Fishing for Validation: Understanding Promises and Challenges of a Private Social Media Group for COVID-19 Long-Hauler Patients

The COVID-19 pandemic has affected more than 301 million people worldwide so far. Many communities (such as minority communities) suffered disproportionately more difficulties throughout the pandemic. In this paper, we would like to focus on one such community: COVID-19 long-haulers community. Long-hauler community consists of people affected by Coronavirus, but their symptoms do not cure in a couple of weeks;instead, they experience lingering symptoms for months. The concerns of this community were initially ignored by health care providers primarily because of limited information. In this paper, we have analyzed the social media discussion of a private Facebook group dedicated to the long-hauler community. In addition, we interviewed the community members to investigate their motivations for joining the group and how the group has impacted their lives as long-hauler patients. Our analyses revealed the primary discussion topics of this community. It also showed how a minority community could stand by each other using social media groups during a crisis. We concluded the paper with long-term implications of our findings for health care systems, policies, and existing literature on cooperative AI. © 2023 ACM.

EXPLORING THE IMPACTS OF VIRTUAL REALITY TECHNOLOGY IN SUSTAINABLE TOURISM DURING THE COVID-19

This study aimed to assess the use of virtual reality (VR) as a tool for destination marketing of sustainable tourism during the COVID-19 pandemic. A questionnaire was administered to a sample of 249 students, who were shown a video about low-impact tourism in Vietnam using one of the two media types, namely VR and on-screen 2D. A structural model was proposed based on the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) and the Protection Motivation Theory (PMT) and was estimated using the Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) approach. The results provide evidence for VR to have a positive effect on travel intention through both higher perceived enjoyment and higher environmental involvement. However, these effects were observed to be not as significant when considering travel intention during the pandemic. While stronger telepresence achieved by VR may encourage users to engage in more sustainable behaviour and improve enjoyment from the experience, the avoidance to travel stemming from health and safety concerns amidst the pandemic greatly offset the effectiveness of VR as a marketing tool. The results highlight the importance of considering individual-level preferences in tourism. © 2023, Vilnius University. All rights reserved.

Effect of the Changing Climate and Urban Ecology on Spreading of Infectious Diseases Including SARS-CoV-2

Globalisation, industrialisation, and ease of international travel are making a huge impact on urban ecology. It is also influencing the climate, exaggerated by increased pollution, global temperature, and greenhouse gasses. All these factors together play a pivotal role in the increased emergence of infectious human diseases like fungal, bacterial, and viral. Many microorganisms are commensal and coâ€exist as microflora of healthy individuals. However, when the immune system is compromised due to disruption of mucosal barriers or presence of other environmental factors including increased air pollution, these microorganisms get an opportunity to invade and cause infections. In a similar way, the ongoing COVIDâ€19 pandemic, mediated by SARSâ€CoVâ€2, has also led to an increase in a number of nosocomial infections and secondary infections or superinfections like bacterial, fungal, and viral. Several studies have suggested that adaptation to higher temperatures is one of the key contributors to the emergence of many fungus like Candida auris and mucormycetes. Even bacteria like Acinetobacter baumannii, Mycobacterium tuberculosis, etc. or viral infections mediated by Ebola, H1N1, Encephalitis, and SARSâ€CoVâ€2 become more virulent with change in climate and urban ecology. Lifestyle change including uncontrolled intake of animal foods which possibly resulted in the zoonotic transfer of SARSâ€CoVâ€2 to humans, an increase in sexually transmitted diseases including AIDS due to uncontrolled lifestyles in a modern urban society are few other examples. Although these are the results of humans’ need and greed, it is not too late to take actions towards sustainable developments and adopting preventive plans to save the future world. This chapter mainly attempts to understand how such changes in environmental factors, altered climate, and urban ecology can lead to emergence of several infectious diseases, followed by a discussion of preventive measures to keep a steady but sustainable global development of human lives. © 2022 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

COVID-19 in Bangladesh: A Spatio-temporal and Gender Analysis

This chapter explores the uneven transmission of coronavirus (COVID-19) and its mitigation efforts in Bangladesh through investigating the spatio-temporal and gender dimensions of this pandemic. By analysing data collected from various secondary sources, the study has revealed that the virus initially spread rapidly in Dhaka, the capital city, and its surrounding districts but later reached remote parts of the country. Among many factors, population density, distance from the epicentre, and discriminatory gender norms and practices remain crucial in determining the rates of infections, deaths, and vaccine accessibility among people. The analysis also sheds some light on the COVID-19 situation in Bangladesh with the scenario of other South Asian countries. Based on the findings, this study emphasises the need for accurate and disaggregated data to ensure more effective responses to arrest further transmission of the deadly virus and prepare for future potential pandemic situations © TheEditor(s) (ifapplicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021, 2022.

