Dataset Information

Urban birds become less fearful following COVID-19 reopenings.

ABSTRACT: Following the COVID-19 pandemic, many people around the world stayed home, drastically altering human activity in cities. This exceptional moment provided researchers the opportunity to test how urban animals respond to human disturbance, in some cases testing fundamental questions on the mechanistic impact of urban behaviours on animal behaviour. However, at the end of this 'anthropause', human activity returned to cities. How might each of these strong shifts affect wildlife in the short and long term? We focused on fear response, a trait essential to tolerating urban life. We measured flight initiation distance-at both individual and population levels-for an urban bird before, during and after the anthropause to examine if birds experienced longer-term changes after a year and a half of lowered human presence. Dark-eyed juncos did not change fear levels during the anthropause, but they became drastically less fearful afterwards. These surprising and counterintuitive findings, made possible by following the behaviour of individuals over time, has led to a novel understanding that fear response can be driven by plasticity, yet not habituation-like processes. The pandemic-caused changes in human activity have shown that there is great complexity in how humans modify a behavioural trait fundamental to urban tolerance in animals.

SUBMITTER: Diamant ES

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10445014 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Urban birds become less fearful following COVID-19 reopenings.

Diamant Eleanor S ES MacGregor-Fors Ian I Blumstein Daniel T DT Yeh Pamela J PJ

Proceedings. Biological sciences 20230823 2005

Following the COVID-19 pandemic, many people around the world stayed home, drastically altering human activity in cities. This exceptional moment provided researchers the opportunity to test how urban animals respond to human disturbance, in some cases testing fundamental questions on the mechanistic impact of urban behaviours on animal behaviour. However, at the end of this 'anthropause', human activity returned to cities. How might each of these strong shifts affect wildlife in the short and l ...[more]

PMID: 37608719

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Project description:ImportanceThe variability in timing of middle and secondary school reopenings during the 2020 to 2021 school year in the US presents an opportunity to examine the associations of different approaches to in-person education with changes in community COVID-19 incidence. Early studies on this topic have reached mixed conclusions and may be biased by unmeasured confounders.ObjectiveTo estimate the association of in-person vs virtual instruction for students at the sixth grade level or above with county-level COVID-19 incidence in the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic.Design, setting, and participantsThis cohort study included matched pairs of counties resuming school programs with in-person vs virtual instruction, drawn from 229 US counties that contained a single public school district and with county populations exceeding 100 000 residents. Counties that contained 1 single public school district and reopened in-person schooling for students at the sixth grade level or above during the fall of 2020 were matched 1-to-1 with counties whose school district reopened with only virtual instruction, based on geographic proximity, population-level demographic factors, the resumption of school district-level fall sports activity, and baseline county COVID-19 incidence rates. Data were analyzed from November 2021 to November 2022.ExposuresIn-person instruction for students at the sixth grade level or above resuming between August 1 and October 31, 2020.Main outcomes and measuresCounty-level daily COVID-19 incidence per 100 000 residents.ResultsThe inclusion criteria and subsequent matching algorithm led to the identification of 51 pairs of matched counties among 79 total unique counties. Exposed counties had a median (IQR) of 141 840 (81 441-241 910) residents each, and unexposed counties had a median (IQR) of 131 412 (89 011-278 666) residents each. County schools with in-person vs virtual instruction had similar daily COVID-19 case incidence within the first 4 weeks after in-person reopening, but counties with in-person instruction had higher daily incidence beyond 4 weeks. Daily case incidence per 100 000 residents among counties with in-person instruction, compared with counties with virtual instruction, was higher at 6 weeks (adjusted incidence rate ratio, 1.24 [95% CI, 1.00-1.55]) and at 8 weeks after (adjusted incidence rate ratio, 1.31 [95% CI, 1.06-1.62]). This outcome was also concentrated in counties where schools provided full rather than hybrid instructional models.Conclusions and relevanceIn a cohort study of matched pairs of counties that reopened with in-person vs virtual instruction at the secondary school level in the 2020 to 2021 academic year, counties with in-person school instructional models early in the COVID-19 pandemic experienced increases in county-level COVID-19 incidence at 6 and 8 weeks after in-person reopening, compared with counties with virtual instructional models.

