researcher positionality, anonymity, and the delineation between private and public spaces;we also showcase an array of virtual qualitative methods. We conclude that ethical practice in the use of online methods is likely to be broadly applicable and adaptable to the mixed methods research community.

UK street art and the meaning of masks during the COVID-19 pandemic, 2020-21

This paper contributes to social and cultural geographies of the COVID-19 pandemic through an exploration of the role of UK street art in documenting the remarkable shifts in the practice of wearing facemasks, the tensions and emotions involved, and the transformations in the meaning of facemasks during the pandemic. Street art has become an important outlet for political critique and social engagement, capturing the public mood in response to policies and recommendations attempting to stem viral transmission, including the requirement to wear facemasks in some public places. Drawing primarily on image analysis of street artworks produced during 2020 and sourced using online search tools, and qualitative interviews with UK street artists in 2020 and 2021, the paper first explores the changing geographies and politics of street art during the pandemic. It then examines the ways in which street art portrays mask-wearing simultaneously as reassuring, protective and fear-inducing, and reflects the meaning of masks in relation to protecting public health, managing anxieties concerning health risks, boosting morale, and symbolising solidarity and public spiritedness. The paper argues that pandemic street art contributes to public dialogue by articulating emotion and deeply held concerns, and communicating the intimate politics, semiotic meanings and social properties of objects associated with disease.

Monitoring of SARS-CoV-2 RNA in Public Areas: An Investigation of Environmental Surface Contamination

Although droplets and aerosol are considered the main transmission routes of SARS-CoV-2, indirect contact has been indicated to play a critical role in transmission. The aim of this study is to evaluate the presence of SARS-CoV-2 RNA on different environmental surfaces in public areas in Cyprus. Using RT-qPCR, samples from 50 swab specimens collected from high-touch surfaces were analyzed for viral RNA. Six surfaces (12.0%) in all were positive for SARS-CoV-2. Among the examined surfaces within supermarkets, SARS-CoV-2 was detected in 22.2% (n=4/18) of the sampling points, with shopping trolley handles and POS keyboards being the most frequently contaminated items. In the hospital setting, two (n=2/5, 40%) samples were positive for SARS-CoV-2. Our results indicate that, at the current stage of the pandemic, viral contamination of public spaces exists in the community. Lifting protective measures may have contributed to fomite transmission in public spaces. [ FROM AUTHOR] Copyright of Erciyes Medical Journal / Erciyes Tip Dergisi is the property of KARE Publishing and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full . (Copyright applies to all s.)

YOLO V7 and Computer Vision-Based Mask-Wearing Warning System for Congested Public Areas

The impact of Covid 19 cases is increasing worldwide due to not complying with social distancing and mask-wearing rules in congested areas such as hospitals, schools, and malls where people have to be together. Although the authorities have taken various precautions to prevent not wearing masks, it is challenging to inspect masks in crowded areas. People who do not wear masks can be unnoticed by visual inspections, which is a critical factor in the increase of the epidemic. This study aims to create an Artificial Intelligence (AI) based mask inspection system with the YOLO V7 deep learning method to ensure that overcrowded public areas are protected from the Covid-19 epidemic. (English) [ FROM AUTHOR] Hastane, okul, alışveriş merkezi gibi insanların bir arada olması gereken kalabalık alanlarda sosyal mesafe ve maske takma kurallarına uyulmaması nedeniyle dünya genelinde Covid 19 vakalarının etkisi artıyor. Yetkililer her ne kadar maske takılmamasını engellemek için çeşitli önlemler alsalar da kalabalık ortamlarda maske denetlemesi güç olmaktadır. Ínsan eli ile yapılan denetimlerde maske takmayan kişiler gözden kaçabilmekte olup bu durum salgının artışında önemli bir etken olmaktadır. Bu çalışmanın amacı yoğun insan trafiğinin olduğu kalabalık ortamlarda insanların Covid-19 salgınından korunmalarını sağlamak için son teknolojik algoritma olan YOLO V7 derin öğrenme yöntemi ile Yapay Zeka (YZ) destekli maske denetleme sistemi oluşturmaktır. (Turkish) [ FROM AUTHOR] Copyright of Journal of the Institute of Science & Technology / Fen Bilimleri Estitüsü Dergisi is the property of Igdir University, Institute of Science & Technology and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full . (Copyright applies to all s.)

Learning from Hampstead's Pergola: walking and image-making at a spectacular Edwardian structure

This paper focuses on the extraordinary 245-metre-long Pergola on Hampstead Heath, designed by renowned landscape architect Thomas Mawson between 1905 and 1925, and funded by William Lever, Lord Leverhulme, owner of the property. The paper focuses on the Pergola's potential as an exemplar for considering more creative, sensory and sociable provision for urban pedestrians After detailing its origins and key features, the discussion explores the shifting uses of the Pergola over the past hundred years as it has changed from private realm to public space, yet these changes have accentuated its enduring landscape architectural qualities as a structure for pleasurable walking. The paper particularly focuses how the structure has been adopted as a contemporary site for walking and as a venue for numerous photographic and filmic practices. I conclude by suggesting that these virtues might inform more assiduous pedestrians provision following the rise in walking during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Negotiating digital public spaces: context, purpose and audiences

