Detection of Hantavirus during the COVID-19 Pandemic, Arizona, USA, 2020.

We identified 2 fatal cases of persons infected with hantavirus in Arizona, USA, 2020; 1 person was co-infected with SARS-CoV-2. Delayed identification of the cause of death led to a public health investigation that lasted ≈9 months after their deaths, which complicated the identification of a vector or exposure.

Adherence to Antiretrovirals and HIV Viral Suppression Under COVID-19 Pandemic Interruption - Findings from a Randomized Clinical Trial Using Ingestible Sensors to Monitor Adherence.

The COVID-19 pandemic had a significant impact on vulnerable populations, including people living with HIV. California implemented a coronavirus lockdown (stay-at-home order) in March 2020, which ended in January 2021. We evaluated the pandemic's impact on both clinical outcomes of HIV RNA viral load (VL) and retention rate in a randomized clinical trial conducted from May 2018 to October 2020. The intervention group took co-encapsulated antiretrovirals (ARVs) with ingestible sensor (IS) pills from baseline through week 16. The IS system has the capacity to monitor adherence in real-time using a sensor patch, a mobile device, and supporting software. Both the IS and usual care (UC) groups were followed monthly for 28 weeks. Longitudinal mixed-effects models with random intercept and slope (RIAS) were used to fit log VL and self-reported adherence. The sample size of the study was 112 (54 in IS). Overall, the retention rate at week 28 was 86%, with 90% before the lockdown and 83% after the lockdown. The lockdown strengthened the associations between adherence and VL. Before the lockdown, a 10% increase in adherence was associated with a 0.2 unit decrease in log VL (ß = -1.88, p = 0.004), while during the lockdown, the association was a 0.41-unit decrease (ß = -2.27, p = 0.03). The pandemic did not have a significant impact on our adherence-focused intervention. Our findings regarding the intervention effect remain valid. TRIAL REGISTRATION NUMBER: NCT02797262. Date registration: September 2015.

Long-term effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on five mental and psychological disorders: in terms of the number of disease visits, drug consumption, and scale scores.

BACKGROUND: COVID-19 caused mild to severe infections in humans. The long-term epidemic environment harms people's mental health. To explore the impact of the epidemic on people's mental and psychological conditions, we surveyed in Wenzhou. METHODS: We collected the data of people who visited the First Affiliated Hospital of Wenzhou Medical University for five types of mental and psychological diseases from January 2018 to December 2021. Then, taking December 2019 as the cut-off point, the 48-month data were divided into the pre-epidemic group and the dur-epidemic group. Based on the above data, statistical analysis was done. RESULTS: From 2018 to 2021, the number of initial diagnoses, the number of disease visits, and drug consumption for these five types of mental and psychological diseases were all on the rise. Compared with the number of disease visits for all disorders in both psychiatry and neurology departments, it was found that the growth rate of these five diseases was higher than the growth rate of all disorders. We found that the number of disease visits, drug consumption, and scale scores after the COVID-19 outbreak were significantly different from those before the outbreak (P < 0.05). And the number of disease visits positively correlated with drug consumption (P < 0.0001, r = 0.9503), which verified the stability of the data. CONCLUSION: The epidemic environment has had a long-term and negative impact on people's mental and psychological conditions. Therefore, whether or not the epidemic is receding, we still need to be concerned about the impact of COVID-19 on mental and psychological health.

The impact of COVID-19 on health literacy among Chinese rural residents.

The outbreak of the Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic is an opportunity to improve the health literacy of rural residents. This study aims to explore the levels of health literacy among rural residents during the COVID-19 pandemic and investigate the effects of COVID-19-related variables on the health literacy of rural residents. A total of 882 rural residents aged 15-69 years in Shaanxi province participated in this study and completed the questionnaires about health literacy and COVID-19-related variables. These results showed that although overall health literacy and three aspects of health literacy among rural residents were low and lower than those of Chinese national residents, there was no significant difference in health literacy about safety and emergency between rural residents and Chinese national residents. Additionally, COVID-19-related variables significantly predicted health literacy (i.e. scientific health, safety and emergency and infectious disease prevention). Importantly, unlike other types of health literacy, the effect of a COVID-19-related variable (i.e. the frequency of exposure to news about the COVID-19 pandemic) on infectious disease prevention was only slightly smaller than the effect of high education on infectious disease prevention, and low education was no longer a significant predictor of infectious disease prevention. To conclude, rural residents in Shaanxi province have low health literacy. Education is a major factor affecting the health literacy of rural residents, and the frequency of exposure to news about the pandemic may compensate for the negative impact of low education on health literacy.

