The current Covid-19 pandemic has attracted significant attention from epidemiologists and economists alike. This differs from the 1918–1920 Spanish influenza pandemic, when academic economists hardly paid attention to its economic features, despite its very high death toll. We examine the reasons for that by contrasting the ways epidemiologists and economists reacted to the Spanish flu at the time and shortly after the pandemic. We also explore, but less extensively, some economic and epidemiologic writings during the (...) twenty-five years that followed. (shrink)

Few diseases are extensively diffused as influenza, but though flu pandemics occur with regularity throughout history the bibliography is dominated by the 1918-1919 “Spanish influenza” pandemic. This review argues that this preoccupation is largely a product of historical epidemiology and retrospective statistical analysis which has made the Spanish flu the reference point against which other modern respiratory pandemics, including COVID-19, are measured—hence the Spanish flu’s importance for the 21st century pandemic imaginary. The review identifies six (...) distinct thematic areas within the historiography of H1N1 Spanish influenza. These include medical writings which attempt to read the history of the Spanish flu backwards to “learn” public health “lessons” for the mitigation of future pandemics, and ecological writings in which influenza is seen as the paradigm of an emerging infectious disease and a model for the genesis of epidemics and pandemics from zoonotic reservoirs. Scholarship since 1997 also reflects a growing interdisciplinarity, one in which bioarchaeology and molecular dating techniques have furnished new insights into the history of influenza and the Spanish flu’s evolutionary origins, bringing the life sciences into closer dialogue with the medical and environmental humanities. These scientific insights have spurred both academic and popular writings on the Spanish flu, rendering its characterization as the “forgotten pandemic” something of an oxymoron. Indeed, if anything, the centenary of the Spanish flu in 2018 and the 2019-2023 COVID pandemic have provoked renewed interest in several of the themes identified in this review: including, most particularly, the writings of social historians of medicine, cultural historians, and disease demographers. (shrink)

This book contains original essays that look at contagious/infectious disease pandemics and the ethical public policy and administration these have entailed. In particular, the pandemics of the 1918 flu pandemic, HIV in the 1990s, SARS in 2003, Ebola from 2014–2016 and the novel COVID-19 in 2020 are highlighted. The contributions in this work offer the reader insights in these and several other recent pandemics that present differently—either via contagion or mortality rate—and how each should be addressed by countries of (...) various sorts. This book is a must for the ongoing debate on how we should treat public health crises, such as the one we have all just encountered in the novel COVID-19 pandemic. (shrink)

What is viral law? In order to being my discussion, I note that the last two years have been extremely difficult to understand and that we, meaning those who have lived through the pandemic, have struggled to make sense. Thus, I make the argument that the virus has impacted upon not only the individual’s ability to make sense in a world where every day routines have been upended, but also social and political structures that similarly rely on repetition to (...) continue to function. According to this thesis, Covid-19 is more than simply a biological organism, but also a cultural virus that undermines the organisation of social, political, and economic systems and requires new ways of thinking about how we might move forward into a post-Covid world. In the name of beginning this project of making sense of Covid-19, I track back in history to the comparable reference point of the Spanish flu pandemic of 1918–1920 and, in particular, a reading of Freud’s Beyond the Pleasure Principle, which the founder of psychoanalysis wrote in the shadow of the virus. In reading Freud’s attempt to write a psychology of death in the context of this funereal period of history, I argue that he set out first, a mythological theory of viral law concerned with the death drive, before turning to second, a techno-scientific, biological theory of the same law characterised by microbial immortality. Beyond this exploration of Beyond the Pleasure Principle, in the third part of the article I turn to a reading of Lacan’s interpretation of Freud’s work, where viral law becomes a story of cybernetics and nihilistic mechanisation. Here, perfect mechanisation, and the endless oscillation between message and noise, looks a lot like living death. Finally, I take up Derrida’s critique of Jacob’s molecular biology and, by extension, Freud’s theory of microbial immorality, that he thinks privileges an idea of repetitive sameness and opens up a space for cultural politics concerned with immunity against otherness. Derrida’s key point here is that this biological fantasy ignores the reality of viral sex that enables evolution to happen. What this means is that the other, even in its microbial form, is ever present, and that we must recognise the importance of difference to the possibility of social, political, and economic change. (shrink)

In the last year of the Great War, Italy was also hit by the Spanish flu. The Civic Hospitals faced a deadly disaster with insufficient resources. All the heavy workload fell on the female nursing staff, who were the only ones able ensure the continuity of the hospital services. This study aimed to explore the impact of the influenza on the health of the nurses at the Maggiore Hospital in Milan during the second and third epidemic waves. Historical research (...) was conducted between February and May 2020. Primary sources were retrieved from the historical archives of the Fondazione IRCCS Ca' Granda Ospedale Maggiore Policlinico and the daily newspaper Corriere della Sera. In the autumn of 1918, the Maggiore Hospital in Milan changed its organization to hospitalise patients affected by the influenza pandemic. Although the hospital managers wanted to protect their healthcare staff from the risks of contagion by means of prophylaxis rules, 388 lay nurses and 80 religious sister nurses were affected by this insidious disease. The second and third waves of the pandemic claimed 25 victims of duty. Remembered for their altruism and spirit of abnegation, the hospital community honoured their sacrifice, and the citizens expressed their gratitude. (shrink)

Avian Flu Pandemic – Flight of the Healthcare Worker? Content Type Journal Article Pages 365-385 DOI 10.1007/s10730-009-9114-9 Authors Robert B. Shabanowitz, Geisinger Medical Center, Dept. of OB/GYN 100 North Academy Avenue Danville PA 17822-2920 USA Judith E. Reardon, Geisinger Medical Center Center for Health Research 100 North Academy Avenue Danville PA 17822-3003 USA Journal HEC Forum Online ISSN 1572-8498 Print ISSN 0956-2737 Journal Volume Volume 21 Journal Issue Volume 21, Number 4.