Project description:ObjectiveThe objective of this scoping review is to provide an overview of existing studies and evidence on the impact of school closures and reopenings during the pandemic.IntroductionThe COVID-19 pandemic has necessitated widespread school closures, and reopening schools safely has a pivotal role in the well-being of children and teachers, SARS-CoV-2 transmission control and optimal societal functioning. Widespread school closures in response to the COVID-19 pandemic have caused adverse effects on the education, physical health and mental well-being of children. An understanding of the impact of school closures and reopenings as well as factors influencing school safety is critical to bringing schools' operational status back to normal. Despite the implication of individual concerns and knowledge on disease prevention practices, there is a paucity of research on individual knowledge, needs and behaviours in the context of school reopenings. In the proposed study, we will conduct a scoping review to identify and provide inventory of the current research and evidence on the impact of COVID-19 on K-12 schools (primary and secondary schools) and vice versa.Methods and analysisEligible studies/literature include members of K-12 (primary and secondary) schools (students, parents, staff, faculty, COVID-19 coordinator, school nurses) in countries affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. We will exclude university or college students. There will be no exclusion based on methods, timing or school operational status.All concepts regarding school closures and reopenings will be considered, and all types of research will be considered.This scoping review will follow the Joanna Briggs Institute methodology for scoping reviews. Sources of evidence published from 2020 to 31 October 2021 will be included. The search will include PubMed, preprints in EuropePMC, ERIC, Scopus, Web of Science Core Collection, PsycINFO, Embase, CINAHL and VHL. We will cover grey literature in Harvard Think Tank Database, COVID-19 Evidence Hub like COVID-END and Google Scholar. The abstract and title screening, full-text screening and data extraction will be done by two independent reviewers.Disagreements will be resolved by an independent third reviewer. Data extract will be done on Qualtrics form to ensure accurate extraction. Citation chaining will be performed on key articles identified. A critical appraisal will be performed.The scoping review will take place from 1 August 2021 to 15 November 2021. We will perform a final round of updated search and citation chaining.Ethics and disseminationThe review will be based on published works and grey literature, thus it is exempt from formal ethical approval. This protocol cannot be registered in the Prospective Register of Systematic Reviews because this registry is not for scoping reviews. We will register it in OSF Registration. The paper will appear in a peer-reviewed, open-access journal to ensure a broad dissemination.

Project description:BackgroundSeveral American universities have experienced COVID-19 outbreaks, risking the health of their students, employees, and local communities. Such large outbreaks have drained university resources and forced several institutions to shift to remote learning and send students home, further contributing to community disease spread. Many of these outbreaks can be attributed to the large numbers of active infections returning to campus, alongside high-density social events that typically take place at the semester start. In the absence of effective mitigation measures (e.g., high-frequency testing), a phased return of students to campus is a practical intervention to minimize the student population size and density early in the semester, reduce outbreaks, preserve institutional resources, and ultimately help mitigate disease spread in communities.MethodsWe develop dynamic compartmental SARS-CoV-2 transmission models to assess the impact of a phased reopening, in conjunction with pre-arrival testing, on minimizing on-campus outbreaks and preserving university resources (measured by isolation bed capacity). We assumed an on-campus population of N = 7500, 40% of infected students require isolation, 10 day isolation period, pre-arrival testing removes 90% of incoming infections, and that phased reopening returns one-third of the student population to campus each month. We vary the disease reproductive number (Rt) between 1.5 and 3.5 to represent the effectiveness of alternative mitigation strategies throughout the semester.ResultsCompared to pre-arrival testing only or neither intervention, phased reopening with pre-arrival testing reduced peak active infections by 3 and 22% (Rt = 1.5), 22 and 29% (Rt = 2.5), 41 and 45% (Rt = 3.5), and 54 and 58% (improving Rt), respectively. Required isolation bed capacity decreased between 20 and 57% for values of Rt ≥ 2.5.ConclusionUnless highly effective mitigation measures are in place, a reopening with pre-arrival testing substantially reduces peak number of active infections throughout the semester and preserves university resources compared to the simultaneous return of all students to campus. Phased reopenings allow institutions to ensure sufficient resources are in place, improve disease mitigation strategies, or if needed, preemptively move online before the return of additional students to campus, thus preventing unnecessary harm to students, institutional faculty and staff, and local communities.

Dataset Information

Urban birds become less fearful following COVID-19 reopenings.

Publications

Urban birds become less fearful following COVID-19 reopenings.

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