World's Proposed Safeguard Against COVID-19 - A Brief Review

From December 2019 till now, the coronavirus disease pandemic has exposed the whole world to a new challenge where the survival of human beings faces an alarming phase. The humankind, with utmost intelligence, is trying to find out the key to unlock the lock made by SARSCoV-2, the causative virus of COVID-19. We here, briefly summarize the possible remedies so far introduced worldwide to combat the deadly pathogenic virus. The article includes the information of varieties of drugs applied globally: allopathic, homeopathic, Ayurveda, nanoparticle implicated protections and vaccination trials along with other biotechnical applications in different countries. Our review work may be useful to scientists involved in research in this field to know the global remedial aspects so far developed and also to create awareness among people regarding the present pandemic and preventive mechanisms.Copyright © 2021 Bentham Science Publishers.

COVID-19 Patient Recovery Prediction Using Efficient Logistic Regression Model

This research develops a COVID-19 patient recovery prediction model using machine learning. A publicly available data of infected patients is taken and pre-processed to prepare 450 patients' data for building a prediction model with 20.27% recovered cases and 79.73% not recovered/dead cases. An efficient logistic regression (ELR) model is built using the stacking of random forest (RF) and logistic regression (LR) classifiers. Further, the proposed model is compared with state-of-art models such as logistic regression (LR), support vector machine (SVM), decision tree (C5.0), and random forest (RF). All the models are evaluated with different metrics and statistical tests. The results show that the proposed ELR model is good in predicting not recovered/dead cases and handling imbalanced data. © 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.

Anti-COVID-19 Sulfonamides: A DFT, Docking and ADMET Study

Background: The development of a specific curative drug or prophylactic and vaccine is urgently required to cure COVID-19. Sulfonamide and its derivatives are famous for their multi-faceted antibiotic and antiviral activities against verities of a pathogen. Objective(s): The objective of this study is to find new potential molecules for COVID-19 treatment. We tested some sulfonamide molecules (including antiviral compounds) as SARS CoV-2 Mpro in-hibitors. Method(s): In this study, the Density Functional Theory (DFT) and Docking study have been util-ized for protein-small molecule affinity prediction. The SwissADME server was used for pharma-cokinetics and drug-like likeness prediction, and the Pred-hERG server was employed for cardio-toxicity prediction. Result(s): In this study, sixteen sulfonamides have been investigated in silico, with a perspective to obtaining a potential anti-covid compound. The sulfonamides have been subjected to molecular docking with SARS CoV-2 Mpro, mainly responsible for viral infection and replication. We discov-er the molecular flexibility and charge distribution profoundly affecting the binding of the compounds to the protein. Moderately flexible (six rotatable bond) and less polar (sufficient hydropho-bic) sulfonamide are favorable for strong binding with the enzyme. Here, the bioavailability proper-ties like adsorption, distribution, metabolism, excretion, pharmacokinetics, and potential toxicity of these compounds have also been checked. Conclusion(s): Low cardio-toxicity and high bioavailability make these sulfonamides a good anti-COVID-19 drug option. The sulfonamide 16 was found to be the best.Copyright © 2022 Bentham Science Publishers.

Analyzing Public Opinions Regarding Virtual Tourism in the Context of COVID-19: Unidirectional vs. 360-Degree Videos

Over the last few years, more and more people have been using YouTube videos to experience virtual reality travel. Many individuals utilize comments to voice their ideas or criticize a subject on YouTube. The number of replies to 360-degree and unidirectional videos is enormous and might differ between the two kinds of videos. This presents the problem of efficiently evaluating user opinions with respect to which type of video will be more appealing to viewers, positive comments, or interest. This paper aims to study SentiStrength-SE and SenticNet7 techniques for sentiment analysis. The findings demonstrate that the sentiment analysis obtained from SenticNet7 outperforms that from SentiStrength-SE. It is revealed through the sentiment analysis that sentiment disparity among the viewers of 360-degree and unidirectional videos is low and insignificant. Furthermore, the study shows that unidirectional videos garnered the most traffic during COVID-19 induced global travel bans. The study elaborates on the capacity of unidirectional videos on travel and the implications for industry and academia. The second aim of this paper also employs a Convolutional Neural Network and Random Forest for sentiment analysis of YouTube viewers' comments, where the sentiment analysis output by SenticNet7 is used as actual values. Cross-validation with 10-folds is employed in the proposed models. The findings demonstrate that the max-voting technique outperforms compared with an individual fold.