It is often claimed that the exceptional severity of the Spanish flu, one of the most deadly events in recorded human history, is an unsolved mystery. However, even detailed aspects such as its W-shaped mortality curve are well explained by Paul Ewald’s theory of the evolution of virulence. Understanding the causes of the Spanish flu will help to prevent future epidemics.

Ford, Norman Following on from the previous article by Anne Moates, I will take for granted the need for all infected birds to be tracked down and destroyed. I am assuming the scenario that some human beings may be infected by a mutated form of the highly pathogenic H5N1 avian influenza so that this modified bird flu virus can be transmitted from human to human by social contact. Some of the ethical issues that arise in this possible scenario need to (...) be briefly considered. (shrink)

This paper examines the case of a recent H5N1virus (avian influenza) outbreak in West Bengal, an eastern state of India, and argues that poorly executed pandemic management may be viewed as a moral lapse. It further argues that pandemic management initiatives are intimately related to the concept of health as a social 'good' and to the moral responsibility of protection from foreseeable social harm from an infectious disease. The initiatives, therefore, have to be guided by special moral obligations (...) towards biorisk reduction, obligations which remain unfulfilled when a public body entrusted with the responsibility fails to manage satisfactorily the prevention and control of the infection. The overall conclusion is that pandemic management has a moral dimension. The gravity of the threat that fatal infectious diseases pose for public health creates special moral obligations for public bodies in pandemic situations. However, the paper views the West Bengal case as a learning opportunity, and considers the lapses cited as challenges that better, more effectively conducted pandemic management can prepare for. It is hoped that this paper will provoke constructive bioethical deliberations, particularly pertinent to the developing world, on how to ensure that the obligations towards health are fulfilled ethically and more effectively. (shrink)

It is still remarkably difficult for public health officials charged with developing and implementing pandemic influenza preparedness plans at the community levelto obtain clear, concrete, and consistent guidance on how to construct plans that are both ethical and actionable. As of mid-2007, most of the federal and state pandemic plans filed with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, describing how public health officials will coordinate public agencies and private entities in the event of an outbreak, failed to (...) include ethical guidance for first responders responsible for providing essential services and making fair decisions during a public health emergency. (shrink)

When is it a good time to think about time? The answer provided by this essay is that there is no time like the present, especially the crazy, tense present of the year 2020. In this year four distinct scales of temporality have collided in a prolonged period of crisis and uncertainty: (1) the onset of a global pandemic that devastated the world economy and killed over a million people, the worst public health disaster since the Spanish flu (...) of 1918; (2) a political crisis featuring the rise of authoritarian governments around the world that threatened to overturn two centuries of efforts to secure stable representative democracies, centered in the rise of a would-be tyrant and demagogue in the US; (3) an explosive social movement centered in the endemic condition of systemic racism in the US; (4) a global environmental crisis that threatens the stability of the planetary ecological system as a sustainable habitat for thousands of species, including the human. Quarantined in monkish isolation by the pandemic, the author has engaged in a set of reflections on these convergent time scales. Instead of the classic (and unanswerable) philosophical question “What is time?” this essay reflects on the ways we picture time in metaphors, figures, personifications, and diagrams. In an anachronistic gathering of images of time from ancient and modern sources, the essay attempts to replace the ontology of time with an iconology that may provide some useful tools for finding our way through this epochal crisis. (shrink)

When labeling an infectious disease, officially sanctioned scientific names, e.g., “H1N1 virus,” are recommended over place-specific names, e.g., “Spanish flu.” This is due to concerns from policymakers and the WHO that the latter might lead to unintended stigmatization. However, with little empirical support for such negative consequences, authorities might be focusing on limited resources on an overstated issue. This paper empirically investigates the impact of naming against the current backdrop of the 2019–2020 pandemic. The first hypothesis posited that (...) using place-specific names associated with China leads to greater levels of sinophobia, the negative stigmatization of Chinese individuals. The second hypothesis posited that using a scientific name leads to increased anxiety, risk aversion, beliefs about contagiousness of the virus, and beliefs about mortality rate. Results from two preregistered studies [N = 504; N = 412], conducted across three countries with the first study during the early outbreak and the second study at a later stage of the pandemic, found no evidence of any adverse effects of naming on sinophobia and strong support for the null hypothesis using Bayesian analyses. Moreover, analyses found no impact of naming on anxiety, risk aversion, beliefs about contagiousness of the virus, or beliefs about mortality rate, with mild to strong support for the null hypothesis across outcomes. Exploratory analyses also found no evidence for the effect of naming being moderated by political affiliation. In conclusion, results provide no evidence that virus naming impacted individual’s attitudes toward Chinese individuals or perceptions of the virus, with the majority of analyses finding strong support for the null hypothesis. Therefore, based on the current evidence, it appears that the importance given to naming infectious diseases might be inflated. (shrink)

This study examines some of the perceptions amongst Spanish LGBTQ+ youth during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic and the subsequent confinement and lockdown measures, between March and May 2020. During this time, many of these young people were forced to return to their family homes and restrict their social relations. This new situation often exposed them to forms of violence from which there was no escape, with negative consequences for their psychosocial health. The study evaluates the (...) correlations between perceived social support, burdensomeness, thwarted belongingness and the people with whom LGBTQ+ youth lived during confinement. A descriptive and multivariate analysis of variance and bivariate correlations is used to examine the responses of 394 LGBTQ+ youth, between 17 and 21 years of age, residing in Spain. Overall, the study finds that gender is key when explaining the differences between the experiences of LGBTQ+ youth, with women and non-binary individuals experiencing a greater perception of stigma in the places where they lived during the lockdown. Moreover, trans men and women and non-binary individuals reported receiving less support and a greater feeling of burdensomeness then the other participants. These results suggest that LGBTQ+ youth must be given special consideration during times of crisis, like the COVID-19 pandemic, and may benefit from intervention with an intersectional and transfeminist perspective. (shrink)

