Pandemics, economy and health in Asia-A scenario of post 2020.

Utilizing a daily data of 29 Asian Economies from June 2021 to June 2022, this study investigates the impacts of economic growth, health infrastructures and Government measures on COVID-19 cases. Our results demonstrate that GDP, Government intervention, testing and vaccination exert positive impacts on COVID-19 cases. We incorporate factors like weather to know how temperature impacts COVID-19 Cases. Our results demonstrate that magnitude of COVID-19 cases goes on upward fashion in winter days more. With reference to co-morbid conditions like diabetes, we notice that people with diabetes are more vulnerable to the infections, however due to the greater behavioral response, we obtain a negative association between co-morbid conditions and new COVID-19 cases. However, the intensity of COVID-19 cases is decimated with the improvement in health facilities and behavioral changes. Besides basic regression estimates, our instrumental variable estimates hold true in the line of regression results while underlying the relation with the COVID-19 cases. Interestingly, our results from alternate specification ensures that high human development with greater openness has resulted in more COVID-19 cases. Overall, our study belies the fact that vaccination and higher govt intervention can prevent COVID-19. Rather, a comprehensive policy is recommended on cross-country basis to overcome such challenge.•The Study analyzes the relation among COVID-19, economic growth and health infrastructure on a daily basis from June 2021 to June 2022 for 29 Asian Economies•Our empirical strategy involves regression followed by robustness tests of instrumental variable regression model.•Results show that higher growth, human development, lesser vaccination and trivial govt intervention post 2020 have resulted in more COVID-19 cases.

Role of income and government responsiveness in reducing the death toll from floods in Indian states.

Floods are the most commonly occurring natural disasters in India due to India's unique geographical location and socioeconomic conditions. Frequent flooding causes enormous loss of human lives and damage crops and public utilities. Furthermore, floods adversely affect economic development and increase the government's financial burden by increasing spending on various disaster mitigation measures. Recent empirical literature based on cross-national comparisons shows that disaster fatalities and damages are monotonically decreasing in per capita income. We challenge this view on the monotonic negative relationship between income and flood damages. We examine the non-monotonic (inverted U-shaped) relationship between per capita income and flood impact in terms of deaths, people affected, and damages due to floods in 19 major Indian states from 1980 to 2011, using Poisson and Tobit estimation methods. In particular, deaths and the population affected by floods increase with a turning point of income up to 882 US$ and 578 US$, respectively, and diminishes thereafter. Our results confirm an inverted U-shaped relationship between income and fatalities and the population affected by floods. In addition to income, we argue that government responsiveness plays an essential role in mitigating the risk of floods. We employ the fixed-effect Poisson estimation method to examine the government's role in protecting people against disaster risk, focusing on regional differences in India. Deaths from floods remain non-linear and follow the inverted U-pattern with respect to government responsiveness. However, the effect of government responsiveness on flood fatalities and flood damages is statistically insignificant. Our results further suggest that high-income states experience a lower death toll from floods. The high-income (rich) states are capable of incurring a higher threshold level of income and higher natural calamity expenditure to reduce flood fatalities and protect the population affected by floods than the low-income (poor) states. The poor states have minimal resources and face severe financial constraints to reduce the death toll from floods. From the perspective of public policy, the poor states, in particular, require an increase in income, better governance, and effective disaster management policies to mitigate flood impact.

Designing hydro-energy led economic growth for pollution abatement: evidence from BRICS.

Overutilized hydro-energy production through non-sustainable mode is detrimental for both the economy and the environment. Intermittent consumption of hydro-energy from non-sustainable production methods may induce deleterious impacts in terms of rapid pollution in the economy. This paper investigates the impacts of hydro-power consumption upon pollution for 5 BRICS countries from 1965 to 2019. Our balanced panel model shows that infrequent usages of hydro-power consumption led to more pollution over the year. This relation is also further explained by considering several macroeconomic factors, in the context of the growth scenario. Our empirical findings show that an increase in population and consequent rise in per capita income have exhibited positive impacts on pollution. Even, improved industrialized led production and investment in these economies contribute heavily towards pollution and declined environmental standards. Our results further state that intermittent usages of natural resources by population in terms of rising ecological footprint have resulted in higher emission intensity over the year. These findings underscore how rising hydro-power energy consumption has led to the rising pollution amidst the growth scenario in BRICS economies.

Infectious disease, human capital, and the BRICS economy in the time of COVID-19.

We develop empirical models using difference-in-difference method to find out how COVID-19 testing and infection rates impact the BRICS economy. Our results show that strict government measures, areas of poor people and people with heart diseases have resulted in high COVID-19 testing due to the increasing infections, However, economic development and population density are not found to be rather insignificant towards the COVID-19 testing rates. Hence, both from policy and pandemic perspectives, it is inferred that these developing economies need to divert more resources and infuse more investment in the healthcare sector in the coming days.•Governments must give due stress to the health sector along with development irrespective of nature of the economy.•Our results show that strict government measures, areas of poor people and people with heart diseases have resulted in high COVID-19 testing due to the increasing infections.•Both from policy and pandemic perspectives, it is inferred that these BRICS economies need to divert more resources and infuse more investment in the healthcare sector.

Can differential regional ventilation protect the spared lung in acute respiratory distress syndrome?

Acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) is a common clinical problem prevalent in intensive care settings. It can complicate many critical illnesses. The general treatment is mainly supportive. Mechanical ventilation, low tidal volume strategy, and control of plateau pressure form the basis of current management. No specific treatment exists for ARDS. Various interventions have been tested for the lethal condition including steroids, fluid restriction, statins, high-frequency ventilation, nitric oxide, and prone ventilation strategy. However, none has shown improvement apart from prone positioning and low tidal volume ventilation. We report our observation in a patient with ARDS, which may potentially show a new mechanism to protect normal alveoli in ARDS lung and thereby may improve survival.