Sentiment Analysis of Nationwide Lockdown amid COVID 19: Evidence from Pakistan

A growing number of people are using tweets about the recent coronavirus epidemic of COVID-19 as a dataset to determine how worried people are in different parts of the world. This study attempts to uncover the key sentiments expressed by Twitter users regarding the COVID-19 epidemic by categorizing the tweets into positive and negative sentiments utilizing several resources (such as the Twitter search application programming interface (API), the Tweepy Python library, and the CSV excel database), as well as some predefined search terms ('#LockdownPakistan.'). We extracted the text of English language tweets from 28th March-1st May 2020. We have performed the sentiment analysis and classified the tweets in a binary class of positive and negative. Further, we used the word frequencies of single (unigrams), double (bigrams), and three words to examine the gathered tweets (tri-grams). According to our data, the majority of tweets express a positive attitude, with the word for lockdown COVID-19 appearing frequently. When looking at frequency analysis, the word 'family and time' stood out among the other words, which suggests that tweets were mostly optimistic and sentiments of defeating SARS-COV-2 prevail. People are determined to spend the lockdown in a good way. However, a few of the negative tweets, nevertheless, should serve as a warning for healthcare officials to make appropriate arrangements. Public health crisis responses are today complicated and highly synchronized both offline and online. Social media is a significant medium that gives people the chance to communicate with healthcare authorities directly. © 2022 IEEE.

Sustainable development and finance post-pandemic - future directions and challenges

Sustainable development, finance and related global policies and mechanisms have evolved over the decades. Today, regional initiatives for classifying sustainable activities exist, and several decades' research and development of ecosystem services and natural capital have identified and tested alternative economic models. The World Bank has the potential to finance them and sustainability at the landscape scale is achievable. But economic and environmental values can come into conflict. In developing countries, sustainable alternatives exist in business activities such as coastal and marine tourism. Financing small businesses through sound digital infrastructure is critical, as is the use of public fiscal instruments for the sustainable use of natural resources. Despite its developed status, renewable energy policies in the EU are leading to forest destruction. Financial vehicles such as green bonds have a similar potential. To avoid greenwashing, more focus needs to be on meeting the needs of those at the base of the economic pyramid, resourcing them with smart technologies and valuing civic engagement. Climate finance must be ethical and its allocation have integrity;this will foster community resilience. To avoid repeating the mistakes of terrestrial development, the world's oceans need to be protected and new business models adopted in this expanding frontier. Now is the time for all sectors to create a sustainable future for the planet and its inhabitants in the post-COVID, postcarbon era to come. © 2022 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston.

Financing sustainable development goals (SDGs) and the role of digital finance

Digitalisation has changed the delivery patterns of financial services all over the world. On August 26, 2020, the United Nations launched a task force with a mandate of catalysing and recommending ways to harness digital finance to accelerate the required finance for Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Digital finance has become a lifeline for billions of people to survive and to ensure financial sustainability during the COVID-19 pandemic. Social safety nets involving cash transfers through digital payments have become convenient and they enable governments to mobilise funds for emergency relief. A number of developing countries, like Bangladesh, have done tremendously well in managing the pandemic, thanks to the use of digital financing that has delivered financial services through digital platforms, including the uptake of mobile money and other payment platforms. It is also helping to channel more resources to support all SDGs through different paths. This chapter will discuss the prominent role of digital finance and its operational mechanism to finance SDGs. The outcome of the research will be to provide an assessment of digitalisation in accelerating SDGs finance so that policymakers can take some necessary actions to ensure the effective implementation of digital finance for financial sustainability. © 2022 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston.