The current spread of coronavirus has caught our modern world by surprise, which leads to widespread panic, fear and confusion. However, if we view the unfolding of these events from a scientific historical perspective of past human evolution, we may discover the reoccurring patterns of the environmental conditions that give rise to such epidemics. Hence, we can figure out better methods to prepare and react to the infectious agents that spread diseases that have shaped the course of human history before. (...) Here, I propose a holistic view of human evolution, with an interdisciplinary approach that studies how cyclic variation in solar UV energy affects the evolution of viruses and shapes the symbiotic dynamics of human life on earth. (shrink)

Through an interpretative phenomenological perspective, this article analyses the education policy implemented in Spain following the declaration of the state of alarm due to Covid-19 pandemic. It questions the measures implemented (i.e. the confinement of the population to their homes and school closures, others related to the right of minors to study and to managing the school year), and the main effects on children and families from an inclusive standpoint. Three main categories emerged from the analysis: 1) access to (...) education, 2) the relationships between, and the participation of, members of the educational community, 3) learning acquisition. The results underline that the effects have not been the same for different families, especially among more vulnerable groups. Marginality and socio-educative inequality have increased. It is essential to make more flexible policies to accommodate diversity and ensure the principles of equity. In this direction, family’s socio-educational role has to be acknowledged and their needs assumed as a priority. (shrink)

One of the measures adopted by the government of Spain during the COVID-19 pandemic has been the elimination of face-to-face classes in all universities, requiring that all teachers had to conduct their classes in an online mode. The objective of this article is to study how this adaptation among university teachers affected their job performance due to the technostress that they may have suffered. Based on the person-environment misfit theory, the sample consisted of 239 teachers from face-to-face and online (...) universities in Spain who were asked to identify the type of technostress, feelings of technostress, and impact on job performance as a result of online teaching due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Results show that teachers who suffered the most from the negative consequences of technology have been female teachers from face-to-face universities who are older, have more years of experience, and consequently, hold a higher position. Despite previous results none of the above variables have been significant in explaining the decline in job performance during confinement. It was also observed that although the effect on job performance was similar for online teachers as well as face-to-face teachers, the variables that explained this effect were different. For the online teachers, there was a misfit between the demands and resources, which are explained based on the previous theory. Teachers from face-to-face universities pointed to the lack of instructions from their organization, along with subjective feelings of techno-inefficacy, as the reasons behind the decline in job performance during the lockdown period. Looking ahead to future research on the incorporation of information and communications technology in teaching work, it is necessary to consider variables associated with technostress, both objective and subjective, in order to increase the effectiveness of integrating emerging technology into teaching work. (shrink)

Aim: The purpose of this study is to evaluate the Ottoman Empire's first experienced quarantine and the Turkey Republic's used compartmental models within quarantine. Method: This study was conducted as a review to explore quarantine procedures applied from Ottoman Empire to the present time in the Turkey Republic. For this purpose, we collected pieces of evidence from historical texts, articles, online reports, and books to websites. The reviews findings were assessed chronologically. Results: There were findings about the Ottoman Empire and (...) Turkish Republic. The first data was included in the quarantine directives of the Sultan II. Mahmud (1808-1839) for cholera. Moreover, the Ottoman Empire continued to fight epidemics such as the plague, cholera, smallpox, malaria, and Spanish flu. After founded, the Turkish Republic state (1923) has also encountered some infectious diseases (cholera, COVID-19) and used compartmental models within quarantine with medical measures. However, while quarantine applications were made more effective with technology, COVID-19 was held back with the old quarantine application principles at short intervals. On the other hand "compartmental models within quarantine" concepts and practices were carried out in many countries instead of only quarantine and after a while implicitly followed by many countries for economic reasons; this system was introduced, which caused controversy for economic reasons, including Turkey. Conclusion: Infectious diseases not only threaten the health of people but also threatens socio-economic life and even cultural and religious practices. For this reason, its area of influence covers a wider area, the world in all other disasters. In spite of all scientific and technological developments, infectious diseases can still not be brought under control in a short time and measures have started to evolve from quarantine, social distance practice, and herd immunity system. This study offers the opportunity to reconsider and think of quarantine practices from past to present. (shrink)

BackgroundResearch during 2020 has been rapidly attending to the impact of COVID-19 on various dimensions of wellbeing on adults and children around the world. However, less attention has focused on the psychoeducational impact on children and their families. To our knowledge, no currently available studies have looked specifically at the impact of COVID-19 on students with dyslexia and their families. Research on this topic is needed to offer greater support for this population of students and their families.ObjectiveThe main objective of (...) this paper is to examine the psychoeducational impact of the required COVID-19 quarantine in Spain among children with dyslexia and their families.MethodA sample of 32 children with dyslexia and their mothers participated in this study.MeasuresChildren and adolescents with dyslexia and their mother completed several measures before the required national quarantine in Spain and again during the quarantine. Children completed measures of depression, state anxiety, reading activity, and reading motivation. Mothers provided demographic information and completed measures related to students’ emotional and behavioral difficulties as well as parenting stress, parental distress, and a questionnaire about educational problems during quarantine.ResultsMajor findings showed that during quarantine, children with dyslexia had increased levels of depression and anxiety symptoms, and parents perceived their children as having more emotional symptoms, hyperactivity-inattention, and conduct problems. During quarantine, children and adolescents with dyslexia also showed less reading activity and less reading motivation. Parents also reported significantly more stress, during quarantine compared to pre-quarantine conditions. Some demographic and psychological variables predicted children’s state anxiety as well parental stress. The questionnaire related to impacts of quarantine also revealed several important findings. For example, nearly all parents of children with dyslexia reported difficulties in establishing study routines, that the quarantine negatively affected their child’s learning, and that they did not receive sufficient help from teachers on how to support their child’s learning. Additionally, the vast majority of the parents were very worried about the child’s learning and school success, the child’s motivation and interest in reading, the child’s peer relations, and the professional skills of the child’s teacher.ConclusionThis study offers a preliminary investigation into this topic and elucidates several psychoeducational challenges that children with dyslexia and their families have experienced during the quarantine in Spain. Study findings highlight the need to provide immediate support for children with dyslexia and emphasizes the importance of developing prevention programs to mitigate any future negative impacts of COVID-19 on children with dyslexia and their parents. (shrink)

