The pox of politics: Troesken's tradeoff reexamined

In The Pox of Liberty, Werner Troesken details the tradeoff between liberal institutions and communicable disease. According to Troesken, individual freedom presents a danger to the public health in the face of infectious disease, while constitutional constraints restrict the government's ability to implement effective policy. Contra Troesken, I argue that decision-makers, amidst a crisis of contagion, neglect intertemporal tradeoffs, thereby discounting long run costs while favoring short run policies. These policies, once implemented, are difficult to reverse due to the path dependent nature of political institutions. Irreversible and self-reinforcing growth in political institutions established to enhance health can have an unintended negative impact on health during future crises, where political agents must operate in a more cumbersome and error-prone institutional environment. Using events from the history of public health in the U.S. as support for my theory, I conclude that Troesken's alleged tradeoff ought to be met with greater skepticism.

Divergent effects of social media use on meaning in life via loneliness and existential isolation during the coronavirus pandemic

Stay-at-home orders issued to combat the growing number of infections during the coronavirus pandemic in 2020 had many psychological consequences for people including elevated stress, anxiety, and difficulty maintaining meaning in their lives. The present studies utilized cross-sectional designs and were conducted to better understand how social media usage related to people's subjective isolation (i.e., social loneliness, emotional loneliness, and existential isolation) and meaning in life (MIL) during the early months of the pandemic within the United States. Study 1 found that general social media use indirectly predicted higher MIL via lower existential isolation and social isolation. Study 2 replicated these patterns and found that social media use also predicted lower MIL via higher emotional loneliness, and that the aforementioned effects occurred with active, but not passive, social media use. Findings suggest social media use may be a viable means to validate one's experiences (i.e., reduce existential isolation) during the pandemic but may also lead to intensified feelings concerning missing others (i.e., increased emotional loneliness). This research also helps to identify potential divergent effects of social media on MIL and helps to clarify the relationships among varying types of subjective isolation.

A Utility Framework for COVID-19 Online Forward Triage Tools: A Swiss Telehealth Case Study

The SARS-CoV-2 pandemic caused a surge in online tools commonly known as symptom checkers. The purpose of these symptom checkers was mostly to reduce the health system burden by providing worried people with testing criteria, where to test and how to self-care. Technical, usability and organizational challenges with regard to online forward triage tools have also been reported. Very few of these online forward triage tools have been evaluated. Evidence for decision frameworks may be of particular value in a pandemic setting where time frames are restricted, uncertainties are ubiquitous and the evidence base is changing rapidly. The objective was to develop a framework to evaluate the utility of COVID-19 online forward triage tools. The development of the online forward triage tool utility framework was conducted in three phases. The process was guided by the socio-ecological framework for adherence that states that patient (individual), societal and broader structural factors affect adherence to the tool. In a further step, pragmatic incorporation of themes on the utility of online forward triage tools that emerged from our study as well as from the literature was performed. Seven criteria emerged; tool accessibility, reliability as an information source, medical decision-making aid, allaying fear and anxiety, health system burden reduction, onward forward transmission reduction and systems thinking (usefulness in capacity building, planning and resource allocation, e.g., tests and personal protective equipment). This framework is intended to be a starting point and a generic tool that can be adapted to other online forward triage tools beyond COVID-19. A COVID-19 online forward triage tool meeting all seven criteria can be regarded as fit for purpose. How useful an OFTT is depends on its context and purpose.

Importance of human capital, field knowledge and experience to improve pest locust management

BACKGROUND

A poorly organised risk management system may dysfunction when used. The consequences can be dramatic for those supposed to be protected. Since the 1960s, preventive control strategies, with field officers as living memory, have been developed to monitor locusts. Preserving their experience of past plagues is consequently essential. Wrong use of their knowledge can disrupt the whole management chain. We explored these conditions using a multi-agent model representing a preventive system. We simulated how the field teams' tendency to repeatedly visit past outbreak areas (hotspots) by allocating them an attraction weight can help in preventing plagues.

RESULTS

When field teams' attention remained constant over time, there was dramatic decrease in the number of plagues, with increasing interest in hotspots, as long as interest was less than 2.5 times more than elsewhere. When the field teams were only attentive during recession times, plagues were better controlled using a low weight for hotspots. The spatial structure of hotspot distribution had an effect: the more frequent and the bigger the hotspots, the lower the optimal hotspot weighting needed to reduce plagues.