A comparative study of cardiac involvement of kawasaki disease and multisystem inflammatory syndrome post COVID (MISC) in children

Background and Aim: Kawasaki Disease remains an enigma to the world to this day since first described by Dr. Tomisaku Kawasaki in 1967. In the last half a century there has been wide-spread global research elaborating the clinical aspects and patho-genesis of this disease entity. Multisystem Inflammatory Syndrome post Covid (MISC) is a relatively new disease which was described in literature in mid 2020. The striking resemblance as well as differences in spectrum of cardiac involvement of both the conditions has been elaborated in this study from a tertiary care centre in Eastern India. Method(s): The study was conducted over a period of 3 years from June 2018 to June 2021. Fiftyone patients with Kawasaki disease (including atypical and incomplete cases) and sixty children diag-nosed with MISC were included in the study. Echocardiography details were noted by a single observer. Data regarding the patient particulars, clinical aspects, lab parameters, imaging details and treatment particulars were collected and analysed. Patients were followed up for a minimum period of six months to one year. Result(s): In the Kawasaki group(51), infants(20) presented with multiple (and larger) aneurysms. Older children (gt;5 years) had more of single coronary involvement, (mostly LAD) and also had more atypical presentation(18) associated with infections like Dengue, Staphylococcal infection, Scrub Typhus. There were 4 cases of Kawasaki shock syndrome, all below 5 years. In the MISC group (60), there was also multiple coronary involvement in infants (11). But LV dysfunction was more common in older children and adolesecents (20), of whom 18 (90%) presented with severe dysfunction (LVEFlt;35%). Those with coronary involve-ment had normal function and those with dysfunction had no coronary involvement. Mild to moderate aneurysmal dilation of coronaries was found in children one to five years of age. No giant aneurysm was found in MISC. Overall, LMCA with LAD was the commonest pattern of involvement in both the conditions. Conclusion(s): KD and MISC had similar pattern of coronary involve-ment, but absence of giant aneurysm and significantly severe dys-function in older children in MISC indicates a likely different pathogenesis for myocardial involvement in MISC.

ASSOCIATION BETWEEN ETHNICITY AND COVID-19 PATIENTS TREATED WITH EXTRACORPOREAL MEMBRANE OXYGENATION

SESSION TITLE: Impact of Health Disparities and Differences SESSION TYPE: Rapid Fire Original Inv PRESENTED ON: 10/19/2022 11:15 am - 12:15 pm PURPOSE: As of March 25, 2022, age-standardized data reported by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention showed that Hispanic, Black and American Indian or Alaska Native are about twice as likely to die from coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) as their White and Asian counterparts. However, there is paucity of data regarding the effect of race on outcomes in COVID-19 related acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) patients managed with extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO). Our study aims to understand the differences in the outcome between White/Asian and other ethnically minority COVID-19 patients treated with ECMO in our intensive care unit (ICU). METHODS: Retrospective analysis of adult patients with COVID-19 related ARDS treated with ECMO in the ICUs of a quaternary care hospital between 03/01/2020 and 03/31/2022. Patients were divided into two groups: White/Asian (WA) and Other Minorities (OM). Demographics, clinical characteristics, and outcomes of the two groups were compared. RESULTS: Of the 36 COVID-19 patients managed with ECMO during the study period, 18 (50%) patients belonged to the WA group while 18 (50%) patients belonged to the OM group. In the WA group, 16 (89%) were white and 2 (11%) were Asians whereas in the OM group, 16 (89%) patients were Hispanics and 2 (11%) patients were African-American. Both groups were similar in terms of age, gender, comorbidity burden (measured by Charlson Comorbidity Index), and severity of illness at the time of ICU admission (assessed by APACHE-IV score). Mean RESP score was lower in the OM group but was not statistically significant (1.3 ± 3.9 vs 2.9 ± 2.3, p= 0.157). This was reflected in the higher hospital mortality in the OM group compared to the WA group [n= 9 (50%) vs. 15 (83%), p=0.075]. There was no significant difference between the groups in the rate of ECMO-related complications, including major bleeding requiring transfusion, transaminitis (alanine transaminase greater than 5 times of upper normal limit), stroke, myocardial dysfunction (defined as an ejection fraction < 30%), acute kidney injury requiring dialysis and positive sterile fluid cultures. CONCLUSIONS: Our study showed higher mortality in ethnically minority patients compared to the white and Asian population but the difference was not statistically significant. It is possible that the relatively small number of patients in our study led to a beta error. Higher mortality rates among people of color have been attributed to low socio-economic status, structural inequities in health care and differences in vaccination rates. CLINICAL IMPLICATIONS: Larger studies are needed to further explore differences in clinical characteristics and outcomes of COVID-19 patients of different races and ethnicities treated with ECMO. DISCLOSURES: No relevant relationships by ALEENA ARSHAD No relevant relationships by Dipak Chandy No relevant relationships by Subo Dey No relevant relationships by Oleg Epelbaum No relevant relationships by Daniel Greenberg No relevant relationships by Theresa Henson No relevant relationships by Lawrence Huang No relevant relationships by Daniel Peneyra No relevant relationships by Areen Pitaktong No relevant relationships by Hamid Yaqoob