Focusing on media discourse and adopting a Critical Discourse Analysis—linguistic and rhetorical—perspective, this paper explores the role of the media in influencing citizens’ behaviour towards the COVID-19 crisis. The paper evaluates the set of potentially persuasive lexical items and emotional implicatures used by two quality newspapers, i.e. The Guardian and El País, to report on the pandemic during the three waves—the periods between the onset and trough of virus contamination—that occurred until March 2021. A representative, ad-hoc, comparable corpus was (...) compiled in English and Spanish comprising the news on the pandemic that appeared in the aforementioned newspapers during the three established time periods. The corpora were uploaded to Sketch Engine, which was used to first detect and analyse different categories of word frequency, and then assign negative or positive polarity. Lexical keyness was secondly analysed to categorize emotional implicatures of control, metaphors, signals of epistemic asymmetry and positive implicatures in order to discern how they become weapons of negative or positive persuasion. The ultimate end of the study was to critically analyse and contrast the lexicon and rhetoric used by these two newspapers during this time period so as to unveil the stance taken by governments and health institutions—voices of authority—to disseminate words of control and persuasion with the aim of exerting influence on the behaviour of citizens in UK and Spain. (shrink)

The recent appearance of an extremely widespread avian influenza virus (H5N1) that has crossed to humans in highly pathogenic form has lead to speculation that another outbreak of pandemic influenza could be imminent. However, neither the timing of the pandemic, nor the nature and epidemiology of the virus, can be predicted. This uncertainty presents major difficulties in identifying relevant ethical issues in decision-making. If the next pandemic is relatively mild, decisions may be restricted to prioritizing access to (...) essential health services during the peak of the pandemic. If the virus is more pathogenic, social stability may be threatened. It is clear that, irrespective of the nature of the next pandemic, health professionals will have a key role in decisions about allocating scarce health resources during its acute stages. It is essential that they are not forced to make decisions without the support of established guidance or protocols. Any such guidance must be practical (decisions will often have to be made rapidly on the basis of imperfect information), reasoned, based upon sound moral principles, and must enjoy as far as possible the confidence of the wider population. This paper looks in brief at some of the ethical issues that need to be considered when planning a response to pandemic flu. (shrink)

Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre, Toronto and University of Toronto Ross E. G. Upshur * Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre, Joint Centre for Bioethics University of Toronto, Toronto * Corresponding author: Ross E. G. Upshur, Primary Care Research Unit, Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre, 2075 Bayview Avenue, #E-349, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4N 3M5. Tel.: 416-480-4753; Fax: 416-480-4536; Email: ross.upshur{at}sunnybrook.ca ' + u + '@' + d + ' '//--> Abstract Are restrictive measures and duties to care ethically reasonably acceptable to faith-based organizations? This (...) study describes the perceptions of individually interviewed spiritual leaders of the disease control measures used during the recent SARS outbreak in Toronto. Four central themes were identified: the relationship between religious obligation and civic responsibilities; the role of faith-based organizations in supporting public health restrictive measures; the reciprocal obligations of public health and religious communities during restrictions; and justifiable limits to duties to care. We conclude that, within certain constraints, spiritual leaders find restrictive measures ethically reasonable and that spiritual leaders can play an important role during pandemic and epidemic control planning. Public health officials should therefore include them in the early and ongoing deliberations of the criteria and logistics for implementation during public health emergencies. CiteULike Connotea Del.icio.us What's this? (shrink)

Distinct sources of stress have emerged during the COVID-19 pandemic. Particularly, fear is expected to generate significant psychological burden on individuals and influence on either unsafe behavior that may hinder recovery efforts or virus-mitigating behaviors. However, little is known about the properties of measures to capture them in research and clinical settings. To resolve this gap, we evaluated the psychometric properties of a novel measure of fear of illness and viruses and tested its predictive value for future development of (...) distress. We extracted a random sample of 450 Chilean adult participants from a large cross-sectional survey panel and invited to participate in this intensive longitudinal study for 35 days. Of these, 163 ended up enrolling in the study after the demanding nature of the measurement schedule was clearly explained to them. For this final sample, we calculated different Confirmatory Factor Analyses (CFA) to evaluate the preliminary proposed structure for the instrument. Complementarily, we conducted a content analysis of the items to qualitatively extract its latent structure, which was also subject to empirical test via CFA. Results indicated that the original structure did not fit the data well; however, the new proposed structure based on the content analysis did. Overall, the modified instrument showed good reliability through all subscales both by its internal consistency with Cronbach’s alphas ranging from 0.814 to 0.913, and with test–retest correlations ranging from 0.715 to 0.804. Regarding its convergent validity, individuals who scored higher in fears tended to also score higher in depressive and posttraumatic stress symptoms at baseline. Furthermore, higher fears at baseline predicted a higher score in posttraumatic stress symptomatology 7 days later. These results provide evidence for the validity, reliability, and predictive performance of the scale. As the scale is free and multidimensional potentially not circumscribed to COVID-19, it might work as a step toward understanding the psychological impact of current and future pandemics, or further life-threatening health situations of similar characteristics. Limitations, practical implications, and future directions for research are discussed. (shrink)

Are restrictive measures and duties to care ethically reasonably acceptable to faith-based organizations? This study describes the perceptions of individually interviewed spiritual leaders of the disease control measures used during the recent SARS outbreak in Toronto. Four central themes were identified: the relationship between religious obligation and civic responsibilities; the role of faith-based organizations in supporting public health restrictive measures; the reciprocal obligations of public health and religious communities during restrictions; and justifiable limits to duties to care. We conclude that, (...) within certain constraints, spiritual leaders find restrictive measures ethically reasonable and that spiritual leaders can play an important role during pandemic and epidemic control planning. Public health officials should therefore include them in the early and ongoing deliberations of the criteria and logistics for implementation during public health emergencies. (shrink)

