The new developments in our social context, the recent pandemic outbreak, caused a series of changes in everyday practices. The student population represents a particular case, both their safety and future education were under duress during this period. However, their views over the situation have not been present in the scientific literature. The present qualitative research aimed to explore students' perceptions, attitudes, views, and representations on the Covid-19 pandemic. Three focus groups, each containing twelve participants, were organised to (...) explore these aspects and students’ particular experiences. Focus group sessions were audio-recorded and the transcripts were analysed. The results revealed four dimensions of the students' representations: change – as a constant of the present, prospective scenarios, the pulse of the moment, and surrounding risks. The limitations and the importance of the study are discussed. The consequences of these representations are particularly important due to the influence they can have on people’s practices during the crisis and the extent of measures’ acceptance. The results offer precious insights on why some communication strategies used by the authorities had a low compliance rate, what should be done differently, and what should be considered in order to promote adaptive health behaviors during the latter phases of the pandemic. (shrink)

Using the available data and literature on pandemics, this investigation looks into the COVID-19 crisis from an economic as well as social aspect, and elaborates the political and moral implications of the outbreak. The paper argues that globalization and consumerism contribute to the impact of the pandemic to the millions of lives around the world. It counters the idea of property rights to address issues related to the affordability of future vaccines and access of the poor to modern (...) medicine and advanced treatments. While strong leadership and draconian measures appear necessary to ensure the safety of the public, the analysis indicates that human solidarity is crucial to overcome the existential threat of this pandemic. Democracy, it will be argued, remains important as opposed to measures that violate the rights of people as societies try to contain the spread of the virus. (shrink)

The realities of the coronavirus crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, in many cases, become decisive for adjusting the prospects for socio-economic development. The article presents the main results of studying the social aspect of the pandemic in the context of social heterogeneity and specific regional differences. The main points of the study are focused on analyzing the dynamics of the pandemic spreading in Russia’s regions, the specifics and effectiveness of social restrictions, and the transformation of (...) social space. The analysis of the pandemic dynamics was carried out taking into account the information from four large industrial regions in the center of Russia and the Urals. As part of the analysis, a number of problematic issues of the social constraints effectiveness are considered, among which there are the following ones: specificity of the pandemic dynamics by regions in the context of various options for self-isolation, factors of «Path Dependence» of the social space, the consequences of redundant restrictions, social «fatigue» and «erosion» of requirements for isolation. From the viewpoint of updating the transformation priorities - spatial transformations during a pandemic, the following aspects are considered: background for moving from isolation restrictions to spatial transformations, regional employment specificity, socio-economic priorities of spatial transformation, problem-oriented zoning of a heterogeneous socio-economic space. The study is aimed at developing an adequate authorities’ and society’s response to the problems of coronacrisis, forming a regionally adapted set of measures and strategies of socio-economic transformations during the pandemic, creating a basis for solving interdisciplinary issues in the subsequent situation of «normality 2020». (shrink)

The sudden emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic brought global disruption to every aspect of society including healthcare, supply chain, the economy, and social interaction. Among the many emergent considerations were the safety and public health of the public, patients, essential workers, and healthcare professionals. In certain locations, clinical research was halted—or terminated—in deference to the immediate needs of patient care, and clinical trials focusing on the treatment and prevention of coronavirus infection were prioritized over studies focusing on other (...) diseases. Difficult decisions were made rapidly; flexibility and reconsideration were necessary not only because the intensity and severity of infection varied over time and by locale but also because knowledge of the disease and understanding of its treatment grew. Here we discuss the ethical challenges in decision-making and competing ethical tensions during the pandemic in an effort to advance future preparedness. (shrink)

The mobility restrictions related to COVID-19 pandemic have resulted in the biggest disruption to individual mobilities in modern times. The crisis is clearly spatial in nature, and examining the geographical aspect is important in understanding the broad implications of the pandemic. The avalanche of mobile Big Data makes it possible to study the spatial effects of the crisis with spatiotemporal detail at the national and global scales. However, the current crisis also highlights serious limitations in the readiness to take (...) the advantage of mobile Big Data for social good, both within and beyond the interests of health sector. We propose two strategical pathways for the future use of mobile Big Data for societal impact assessment, addressing access to both raw mobile Big Data as well as aggregated data products. Both pathways require careful considerations of privacy issues, harmonized and transparent methodologies, and attention to the representativeness, reliability and continuity of data. The goal is to be better prepared to use mobile Big Data in future crises. (shrink)