Tweet Classification and Sentiment Analysis of Covid 19 Epidemic by Applying Hybrid Based Techniques

World wide spread of COVID-19 pandemic, is throttling the normal life nearly for two years and claiming millions of life all over the globe. Starting from Wuhan of China it crosses more than 200 countries, thereby imposing a overwhelming challenge to health care system. On the other hand, there has been unprecedented advancement of the social media, namely, Twitter, Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram etc. in an exponential manner. The essence of this paper is to extract and elucidate the opinion or sentiments of the people all around the globe regarding Coronavirus pandemic based on Twitter data. The analysis are based on both lexicon-based approach followed by machine learning algorithms and aims to express the state-of-the-art of the sentiment analysis on the current Coronavirus epidemic prevailing in the entire world and the awareness of the people regarding the disease, its symptoms and impact followed by the preventive measures that need to be undertaken. © 2022 IEEE.

AVR Technologies in Sustainable Tourism: A Bibliometric Review

An extensive, PRISMA-led bibliometric analysis of scientific literature from the last 20 years was conducted to extract future research agenda in the niche field of sustainable tourism and the application of virtual reality+ technologies (extended, mixed, hyper, and augmented). The field being investigated contains significant opportunities through meta-analysis methods like linear–logarithmic transformations, coupling clustering, and network analysis. Astringent keyword inclusion rule ensured that the most pertinent scientific literature entered the analysis. The authors used critical content analysis parameters like Cohen’s kappa to include the best fit papers. This bibliometric analysis convenes the need to focus on emerging areas like cyber-neurotics, telekinesis, cyber-optics, and gamification to provide impetus to sustainable consumption and production in the tourism and travel industry. The paper expresses the paradigm shift in research topics as the world enters the COVID-19-induced pandemic and its impact on future research endeavours. © 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.

Shock Index in COVID Era

The health care burden and risks to health care workers imposed by novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) mandated the need for a simple, noninvasive, objective, and parsimonious risk stratification system predicting the level of care, need for definitive airway, and titration of the ongoing patient care. Shock index (SI = heart rate/systolic blood pressure) has been evaluated in emergency triage, sepsis, and trauma settings including different age group of patients. The ever accumulating girth of evidences demonstrated a superior predictive value of SI over other hemodynamic parameters. Inclusion of respiratory and/or neurological parameters and adjustment of the cutoffs appropriate to patient age increase the predictability in the trauma and sepsis scenario. Being reproducible, dynamic, and simple, SI can be a valuable patient risk stratification tool in this ongoing era of COVID-19 pandemic.

Impact of Clinical and Genomic Factors on COVID-19 Disease Severity

To date, there have been 180 million confirmed cases of COVID-19, with more than 3.8 million deaths, reported to WHO worldwide. In this paper we address the problem of understanding the host genome's influence, in concert with clinical variables, on the severity of COVID-19 manifestation in the patient. Leveraging positive-unlabeled machine learning algorithms coupled with RubricOE, a state-of-the-art genomic analysis framework, on UK BioBank data we extract novel insights on the complex interplay. The algorithm is also sensitive enough to detect the changing influence of the emergent B.1.1.7 SARS-CoV-2 (alpha) variant on disease severity, and, changing treatment protocols. The genomic component also implicates biological pathways that can help in understanding the disease etiology. Our work demonstrates that it is possible to build a robust and sensitive model despite significant bias, noise and incompleteness in both clinical and genomic data by a careful interleaving of clinical and genomic methodologies.

A Comparitive Study between Sars-Cov2 Antigen Positive Samples With Cycle Threshold Values from Rt-Pcr Testing

Background:In routine clinical practice, severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection is de- termined by real time RT-PCR. In the current pandemic, the demand for a more rapid method of testing is increasing. Here, the performance of rapid COVID-19 antigen test based on lateral flow immunochromatographic assay for SARS- CoV-2 antigen was evaluated. The samples used for the antigen test were nasopharyngeal (NP) swabs from suspected COVID-19 cases. Diagnostic accuracy was compared to SARS-CoV-2 quantitative real-time RT-PCR. Methods:The study was carried out at the Virology Laboratory, Department of Microbiology, Sharda Hospital. Nasopha- ryngeal swabs were collected and subjected to COVID-19 rapid antigen testing. Thereafter both nasopharyngeal as well as oropharyngeal samples were taken from the earlier antigen positive tested patients and were then used for detection of virus particles via RT-PCR. The cycle threshold values were duly noted and a comparative was then drawn to deter- mine the range of cycle threshold values which were observed for antigen positive patients. Results:The results of the study will be revealed subsequently on the day of presentation. Conclusions:The conclusion of the study will be revealed subsequently on the day of presentation