Are restrictive measures and duties to care ethically reasonably acceptable to faith-based organizations? This study describes the perceptions of individually interviewed spiritual leaders of the disease control measures used during the recent SARS outbreak in Toronto. Four central themes were identified: the relationship between religious obligation and civic responsibilities; the role of faith-based organizations in supporting public health restrictive measures; the reciprocal obligations of public health and religious communities during restrictions; and justifiable limits to duties to care. We conclude that, (...) within certain constraints, spiritual leaders find restrictive measures ethically reasonable and that spiritual leaders can play an important role during pandemic and epidemic control planning. Public health officials should therefore include them in the early and ongoing deliberations of the criteria and logistics for implementation during public health emergencies. (shrink)

Background: Adolescence is a period with physical, psychological, biological, intellectual, and social changes in which there is usually little perception of risk. COVID-19 has generated constant situations of change and uncertainty worldwide. During the pandemic, the acquisition of preventive behaviors has been relevant. Various studies carried out with adults associate risk perception and the implementation of preventive behaviors with knowledge about the COVID-19 and with age, but there are not many studies with adolescents. Therefore, the objective is to validate, (...) in Spanish, the questionnaire of the knowledge, attitudes, risk perceptions, and practices of adolescents toward the pandemic, and analyze it according to sociodemographic characteristics.Method: This study was a descriptive cross-sectional study, which included adolescents between the ages of 12–18. First, a translation and a back-translation of the questionnaire were performed. The questionnaire was presented in several high schools chosen by convenience sampling and following a non-probabilistic snowball sampling. Reliability and validity analyses were then carried out and the relationships between the different sociodemographic variables were analyzed.Results: The reliability of the questionnaire is acceptable. Knowledge was higher in women, and in those with a higher level of education; and were lower in those who lived in smaller towns, as well as in those who had a member of their family receiving financial aid. In terms of attitudes and risk perceptions, younger adolescents had higher scores, and those who had a member of their family receiving financial aid, lower.Conclusion: The questionnaire is a reliable tool in the Spanish adolescent population. Knowledge was influenced by gender, place of residence, level of education, and financial aid. Attitudes and risk perceptions were influenced by age and financial aid. For practices, no predictors were found. In general, adolescents scored lower on knowledge about COVID-19, but they scored higher on COVID-19 safety practices. (shrink)

The COVID-19 pandemic has changed the lives of millions of people around the globe and some of the unprecedent emerged disruptions, are likely to have been particularly challenging for young children. Studying the impact of such extraordinary circumstances on their well-being is crucial to identify processes leading to risk and resilience. To better understand how Spanish children have adapted to the stressful disruptions resulting from the pandemic outbreak, we examined the effects of child coping and its interactions (...) with contextual stressors on child adjustment, incorporating in our analysis a developmental perspective. Data was collected in April 2020, through parent-reports, during the acute phase of the pandemic and, temporarily coinciding with the mandatory national quarantine period imposed by the Spanish Government. A sample of 1,123 Spanish children aged 3 to 12 participated in the study. Results showed differences in the use of specific strategies by children in different age groups. Despite the uncontrollable nature of the pandemic-related stressors, child disengagement coping was distinctively associated to negative outcomes, whereas engagement coping predicted psychosocial adjustment across all age groups. Moreover, interactively with child coping, parent fear of the future and parent dispositional resilience appear as relevant contextual factors to predict both negative and positive outcomes, but their effects seem to be age dependent, suggesting a higher contextual vulnerability for younger children. These findings might have implications for identifying individual and contextual risk and informing potential preventive interventions aimed to reduce the impact of future pandemic outbreaks on children of different ages. (shrink)

Messaging from U.S. authorities about COVID-19 has been widely divergent. This research aims to clarify popular perceptions of the COVID-19 threat and its effects on victims. In four studies with over 4,100 U.S. participants, we consistently found that people perceive the threat of COVID-19 to be substantially greater than that of several other causes of death to which it has recently been compared, including the seasonal flu and automobile accidents. Participants were less willing to help COVID-19 victims, who they considered (...) riskier to help, more contaminated, and more responsible for their condition. Additionally, politics and demographic factors predicted attitudes about victims of COVID-19 above and beyond moral values; whereas attitudes about the other kinds of victims were primarily predicted by moral values. The results indicate that people perceive COVID-19 as an exceptionally severe disease threat, and despite prosocial inclinations, do not feel safe offering assistance to COVID-19 sufferers. This research has urgent applied significance: the findings are relevant to public health efforts and related marketing campaigns working to address extended damage to society and the economy from the pandemic. In particular, efforts to educate the public about the health impacts of COVID-19, encourage compliance with testing protocols and contact tracing, and support safe, prosocial decision-making and risk assessment, will all benefit from awareness of these findings. The results also suggest approaches, such as engaging people's stable values rather than their politicized perspectives on COVID-19, that may reduce stigma and promote cooperation in response to pandemic threats. (shrink)

Scientists and policy‐makers have long understood that the products of research can often be used for good or evil. Nuclear fission research can be used to generate electricity or create a powerful bomb. Studies on the genetics of human populations can be used to understand relationships between different groups or to perpetuate racist ideologies. While the notion that scientific research often has beneficial and harmful uses has been discussed before, the threat of bioterrorism—a concern that has only grown since 2001—has (...) led to increased awareness about the need to prevent the misuse of biomedical research, particularly when it involves dangerous pathogens or toxins. In 2012, the concern was ratcheted up another notch by two papers reporting the results of research on genetically engineered strains of the H5N1 avian influenza virus. Although the H5N1 papers have potential scientific and social value, some scientists and policy‐makers opposed their publication because they feared that terrorists (or others with nefarious motives) could use the research to create a bioweapon that could trigger a global pandemic. The H5N1 papers raise difficult questions concerning the ethics of knowledge. Should scientific research with dangerous applications be published? Should some types of research be kept secret or not be conducted at all? What type of government oversight of dangerous research is appropriate? In this essay, I will develop a framework for thinking about the ethics of knowledge and apply it to the H5N1 controversy, focusing on issues related to publication. I will argue that redacted publication would have been a reasonable response to the dilemmas posed by the H5N1 papers if not for practical and legal problems with this option. Given these problems, full publication seems appropriate. (shrink)