A world together: Global citizen identification as a basis for prosociality in the face of COVID-19.

How do global citizens respond to a global health emergency? The present research examined the association between global citizen identification and prosociality using two cross-national datasets-the World Values Survey (Study 1, N = 93,338 from 60 countries and regions) and data collected in 11 countries at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic (Study 2, N = 5,427). Results showed that individuals who identified more strongly as global citizens reported greater prosociality both generally (Study 1) and more specifically in the COVID-19 global health emergency (Study 2). Notably, global citizen identification was a stronger predictor of prosociality in response to COVID-19 than national identification (Study 2). Moreover, analyses revealed that shared ingroup identity accounted for the positive association between global citizen identification and prosociality (Study 2). Overall, these findings highlight global citizenship as a unique and promising direction in promoting prosociality and solidarity, especially in the fight against COVID-19.

The concern about main crises such as the Covid-19 pandemic, the war in Ukraine, and climate change's impact on energy-saving behavior.

The number of crises experienced around the world forces people to reconsider and reassess various aspects of their lives. The energy crisis caused by the war in Ukraine and uncontrolled climate change revealed the importance of energy-saving behavior. Thus, the aim of this paper is to analyze the concerns about current crises such as the Covid-19 pandemic, the war in Ukraine, and climate change's impact on energy-saving behavior and changes in environmental concern. Referring to the survey conducted in Lithuania in 2022, where 1000 respondents participated, the results revealed that the war in Ukraine was the most concerning problem. The level of climate change concern was slightly lower. Meanwhile, the Covid-19 pandemic was the least important problem in Lithuania in 2022. Furthermore, respondents stated that the Covid-19 pandemic contributed to the changes in environmental concern and energy-saving actions more than the war in Ukraine did. Meanwhile, the Generalized Linear Model results revealed that only the war in Ukraine positively and significantly influenced energy-saving behavior. The Covid-19 pandemic concern negatively affected energy-saving behavior, while the climate change concern factor affected it indirectly, as the interaction of attitudes toward energy consumption. Thus, this study revealed the main aspect of and how to encourage energy-saving behavior in the context of the main current crises.

Family Strength During the COVID-19 Pandemic in Indonesia.

Research on family strength is growing. Limited work has been studied about family strength during the COVID-19 pandemic in Indonesia. This qualitative online survey studied on 65 participants, aged 27-57 years (M = 40.85, SD = 6.8), to explore the characters of Indonesian family strength during the COVID-19 pandemic. Qualitative data were analyzed thematically. This research discovered eight characters of Indonesian family strength, namely:(1) intense and open communication, (2) intimacy and time together, (3) cooperation and division of roles, (4) finding solutions to problems, (5) implementing health protocols, (6) financial stability, (7) religiosity/spiritual well-being, and (8) grateful and optimistic. These eight characters coupled with two other areas, (9) self-development, and (10) concern for the needs of others, become 10 areas that growing up in families during the pandemic. These findings highlight the importance of focusing on characters of family strength when facing crises and uncertainties.

The role of the COVID-19 pandemic in time-frequency connectedness between oil market shocks and green bond markets: Evidence from the wavelet-based quantile approaches.

This study contributes to the existing literature on the relationship between oil market shocks and the green bond market by investigating the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on their dynamic correlation. We first decompose the oil market shocks into components using a time-frequency framework. Then, we combine wavelet decomposition and quantile coherence and causality methods to discuss changes during the COVID-19 era. We observe positive effects of both supply-driven and demand-driven oil shocks on the green bond market at most quantile levels. However, supply-driven oil price changes play a major role. The results also indicate that long-term changes have a greater impact than short-term changes on the connection between oil and green bond markets. Nevertheless, the COVID-19 pandemic changed the nature of the causal relationship, as we observed no relationship under extreme market conditions during the pandemic era. We argue that the economic and social impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic have left investors focusing on the short-term substitution between oil and green bond markets.

