Project description:Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is highly contagious, and thus has become an emerging health crisis worldwide. The optimal strategies to prevent the spread of this disease are inconclusive, and therefore, the adopted measurements to combat COVID-19 varies in different countries. In mid-March and late-August 2020, we performed internet searches to collect relevant information, from sources such as the website of the World Health Organization. The epidemiological data of COVID-19 from several countries were collected and we found that Taiwan had a comparably successful story for combating the pandemic. As of mid-March, Taiwan had high rates of diagnostic testing (688.5 tests per million citizens) with a lower infection rate (49 cases, 2.1 cases per million people). As of late-August, there were 488 cases (20 cases per million people). Furthermore, Taiwanese government-guided strategies and hospital data were also reviewed. We summarized some important strategies to combat COVID-19, which include: (1) border control; (2) official media channel and press conferences; (3) name-based rationing system for medical masks; (4) TOCC-based rapid triage, outdoor clinics, and protective sampling devices; and (5) social distancing, delaying the start of new semesters, and religious assembly restriction. In conclusion, Taiwan had lower rates of COVID-19 compared with other countries, and Taiwan government-guided strategies contributed to the control of the disease's spread.
Project description:To understand and analyse the global impact of COVID-19 on outpatient services, inpatient care, elective surgery, and perioperative colorectal cancer care, a DElayed COloRectal cancer surgery (DECOR-19) survey was conducted in collaboration with numerous international colorectal societies with the objective of obtaining several learning points from the impact of the COVID-19 outbreak on our colorectal cancer patients which will assist us in the ongoing management of our colorectal cancer patients and to provide us safe oncological pathways for future outbreaks.
Project description:The objectives of the study was to determine the types, challenges and implications of surveillance methods for controlling Covid-19 pandemic. An integrative article review was done. The source of data were documents from WHO, Euro-surveillance, CDC, Saudi CDC, MOH, and journals from PubMed, Medline, etc. The inclusion searching criteria were surveillance, Covid-19, types, benefits and challenges, during the period 2005-2020. Published studies, reviews and guidelines that determined these criteria were collected. Data extraction and analysis were completed for all included articles. A critical appraisal was done based on the University of Michigan Practice Guideline's levels of evidence. The final sample for the integrative review comprised 30 studies. Results revealed that types of Covid-9 surveillance includes routine surveillance (comprehensive, case-based, and aggregated weakly methods), active, wildlife, syndromic, sentinel and sentinel-syndromic methods. Laboratory and hospital-based surveillance are another important types. Help-lines, surveys, participatory electronic, digital and event-based surveillance are relatively new cost-effective methods. Many surveillance indicators can be calculated. Timely and accurate of surveillance data is an essential element for effective Covid-19 interventions. Regarding challenges, the quality of surveillance in developing countries is constrained by resources and training. The main limitations of surveillance are under-ascertainment/under-reporting, lack of timeliness and completeness of surveillance data. In conclusion, surveillance is a cornerstones for controlling Covid-19 pandemic. Enhancing Covid-19 surveillance is vital for rapid cases detection, containing spread & ending pandemic.
Project description:Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection has been identified as the cause of the Coronavirus disease 19 (COVID-19), which was initially reported in December 2019 in China and has since rapidly spread worldwide.
Since then, the COVID-19 pandemic has caused a detrimental effect of the national health care system, causing a drastic reduction of the screening programs for colorectal cancer and requiring the redistribution of the hospital resources from elective surgery to the care of patients with SARS-Cov_2 infection requiring admission.
Project description:As scientific technology and space science progress, remote sensing has emerged as an innovative solution to ease the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic. To examine the research characteristics and growth trends in using remote sensing for monitoring and managing the COVID-19 research, a bibliometric analysis was conducted on the scientific documents appearing in the Scopus database. A total of 1,509 documents on this study topic were indexed between 2020 and 2022, covering 165 countries, 577 journals, 5239 institutions, and 8,616 authors. The studies related to remote sensing and COVID-19 have a significant increase of 30% with 464 articles. The United States (429 articles, 28.42% of the global output), China (295 articles, 19.54% of the global output), and the United Kingdom (174 articles, 11.53%) appeared as the top three most contributions to the literature related to remote sensing and COVID-19 research. Sustainability, Science of the Total Environment, and International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health were the three most productive journals in this research field. The utmost predominant themes were COVID-19, remote sensing, spatial analysis, coronavirus, lockdown, and air pollution. The expansion of these topics appears to be associated with cross-sectional research on remote sensing, evidence-based tools, satellite mapping, and geographic information systems (GIS). Global pandemic risks will be monitored and managed much more effectively in the coming years with the use of remote sensing technology.
Project description:Governments across the world are currently facing the task of selecting suitable intervention strategies to cope with the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. This is a highly challenging task, since harsh measures may result in economic collapse while a relaxed strategy might lead to a high death toll. Motivated by this, we consider the problem of forming intervention strategies to mitigate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic that optimize the trade-off between the number of deceases and the socio-economic costs. We demonstrate that the healthcare capacity and the testing rate highly affect the optimal intervention strategies. Moreover, we propose an approach that enables practical strategies, with a small number of policies and policy changes, that are close to optimal. In particular, we provide tools to decide which policies should be implemented and when should a government change to a different policy. Finally, we consider how the presented results are affected by uncertainty in the initial reproduction number and infection fatality rate and demonstrate that parametric uncertainty has a more substantial effect when stricter strategies are adopted.
Project description:Among over 200 COVID-19 affected countries, some are fighting to "flatten the curve", while some others are considering reopening after lockdown. It remains unclear how different reopening strategies obstruct the local virus containment and impact the economy. We develop a model with travelers across heterogeneous epicenters. A low-risk area attempts to safely reopen utilizing internal policies, such as social distancing and contact tracing, and external policies, including capacity quota, quarantine, and tests. Simulations based on the COVID-19 scenario show that external policies differ in efficacy. They can substitute each other and complement internal policies. Simultaneous relaxation of both channels may lead to a new wave of COVID-19 and large economic costs. This work highlights the importance of quantitative assessment prior to implementing reopening strategies.
Project description:The COVID-19 crisis forced many changes to occur within organizations, which were necessary to keep the continuance of the organization's operations. Job performance seems to be an important factor determining such continuance, through its influence on the performance of entire organization. Shaping and keeping job performance in times of COVID-19 pandemic was a challenge for organizations, due to its negative impact on employees, causing their stress or lack of sense of security. There is a growing role of HRM specialists in appropriately shaping HRM strategies that can positively shape job-related attitudes, resulting in enhanced job performance during such difficult times. Therefore, this study aims to explain the role of COVID-19 oriented HRM strategies in shaping job performance through job-related attitudes such as work motivation, job satisfaction, and organizational commitment in a time of crisis occurring in the organization due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The study was conducted among 378 organizations operating in Poland during 2nd wave of COVID-19 pandemic. To verify the hypotheses, descriptive statistics were calculated using IBM SPSS and path analysis was performed using IBM AMOS. The result shows that combined set of "hard" HRM strategies related to the financial aspects and "soft" HRM strategies related to keeping employees' wellbeing during the crisis gives the best results in shaping job performance through job-related attitudes and consequently strengthening organizational performance. This study contributes to the knowledge concerning the development of COVID-19 oriented HRM strategies, which may also have practical application.