BackgroundAs a number of commentators have noted, SARS exposed the vulnerabilities of our health care systems and governance structures. Health care professionals (HCPs) and hospital systems that bore the brunt of the SARS outbreak continue to struggle with the aftermath of the crisis. Indeed, HCPs – both in clinical care and in public health – were severely tested by SARS. Unprecedented demands were placed on their skills and expertise, and their personal commitment to their profession was severely tried. Many were (...) exposed to serious risk of morbidity and mortality, as evidenced by the World Health Organization figures showing that approximately 30% of reported cases were among HCPs, some of whom died from the infection. Despite this challenge, professional codes of ethics are silent on the issue of duty to care during communicable disease outbreaks, thus providing no guidance on what is expected of HCPs or how they ought to approach their duty to care in the face of risk.DiscussionIn the aftermath of SARS and with the spectre of a pandemic avian influenza, it is imperative that we (re)consider the obligations of HCPs for patients with severe infectious diseases, particularly diseases that pose risks to those providing care. It is of pressing importance that organizations representing HCPs give clear indication of what standard of care is expected of their members in the event of a pandemic. In this paper, we address the issue of special obligations of HCPs during an infectious disease outbreak. We argue that there is a pressing need to clarify the rights and responsibilities of HCPs in the current context of pandemic flu preparedness, and that these rights and responsibilities ought to be codified in professional codes of ethics. Finally, we present a brief historical accounting of the treatment of the duty to care in professional health care codes of ethics.SummaryAn honest and critical examination of the role of HCPs during communicable disease outbreaks is needed in order to provide guidelines regarding professional rights and responsibilities, as well as ethical duties and obligations. With this paper, we hope to open the social dialogue and advance the public debate on this increasingly urgent issue. (shrink)

This survey aimed to illustrate factors that contribute to nurses' fear when faced with a possible human-to-human avian flu pandemic and their willingness to care for patients with avian flu in Taiwan. The participants were nursing students with a lesser nursing credential who were currently enrolled in a bachelor degree program in a private university in southern Taiwan. Nearly 42% of the nurses did not think that, if there were an outbreak of avian flu, their working hospitals would have (...) sufficient infection control measures and equipment to prevent nosocomial infection in their working environment. About 57% of the nurse participants indicated that they were willing to care for patients infected with avian influenza. Nurses' fear about an unknown infectious disease, such as the H5N1 influenza virus, could easily be heightened to levels above those occurring during the 2003 severe acute respiratory syndrome outbreak in Taiwan. (shrink)

The coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic led to various government-imposed limitations on social interaction and strict home confinement. Such involuntary social-distancing policies can exacerbate feelings of loneliness and alter emotional well-being. Dysregulation of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenocortical axis is a potential mechanism for loneliness’ deleterious health effects. In this study, we explored whether pre-pandemic diurnal cortisol output, a measure of HPA axis function, may predict the propensity to changes in loneliness during long-term COVID-19 home confinement and if extraversion would moderate this (...) relationship. This association has been explored by analysing the impact of COVID-19 pandemic and strict home confinement on social and emotional loneliness in 45 Spanish young adults. Diurnal cortisol levels were measured from five saliva samples obtained across a day just before the pandemic, and data about participants’ perceived loneliness, empathic state, extraversion, and prospective volunteering were obtained both before and during the confinement. Participants’ social and family loneliness increased during long-term strict home confinement, while prospective volunteering tendencies and extraversion decreased. Importantly, after adjusting for relevant confounders, moderation analyses revealed that in young adults with high pre-pandemic extraversion, a higher AUCG predicted a larger increase in social loneliness during confinement, while in individuals with low extraversion, AUCG was negatively related to change in loneliness. Our findings highlight the utility of pre-pandemic diurnal cortisol output in predicting the social impact of COVID-19 home confinement, presenting this hormone as a potential biomarker for a priori identification of at-risk groups during public health crises. (shrink)

The threat posed by avian influenza appears to be rising, yet global and national health programs are preparing only fitfully. A lethal form of avian flu has rooted itself deeply into the poultry flocks of poor Asian countries that will have a hard time eradicating it. Every so often a sick bird infects a human, who usually dies from the encounter, and on rare occasions the virus seems to have spread from one person to another before the chain of infection (...) dies out. All it would take to set off a raging global pandemic would be for the virus to mutate into a form that is readily transmissible among humans. Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome garnered a great deal of public attention because it was novel and its potential for spread was unknown. However, the SARS corona virus is significantly less virulent than pandemic influenza viral infections. (shrink)

The threat posed by avian influenza appears to be rising, yet global and national health programs are preparing only fitfully. A lethal form of avian flu has rooted itself deeply into the poultry flocks of poor Asian countries that will have a hard time eradicating it. Every so often a sick bird infects a human, who usually dies from the encounter, and on rare occasions the virus seems to have spread from one person to another before the chain of infection (...) dies out. All it would take to set off a raging global pandemic would be for the virus to mutate into a form that is readily transmissible among humans.Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome garnered a great deal of public attention because it was novel and its potential for spread was unknown. However, the SARS corona virus is significantly less virulent than pandemic influenza viral infections. (shrink)