Differences in deficiency types causing ship detentions at the Black Sea Region during the Covid-19 pandemic and pre-pandemic.

Port State Control (PSC) is a crucial process that controls the compatibility of ships with maritime standards and regulations. PSC's duty is to provide a safe and secure maritime environment, as well as the protection of coastal regions, through inspections. After the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic, the PSC inspection process, and the number of inspections and detentions, has changed. This study aims to find the most influential deficiency types that cause ship detentions both before and during the pandemic with the Entropy-based Grey Relation Analysis (GRA) method and to study the hidden relationships of deficiency types by examining the frequency of co-occurrence of them with the Association Rule Mining (ARM) method, before and during the Covid-19 pandemic. Detention data was gathered from the Black Sea Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) Region covering the 1st of January 2018-31st December 2021 period. GRA analysis reveals that deficiencies related to Fire Safety and Emergency Systems are found as the most crucial deficiency types for ship detentions in both pre-pandemic and pandemic periods. ARM analysis indicates that there is a strong relationship between International Safety Management (ISM) and Certificate and Documentation (CD) during the pandemic. The findings of this study imply that changes in the PSC regime during the pandemic period led to sub-standard inspections. Based on these results and implications, this study gives recommendations to improve the efficiency of PSC inspections during the pandemic and similar conditions.

The changes in job-housing balance during the Covid-19 period in China.

By using three continuous years of national-scale cellphone signaling data from Jan. 2019 to Dec. 2021, this study adds fresh evidence for job-housing balance changes at the Quxian level during the COVID-19 period in China. The findings show that according to the resident-balance index and worker-balance index, the job-housing balance jumped when the number of COVID-19 confirmed cases reached its peak in February 2020, with an average of 94.4 % which is the highest level during these three years. The study also found that the Quxian-level job-housing balance has generally improved steadily in the two years of the pandemic. In addition, the results highlighted the huge gaps between females and males in the job-housing balance, but the gender disparities in job-housing balance were reduced to a minimum during the pandemic lockdown. In addition, by comparison analysis of the changes in resident-balance index and worker-balance index during this unprecedented crisis, this study found that for Quxians with high economic vitality, worker-balance index increased greater than resident-balance index, but for Quxians with low economic vitality, the reverse happened. Our findings provide a better understanding of the job-housing relationship during public health crises that can support the urban management in the future policymaking.

Exploring the effects of online learning on EFL learners' motivation, anxiety, and attitudes during the COVID-19 pandemic: a focus on Iran.

With the emergence and dissemination of the COVID-19 pandemic and the transformation of education to online classes, it is important to explore the effects of online learning on EFL learners' psychological factors in the Iranian EFL learners. Hence, this study aims to explore the effects of online learning on EFL learners' motivation, anxiety, and attitude. For this purpose, using a convenience sampling method, a total of 293 upper-intermediate EFL learners at Iran Language Institute in Ahvaz, Iran, took the Oxford Quick Placement Test, and 200 EFL learners whose scores fell around the mean were selected and assigned randomly to an experimental group and a control group. The participants' motivation, anxiety, and attitudes were measured before and after the treatments (lasting 10 one-hour sessions held once a week) using validated questionnaires. The collected data were analyzed through a one-way MANOVA test and a one-sample t-test. The findings evidenced that online learning positively affected the participants' motivation, anxiety, and attitudes. That is, due to the online learning, their motivation increased, their anxiety lowered, and positive attitudes were shaped toward L2 learning. Finally, based on the findings, some implications are proposed.

The influence of educational and emotional support on e-learning acceptance: An integration of social support theory and TAM.