CONCLUSION

Orienting surveys towards hotspots particularly during recession times reduces plagues. The spatial structure of locust habitats may influence the way they are managed. Habitats located outside the multiple hotspots of species such as the desert locust should be visited more frequently than those with only one hotspot, such as the South American locust. The decline/loss of the field officers' experience highlights the need to save, capitalise and disseminate this knowledge. © 2021 Society of Chemical Industry.

Exploration of spatial-temporal varying impacts on COVID-19 cumulative case in Texas using geographically weighted regression (GWR)

Since COVID-19 is extremely threatening to human health, it is significant to determine its impact factors to curb the virus spread. To tackle the complexity of COVID-19 expansion on a spatial-temporal scale, this research appropriately analyzed the spatial-temporal heterogeneity at the county-level in Texas. First, the impact factors of COVID-19 are captured on social, economic, and environmental multiple facets, and the communality is extracted through principal component analysis (PCA). Second, this research uses COVID-19 cumulative case as the dependent variable and the common factors as the independent variables. According to the virus prevalence hierarchy, the spatial-temporal disparity is categorized into four quarters in the GWR analysis model. The findings exhibited that GWR models provide higher fitness and more geodata-oriented information than OLS models. In El Paso, Odessa, Midland, Randall, and Potter County areas in Texas, population, hospitalization, and age structures are presented as static, positive influences on COVID-19 cumulative cases, indicating that they should adopt stringent strategies in curbing COVID-19. Winter is the most sensitive season for the virus spread, implying that the last quarter should be paid more attention to preventing the virus and taking precautions. This research is expected to provide references for the prevention and control of COVID-19 and related infectious diseases and evidence for disease surveillance and response systems to facilitate the appropriate uptake and reuse of geographical data.

Non-pharmaceutical interventions in a generalized model of interactive dynamics between COVID-19 and the economy

We use a simple general model of interactive dynamics between the COVID-19 pandemic and the economy to examine the impact of various non-pharmaceutical interventions in the form of restrictions on socio-economic activities like lockdowns, travel restrictions, etc. We mathematically demonstrate that these restrictions might be useful in preventing repeated waves of infection recurrence in the pandemic. These results are general and not dependent on choice of specific functional forms or parameter configurations. We set out briefly the implications of these results for public health interventions.

An on-line survey of the behavioral changes in Lebanon, Jordan and Tunisia during the COVID-19 pandemic related to food shopping, food handling, and hygienic practices

The impact of the novel coronavirus pandemic (COVID-19) has spanned across the various aspects of life globally. Understanding public reactions is vital for effective risk communication and outbreak control and prevention. The Arab world has diverse cultural, economic, and social structures, so public choices and decisions also vary. To investigate the changes in behavior related to food shopping and handling, precautions measures, and hygiene practices of the public during the pandemic, a web-based survey tool was developed and conducted on 1074 subjects in three Arab countries, Lebanon, Jordan, and Tunisia, using a snowball sampling technique. The results showed a significant reduction in RTE consumption during the pandemic, as shown in the 19.2% and 12.2% rise in the proportion of respondents not ordering hot and cold RTE food delivery, respectively. Compared to pre-COVID-19 times, a substantial increase in behaviors related to hygiene and disinfection practices (22.0%–32.2%) was observed with a lesser increase (11.2%) in handwashing practices before food preparation. Moreover, public concerns about contracting COVID-19 from food led to almost doubling the number of Tunisians using cleaning agents for washing fresh fruits and vegetables (e.g., soaps, non-food grade chlorine bleach) besides a 16% and 26.1% increase in use among the Jordanian and Lebanese, respectively. However, a third of the respondents did not follow instructions on labels for the use of chemical products. In conclusion, this study identified culture-specific shortfalls in handwashing and unsafe food handling practices during COVID-19 in the Arab countries and sheds light on the paramount role of coordinated efforts between the local health authorities and the food safety and public health stakeholders in risk communication. To reduce health risks, there need to be rigorous educational campaigns and targeted messages that reach out to the general audience on hand hygiene, the health effects of haphazard use of unsafe chemical compounds on food, and recommendations on following label instructions.