Background As a number of commentators have noted, SARS exposed the vulnerabilities of our health care systems and governance structures. Health care professionals (HCPs) and hospital systems that bore the brunt of the SARS outbreak continue to struggle with the aftermath of the crisis. Indeed, HCPs – both in clinical care and in public health – were severely tested by SARS. Unprecedented demands were placed on their skills and expertise, and their personal commitment to their profession was severely tried. Many (...) were exposed to serious risk of morbidity and mortality, as evidenced by the World Health Organization figures showing that approximately 30% of reported cases were among HCPs, some of whom died from the infection. Despite this challenge, professional codes of ethics are silent on the issue of duty to care during communicable disease outbreaks, thus providing no guidance on what is expected of HCPs or how they ought to approach their duty to care in the face of risk. Discussion In the aftermath of SARS and with the spectre of a pandemic avian influenza, it is imperative that we (re)consider the obligations of HCPs for patients with severe infectious diseases, particularly diseases that pose risks to those providing care. It is of pressing importance that organizations representing HCPs give clear indication of what standard of care is expected of their members in the event of a pandemic. In this paper, we address the issue of special obligations of HCPs during an infectious disease outbreak. We argue that there is a pressing need to clarify the rights and responsibilities of HCPs in the current context of pandemic flu preparedness, and that these rights and responsibilities ought to be codified in professional codes of ethics. Finally, we present a brief historical accounting of the treatment of the duty to care in professional health care codes of ethics. Summary An honest and critical examination of the role of HCPs during communicable disease outbreaks is needed in order to provide guidelines regarding professional rights and responsibilities, as well as ethical duties and obligations. With this paper, we hope to open the social dialogue and advance the public debate on this increasingly urgent issue. (shrink)

Background: During the COVID-19 pandemic, frontline workers faced a series of challenges balancing family and work responsibilities. These challenges included making decisions about how to reduce COVID-19 exposure to their families while still carrying out their employment duties and caring for their children. We sought to understand how frontline workers made these decisions and how these decisions impacted their experiences.Methods: Between October 2020 and May 2021, we conducted 61 semi-structured interviews in English or Spanish, with individuals who continued (...) to work outside of the home during the pandemic and had children living at home. Interviews were recorded, transcribed verbatim, and analyzed using abductive methods.Results: Frontline workers experienced moral distress, the inability to act in accordance with their values and obligations because of internal or external constraints. Their moral distress was a result of the tensions they felt as workers and parents, which sometimes led them to feel like they had to compromise on either or both responsibilities. Individuals felt morally conflicted because 1) their COVID-19 work exposures presented risk that often jeopardized their family’s health; 2) their work hours often conflicted with their increased childcare responsibilities; and 3) they felt a duty to their colleagues, patients/customers, and communities to continue to show-up to work.Conclusions: Our findings point to a need to expand the concept of moral distress to include the perspectives of frontline workers outside of the healthcare professions and the fraught decisions that workers make outside of work that may impact their moral distress. Expanding the concept of moral distress also allows for a justice-based framing that can focus attention on the disparities inherent in much frontline work and can justify programmatic recommendations, like increasing paid childcare opportunities, to alleviate moral distress. (shrink)

The dual career allows elite athletes to attain their maximum competitive and academic performance, but the COVID-19 pandemic hindered their development and changed their perception of the importance given to the sporting and educational environment. For this reason, the aim of the present study was to determine the differences in the motivations and perceived barriers, the importance given to academic qualifications, and the perception of the dual career from a multifactorial perspective, of elite athletes according to sex, type of (...) sport practiced, job performance, time of sports career, type of athlete, and type of scholarship received. A total of 100 student-athletes participated in the research study by completing the “Perceptions of dual career student-athletes” questionnaire. The results showed that athletes from individual modalities and those who did not receive any scholarships described more barriers. In addition, women studied more because they enjoyed it ; athletes from individual modalities studied to work later ; athletes who do not work perceived a greater influence between study and sports performance ; at the beginning and at the best stage of their sports career, a greater influence of academics on performance was perceived ; and athletes who considered themselves professionals, and athletes who did not receive any scholarships, reported that the conciliation between sports and academic life was difficult. The results obtained point to the importance of dual career scholarships for student-athletes, as well as the need for the programs implemented for these athletes to consider sex, sport modality or type of scholarship granted. (shrink)

Since March 14, 2020, Spanish citizens have been confined to their homes due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. Participating in musical activities has been associated with reduced anxiety and increased subjective wellbeing. The aim of this study is to analyze how Spanish citizens used music during the lockdown period. We also study perceptions of the impact music has in everyday life, in particular examining the respondents’ insights into the effects of listening to music in situations (...) of isolation. The study was conducted using the MUSIVID19 questionnaire administered to a total of 1868 Spanish citizens. The results indicate that during lockdown, respondents perceived an increase in the time they devoted to musical activities such as listening, singing, dancing or playing an instrument. The participants also reported using music to cope with the lockdown, finding that it helped them to relax, escape, raise their mood or keep them company. The findings suggest an improvement in their perception of the value of music in personal and social wellbeing during the lockdown. However, the study reveals significant differences in the use and perceptions of music according to respondents’ personal situations. Age and feelings of vulnerability may lead to more conservative uses of musical practice and to more moderate perceptions of the positive values of music. (shrink)

Department of Medical Education, Flinders University of South Australia, GPO Box 2100, Adelaide SA 5001. Tel. : +61-8-7225-1111; Fax: +61-8-8204-5675; Email: lee0359{at}flinders.edu.au ' + u + '@ ' + d + ' '/ /- ->.This paper analyses the role of communication strategies in pandemic influenza planning. Our central concern is with the extent to which nations are using communication to address issues of social justice. Issues associated with disadvantage and vulnerability to infection in the event of an influenza (...) class='Hi'>pandemic raise distinct questions about how well less well off groups will be protected. The potential for a public health emergency of this type to exacerbate existing inequalities, making those in less well off positions worse off, makes social justice an important consideration for pandemic planners. National PI plans offer insights into the ways that nations may use communication to address issues of disadvantage, thereby providing a way of examining how communication strategies are presented and their potential to mitigate inequities. Our research reviewed 12 national PI plans and assessed the extent to which nations are using communication to assist and limit possible harms to less well off groups. We outline in this paper some important issues and considerations associated with social justice and flu planning, in particular if and how plans are addressing inequalities. CiteULike Connotea Del.icio.us What's this? (shrink)