Flexible education is considered the primary function of e-learning, however, empirical evidence during the COVID-19 pandemic has also demonstrated that students may seek emotional comforts in e-learning to alleviate their negative emotions. This study aims to provide a holistic view of the antecedents of college students' e-learning acceptance by integrating social support theory with the technology acceptance model. Specifically, drawing upon social support theory, this study adopted perceived educational support and perceived emotional support as two driving factors and examined their influences on students' continuous intention in e-learning. The model was empirically validated using survey data from 512 college respondents in China during the first wave of the pandemic. Our results suggested that while perceived educational support exerts a major influence on e-learning acceptance, perceived emotional support also has an important role to play. Besides, the analytics results suggested that the two facets of support had different influencing patterns: perceived educational support has a positive and significant relationship with both perceived ease of use and perceived usefulness, whereas perceived emotional support solely has a significant relationship with perceived ease of use. Additionally, compared with the prior studies, the effect size ( ß ) between perceived ease of use and perceived usefulness is larger in the present study (COVID-19 context). These findings stress the need to better understand the mechanism by which social support influences college students' e-learning acceptance and to make use of various kinds of social supports to enhance perceived ease of use (e.g. human-computer interface), promote perceived usefulness, and ultimately motivate more students' continuance intention in e-learning.

Examining impacts of information system success and perceived stress on students' self-regulated learning mediated by intrinsic motivation in online learning environments: second-order structural equation modelling analyses.

The unanticipated switch from face-to-face learning to online education caused by the Covid-19 pandemic has led to a lack of familiarization preparation for students, potentially hampering their learning processes in several ways. The success of online learning is primarily based on the quality of the information systems, self-regulated learning, and intrinsic learning motivation. The severe stress amid epidemic lockdowns might trigger negative impacts on students' learning motivation and self-regulated learning. Nevertheless, studies examining the relationship between information system success, self-regulated learning, perceived stress, and intrinsic learning motivation in the context of developing countries are still scarce. The current research aims to address this gap in the literature. Participants were 303 university students. The results of second-order structural equation modelling revealed the positive direct and indirect relationships between information system success, intrinsic learning motivation, and online self-regulated learning. Besides, despite the insignificant relationships between perceived stress, intrinsic learning motivation, and online self-regulated learning, most participants in this study were found to have moderate to high stress levels. Hence, the potential adverse effect of stress on students' learning process should not be ignored. The results provide implications for educators and researchers studying online learning environments and educational psychology.

Increased Detection of Carbapenemase-Producing Enterobacterales Bacteria in Latin America and the Caribbean during the COVID-19 Pandemic.

During 2020-2021, countries in Latin America and the Caribbean reported clinical emergence of carbapenemase-producing Enterobacterales that had not been previously characterized locally, increased prevalence of carbapenemases that had previously been detected, and co-production of multiple carbapenemases in some isolates. These increases were likely fueled by changes related to the COVID-19 pandemic, including empirical antibiotic use for potential COVID-19-related bacterial infections and healthcare limitations resulting from the rapid rise in COVID-19 cases. Strengthening antimicrobial resistance surveillance, epidemiologic research, and infection prevention and control programs and antimicrobial stewardship in clinical settings can help prevent emergence and transmission of carbapenemase-producing Enterobacterales.

The relationship between mental health and violence toward women during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The COVID-19 pandemic has a number of psychological consequences for societies, especially women. This study was conducted to determine the relationship between mental health and violence toward women during the COVID-19 pandemic in Iran.This study was conducted on during late October to November 2020 (N = 400). Demographic information questionnaire, General Health Questionnaire(GHQ-12) and violence toward women inventory(VTWI) were used.The results showed that violence was higher among employed women. Also, the results showed that VTW was higher in women with 3 children, high school degree, family income under 3 million and women over 40 years old. Findings showed that the mean mental health of women at the COVID-19 pandemic was moderate (15.14 ± 8.8). Also, with increasing psychological and economic violence, their mental health decreases. Therefore, it is suggested that policy makers and planners, apart from the physical effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, pay attention to its psychological dimension, especially for women, and try to allocate funds to maintain and promote mental health and family.

Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on provision of HIV/AIDS services for key populations.