PurposeThe purpose of this article is to investigate digital public spaces and audiences and to explore the relationship of digital public spaces to both ideas of nationhood and physical public institutions.Design/methodology/approachThe article investigates tensions arising from the conjuncture of public spaces and digital culture through the lens of the Digital Public Library of America (DPLA). This research uses qualitative content analysis of a range of data sources including semi-structured interviews, primary texts and secondary texts.FindingsThe construction of the public library space as a digital entity does not attract anticipated audiences. Additionally, the national framing of the DPLA is not compatible with how audiences engage with digital public spaces.Originality/valueDrawing on original, qualitative data, this article engages with the prevalent but undertheorized concept of digital public spaces. The article addresses unreflexive uses of the digital public and the assumptions connected to the imagined audiences for platforms like the DPLA.

How They Learned to Stop Worrying and Love (the) Restrictions? Reimagining COVID-19 Lockdowns-as-Liberative and Restorative: A Case Study of Somali Canadian Mothers

Le site de «l'un des mandats de maintien â la maison les plus stricts et les plus longs au monde», les confinements en Ontario sont devenus une source de discorde dans le discours public provincial - souvent compris comme restrictifs, épuisants et detestables. Cependant, au sein de ce groupe, il existe un groupe d'Ontariennes pour qui ces mandats étaient perçus comme liberent et réparatrif - un groupe (n=29) de meres Somaliennes canadiennes. Des entretiens individuels avec vingt-neuf meres Somaliennes ont révélé une réalité convergente qui s'écarte significativement de l'opinion publique dominante: plutôt que restrictives et isolantes, les confinements sont perçus par ces femmes comme libératrices et réparatrices, car elles offrent un répit prolongé loin de la Négrophobie (le racisme anti-noir) et l'Islamophobie négociés dans une société coloniale. La maison Somalienne enfermé offre â ses habitants doublement racialisés (noir, Musulman) la possibilité d'exister sans conséquence, car ils forgent une distance physique et psychique entre eux et les navigations quotidiennes de la subordination Négrophobie et Islamophobie. Cet article engage une lentille féministe noire pour examiner de maniere critique comment les meres contestent - dans leur maison -avec la marginalisation que leurs enfants Musulmans noirs négocient dans l'espace public urbain. En s'appuyant sur les perceptions des meres Somallennes du confinement, cet article avance l'argument saillant que, pour certains groupes marginalisés dans les sociétés coloniales, l'espace privé offre considérablement plus de libération par rapport â leur homologue public. Premier texte â considérer les confinements comme libérateurs et réparateurs, cet article contribue â la sociologie féministe noire, aux géographies canadiennes noires, ainsi qu'aux études sur la diaspora Somalienne au sens large.Alternate abstract:The site of "one of the world's strictest and longest running stay-at-home mandates," lockdowns in Ontario have become a source of contention within provincial public discourse, often understood as restrictive, exhausting, and detestable. Amongst this, however, there exists a group of Ontarians for whom staying-at-home is conversely perceived as liberating and restorative - a group (n=29) of Somali Canadian mothers. Twenty-nine (n=29) individual interviews with Ottawa-based Somali mothers revealed a converging reality which diverges significantly from dominant public opinion: rather than restrictive and isolating, lockdowns are perceived by these women as liberative and restorative, for they offer a prolonged respite from the anti-Black racism and Islamophobia negotiated in settler colonial space. The locked down Somali home provides its doubly racialized (Black, Muslim) inhabitants the room to exist without consequence, in part by forging physical and psychic distance between Somali mothers, their kin, and the daily navigations of anti-Black and Islamophobic subordination. This paper engages a Black feminist lens to critically consider how mothers contend - in-house - with the marginalization their Black Muslim children negotiate in urban public space. By leaning on the Somali mothers' perceptions of lockdown, this work wages the salient argument that, for certain marginalized groups in settler colonial societies, private space provides considerably more liberation relative to their public counterpart. The first of its kind to read lockdowns-as-liberative and restorative, this article contributes to Black feminist sociology, Black Canadian geographies, as well as Somali diasporic studies writ large.

Differences in the COVID-19 Pandemic Response between South Korea and the United States: A Comparative Analysis of Culture and Policies

The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic has varied across countries. Some countries controlled the virus relatively well, while others did not. In the United States, almost a million people died. However, South Korea's death toll is only about 12,000 even though its population is about one-sixth of the United States. What caused the difference? We argue that public compliance to government direction is the primary reason. South Korea's collective culture valuing communal benefits helped the people conform to government directions, such as mask wearing in public places. By contrast, American people resisted the government policies that restrict individual freedom due to the individualistic culture. In South Korea, historical experiences of relatively frequent national crises led to the rise of defensive nationalism, resulting in national union. However, the United States had relatively fewer national crises, and thus nationalism did not rise. Instead, national division, xenophobia, and hatred toward Asians prevailed in the United States. Besides the cultural differences, differences in national leader's characteristics, past experiences of public health crisis, and political system also contributed to the different outcomes of the crisis.