ObjectiveThis study aimed to analyze the influence and measurement of the relationship and interaction between the elderly lifestyles after the appearance of the SARS-CoV-2 variant and the factors analyzed comprised life satisfaction levels, social relationships, and daily-life activities.MethodsThe study population was ≥ 65 in Castile-La Mancha. The research design was quantitative and arose from primary data collected via an ad hoc survey carried out through the Computer Assisted Telephone Interview system by randomly stratified sampling. The sample size was made up (...) of 1,065 cases, and the participants were selected through a random sampling stratified by gender quotas, age, province, and habitat size.ResultsThe results obtained revealed two main lifestyles, from which a notable behavioral change in personal relationships led to infer toward alternative lifestyles.ConclusionNotwithstanding the variation in lifestyles of the elderly after the pandemic, certain relationships remained unaltered. Thus, from the analyzed variables, relatives and friends relationships were scarcely influenced by the supervened incident. (shrink)

This essay revisits the scholarly production around three major pandemics in the region: (a) the Third Plague Pandemic; (b) HIV/AIDS in the 1980s; and (c) COVID-19. The essay aims to provide a comprehensive set of resources (both printed and digital) in four languages (Portuguese, Spanish, English, and French) to examine how scholars have approached these phenomena and how their scope and interpretations have changed over time. Historians of health paid particular attention to sociocultural aspects of the disease, which (...) enabled them to consider usually-neglected actors, such as patients of Indigenous and African descent with their own medical traditions. This added more complexity to our understanding of how these pandemics were fought and received. In addition, the essay suggests that COVID-19 prompted the emergence of historians of health as public scholars. They actively used social networks and other digital tools not only to communicate about the long history of diseases and pandemics in the region, but also to provide an authorized or informed perspective amid misinformation and fake news. In addition, the internet was crucial to the development of helpful databases and virtual conferences beyond academic campuses and paywalls. (shrink)

Die Entdeckung der Aristotelischen Politica muss als einschneidendes Ereignis in der Geschichte der politischen Theorien im Mittelalter verstanden werden. Gleich nach dem Erscheinen der ersten vollständigen Übersetzung wurde dieses Werk von der gelehrten Welt des Abendlandes mit grossem Interesse studiert und kommentiert. Die berühmtesten politischen Werke des späten Mittelalters, wie der Bestseller De regimine principum von Aegidius Romanus oder die äusserst kontroversen Bücher wie die Monarchia von Dante oder der Defensor pacis von Marsilius von Padua basieren weitgehend auf der mittelalterlichen (...) Rezeption der Aristotelischen Politica. Von zentraler Bedeutung für das Verständnis politischer Theorien im 13. und 14. Jahrhundert sind natürlich auch die Kommentare zu diesem Werk. Weit über hundert Kommentare sind von circa 1270 bis 1500 überliefert. Sie zeigen, wie die politische Philosophie des den mittelalterlichen Verhältnissen angepasst werden musste und auf welche Weise das erste Mal im Abendland an der Universität politische Wissenschaft gelehrt wurde. Der zweite Teilband enthält ein Verzeichnis der Kommentare zur Politica and Yconomica im genannten Zeitraum. Besondere Aufmerksamkeit wird dabei den Kommentaren in Quaestionenform gewidmet, von denen jeweils auch die Tabula quaestionum ediert wird. (shrink)

This chapter describes the process of shaping ethical guidelines for an influenza pandemicInfluenza pandemic by the North Carolina Institute of Medicine (NC IOM)/North Carolina Department of Public Health (NCDPH) Task Force. The author discusses the threat of a pandemicPandemic in the twenty-first century, comparing a potential pandemic with past flu pandemics as well as the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) outbreak in Canada and parts of Asia. Also discussed are the ways in which influenza would spread, be treated, (...) and hopefully contained. Addressed are the ways in which one becomes ethically prepared for an influenza pandemic, as well as the challenges to incorporating ethical guidelines in preparations. Tong also addresses the role of a dutyDuty/obligationObligation/responsibilityResponsibility to work by health care personnelHealth/ healthcare, right topersonnel, the role of volunteers, and when health care personnel may refuse to treat someone. Also taken into consideration are such issues as the distribution of food and vaccinesFlu vaccine, quarantinesQuarantine, work stoppage, both physical and social infrastructure, the role of military and police forces, and the effect of a pandemic, isolation, and quarantine on various industries. Tong shows the complicated nature of working on a task force and the complexity of incorporating ethicsCareethics of into logistical planning. (shrink)

The Covid-19 pandemic has had a great impact on the life of every inhabitant of the planet. During 2020 and 2021 a significant amount of work on how the pandemic is being conceptualized and communicated has been done. Most work has focused on the role of metaphor in the construal of specific cognitive frames. In this paper, we turn to a similar but different conceptualization mechanism, i.e. simile. Drawing from recent socio-cognitive and discursive empirical approaches to similes, this (...) paper focuses on “target is like source” constructions in English and Spanish containing (corona)virus either as target or source of the simile. The analysis is based on 200 examples found in the digital media during the first wave of the pandemic in 2020. First, the constructions, conceptualizations and mappings are analyzed. Second, the relevant discourse features (genre type, relation to subjectivity, text location and structuring properties) are described. Finally, the cross-linguistic English-Spanish analysis shows that, despite the many coincidences in both datasets, there are different tendencies as for the use of culture-specific mappings and the genres where the similes occur in. The study aims at testing to what extent the general features characterizing similes also hold in the case of (corona)virus, both as source and as target. The corpus analysis contributes, in addition, to the emerging line of research on the use of figuration in the communication of the pandemic, as well as to the study of the discursive dimensions of similes in real settings. (shrink)