The COVID-19 pandemic has aggravated the obstacles for HIV/AIDS programs in limited-resource countries like Vietnam to achieve the HIV/AIDS-related Sustainable Development target. The paper aims to evaluate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the provision of HIV/AIDS services-a pathway to achieving universal health coverage for key populations (KPs). Employing mix-methods, we conducted a desk study, one focus group discussion, and ten in-depth interviews with participants from the Ministry of Health, Provincial Centres for Disease Control, and HIV/AIDS-related facilities. The results showed the reduced coverage of KPs with access to prevention (i.e., harm-reduction services, counselling), testing, and treatment services (i.e., antiretroviral therapy, isoniazid preventive therapy). It also showed the reduced coverage of quality essential services, mainly in skipping consultation and testing, delaying un-emergency services, and redirecting KPs to non-HIV-specialised facilities. There was a gap in providing support for mental health, violence/abuse, and reproductive health. Financial risk protection for KPs was reduced due to uncertain local budget allocation; decreasing their ability to pay for HIV/AIDS-related services and social health insurance premiums; and increased out-of-pocket payments to comply with the COVID-19 control measures. This paper provides recommendations for strategic planning to ensure universal health coverage for KPs in the post COVID-19 era, especially for limited-resource countries like Vietnam.

Terminated local subsidy on electric vehicle adoption during the COVID-19 pandemic: The case of Chongqing City.

Chongqing, one of the four municipalities directly under the Central Government in China, terminated local subsidies for electric vehicles (EVs) on June 26, 2019. Shortly after the termination, EV adoption in China was affected by the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic. However, little research studies on whether the terminated local subsidy has a lasting impact on EV adoption, especially during the pandemic. Using EV adoption data from Chongqing and 44 other cities in China, this study aims to fill this gap by first proposing a new method to estimate the unobservable data of the treated unit in the preintervention periods to obtain accurate results. This study then also estimates unobservable data for more conservative results. The findings show that the terminated subsidy has had a significant positive impact on EV adoption during the COVID-19 pandemic compared to the situation where a local subsidy was never provided. The results show that in Chongqing, during the first five months of the pandemic, terminated local subsidy helped reduce the loss of EV adoption by approximately 3141 units when accurately estimated, and approximately 1696 units when more conservatively estimated. These findings help to understand the role of subsidies both during implementation and after their termination.

Parents with intellectual disability reporting on factors affecting their caregiving in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic: A qualitative study.

BACKGROUND: Parents with intellectual disability are vulnerable to parenting stress and overwhelming life events. The COVID-19 pandemic constitutes a potentially overwhelming event, but there is little knowledge concerning the effects on parents' caregiving. The present study aimed to fill this gap. METHOD: Semi-structured interviews with 10 Swedish parents with intellectual disability were analysed using thematic analysis. RESULTS: One broad caregiving-related theme: increased caregiving demands and reduced resources for coping resulting in strained parent-child interactions and relationships. Four subthemes highlighted influential factors: pandemic information, professional support, social relationships and informal support, and children's school activities. Strained parent-child interactions were particularly common in the absence of adapted pandemic information, if professional and informal support were compromised, and if the parents had dealt with school-related changes. CONCLUSIONS: Findings support contextual models of caregiving and a stress-resources perspective, and emphasise the importance of adapted information and support to parents with intellectual disability during crises.

The COVID-19 pandemic and energy transitions: Evidence from low-carbon power generation in China.

The Corona Virus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) has led to a decline in carbon emissions or an improvement in air quality. Yet little is known about how the pandemic has affected the "low-carbon" energy transition. Here, using difference-in-differences (DID) models with historical controls, this study analyzed the overall impact of COVID-19 on China's low-carbon power generation and examined the COVID-19 effect on the direction of the energy transition with a monthly province-specific, source-specific dataset. It was found that the COVID-19 pandemic increased the low-carbon power generation by 4.59% (0.0648 billion kWh), mainly driven by solar and wind power generation, especially solar power generation. Heterogeneous effects indicate that the pandemic has accelerated the transition of the power generation mix and the primary energy mix from carbon-intensive energy to modern renewables (such as solar and wind power). Finally, this study put forward several policy implications, including the need to promote the long-term development of renewables, green recovery, and so on.

Jumps and stock market variance during the COVID-19 pandemic: Evidence from international stock markets.

Based on the work of Buncic and Gisler (2017), this paper investigates whether the roles of jump components will change in forecasting the volatility of international equity markets during the COVID-19 pandemic. Interestingly, in contrast to the conclusions of Buncic and Gisler (2017), we find jump components of the international equity indices are useful to predict the international stock markets' volatility during the COVID-19 pandemic. Our study tries to provide new evidence of jump components in stock markets.