East Lothian community advanced practitioner project

Keywords: Advanced Practice;Innovation;Respiratory Purpose: Scotland has seen a rising number of patients with multi-morbidity presentations and increasing health and social care needs (1). The Scottish Government has committed to delivering care closer to home by supporting better “planning, design and coordination of patient-focused care and services” (2). In early 2020, the Community Advanced Physiotherapy Practitioner (APP) role was scoped within East Lothian (EL) to support the complex rehabilitation and self-management needs of patients with long-term conditions. In March 2020, in response to COVID-19, the remit of the project rapidly changed to target patients with long-term respiratory conditions. Aims: • Early identification of patient needs to prevent hospital admissions. • Support NHS Lothian's Respiratory Services throughout pandemic. • Streamline patient pathway and enhance continuity of care. • Provide highly specialist, high frequency, high intensity rehabilitation in the community. Methods: • First Community APP was appointed March 2020. • Collaborative working with Acute Respiratory Services and Community Respiratory Teams to align service provision. • Agreement to facilitate supported discharges, through remote monitoring of oxygen saturations/supplementary oxygen usage, steroid weans and pacing/breathlessness management. • Expansion of Community APP service: additional APPs in post August 2020 and February 2021. • Development of Community Respiratory Pathway encompassing community follow-up from respiratory clinics and appropriate GP referrals. • Use of remote assessments for initial and follow up interventions as appropriate • Request for Assistance model used to enable direct self-referral (for patients known to service), allowing rapid access to expert advice and intervention. • Collection of quantitative and qualitative data through patient feedback questionnaires Results: • 98 referrals accepted (April 2020–April 2021) ∘ 30 supported discharges. ∘ 67 community follow-ups/Prevention of Admission. ∘ 2 other referrals. • Upward trend of referrals made to service. • Positive feedback received from patients and referrers regarding speed and accessibility to APP assessment/intervention in the community. • Significant functional and symptomatic improvements reported by patients following APP input alongside a holistic, supportive approach to their care. • Patients report that APP input enables them to optimise their self-management strategies and provides them with streamlined access to other rehabilitation resources and services. • Initial trends suggest an anticipated reduction in acute re-admissions/GP contacts in the 12 months post-APP contact. Conclusion(s): The Community Advanced Physiotherapy Practitioner Service provides a clinically effective, fast-tracked pathway, delivering person-centred, safe, holistic care. This service: • Delivers high quality, timely assessment, diagnosis, and early interventions. Previously these patients would not have direct access to a clinical expert in the community. • Streamlines referrals, avoiding duplication. • Promotes effective links with GP's and Secondary care to optimise patient management. • Is an integral part of the post-COVID-19 Pathway within EL. Community APPs possess expert knowledge and skills, both clinically and about EL services, and are ideally placed to optimise patient outcomes and experience. Impact: This project shows that aligning Community APP's, alongside established Integrated Rehabilitation Services and Primary/Secondary Care can provide an effective and viable model of care, enhancing the support available to individuals with Long Term Conditions in the Community. It is expected that cost benefits will be seen due to reduced hospital admissions/GP contacts. This project is now an integrated part of the EL Rehabilitation Pathway. Funding acknowledgements: This project was not externally funded.

Diminishing Inequalities? A Study on Reconstituted Gender Relations in Bangladeshi Households During the COVID-19 Crisis

This article explores the gendered impact of the COVID-19 crisis in Bangladesh by analysing everyday practices within the household. Conceptually, we have followed R.W. Connell’s model of the structures of gender and Naila Kabeer’s perspective on women’s power to examine how a normative gender order involving heterosexual marital partners tends to be sustained during ‘normal’ times but can often be destabilised in the context of an unprecedented crisis. Based on an analysis of data collected through an online survey and in-depth interviews, our findings show that the COVID-19 crisis has generated an opportunity for challenging gender inequalities by diminishing the public-private divide and expanding the horizon of responsibility sharing between women and men. Facing this ‘new normal’ reality, some women have been able to consider life choices and revise unequal relationships with spouses. In contrast, others have reproduced pre-existing inequalities and continued life ‘as usual’ under the regime of men. © 2021. Journal of International Women''s Studies. All Rights Reserved.