The article is combined of six chapters authored by these who voiced their experiences with social distancing during the COVID-19 pandemics in various contexts, but mostly centered on psychological, sociological, and ethical aspects. Authors, mostly psychologists and philosophers, were invited to describe their perspectives on the sense and practice of social distancing in times of pandemics. Their reflections seek to demonstrate various perspectives related to subjects’ novel self-experience, social situatedness, and their dealing with conventions and habits (...) altered through the pandemics. As “the owl of Minerva takes its flight only when the shades of night are gathering”, there is no conclusion in this article. It rather encourages other authors to reflect on the nearly global, still lasting phenomenon. (shrink)

John Rawls begins a Theory of Justice with the observation that 'Justice is the first virtue of social institutions, as truth is of systems of thought… Each person possesses an inviolability founded on justice that even the welfare of society as a whole cannot override'1. The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in lock-downs, the restriction of liberties, debate about the right to refuse medical treatment and many other changes to the everyday behaviour of persons. The justice issues it raises (...) are diverse, profound and will demand our attention for some time. How we can respect the Rawlsian commitment to the inviolability of each person, when the welfare of societies as a whole is under threat goes to the heart of some of the difficult ethical issues we face and are discussed in this issue of the Journal of Medical Ethics. The debate about ICU triage and COVID-19 is quite well developed and this journal has published several articles that explore aspects of this issue and how different places approach it.2–5 Newdick et al add to the legal analysis of triage decisions and criticise the calls for respecting a narrow conception of a legal right to treatment and more detailed national guidelines for how triage decisions should be made.6 They consider scoring systems for clinical frailty, organ failure assessment, and raise some doubts about the fairness of their application to COVID-19 triage situations. Their argument seems to highlight instances of what is called the McNamara fallacy. US Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara used enemy body counts as a measure …. (shrink)

The article addresses the gendered implications of Covid-19 in the Global South by paying attention to the intersectional pre-existing inequalities that have given rise to specific risks and vulnerabilities. It explores various aspects of the pandemic-induced ‘crisis of social reproduction’ that affects women as the main caregivers as well as addressing the drastic increase of various forms of gender-based violence. Both, in addition to growing poverty and severely limited access to resources and health services, are particularly devastating in (...) marginalized and vulnerable communities in the Global South. The article looks at specific regions and countries to illustrate wider challenges faced by LGBTQ populations, ethnic minorities, domestic workers, migrants and sex workers. Against the background of these gendered intersectional challenges, the article then moves to discuss feminist initiatives and mobilizations to deal with the crisis in specific local contexts as well as nationally, regionally and transnationally. It concludes by highlighting a number of visions, tensions and dilemmas faced by feminists in the Global South that will need to be taken into consideration in terms of transnational feminist solidarities. (shrink)

This paper addresses an important point with regard to the critical question of equality during a pandemic – are poor societies more vulnerable to public health emergencies? The available data with respect to the coronavirus crisis reveal that the majority of countries affected by the pandemic belong to the developed economies. This investigation determines the correlation between affluence and the spread of the contagion. It argues that the inequality among nations does not have any significant relation to disease movement, infection, (...) and high mortality rate. However, addressing the problem of urbanization and investing in public health will be crucial in terms of confronting the socioeconomic ramifications of the COVID-19 pandemic. (shrink)

Currently whole world is facing immense crisis caused by the unprecedented pandemic coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). This pandemic with its unique features has raised distinct ethical issues and the whole scenario has altered according to its pressing novel features. This paper aims to analyze the emerging ethical issues raised by the recent worldwide pandemic outbreak of SARS-COV-2. I have differentiated and analyzed the unprecedented emerging ethical issues from three aspects. First, there are ethical issues which arise due to the (...) sudden imposition of preventive measures such as isolation, quarantine, and social distancing by public health authorities. It is indeed problematic to suddenly adopt the ‘new normal’ in our usual social life. Secondly, there are moral dilemmas which occur when physicians and health care workers try to maintain just allocation of the limited medications to treat large number of patients. Finally, the challenge of policy makers on the effective implementation of the policies that gain trust from people. Here, the role of administrative policy makers is to recognize the moral values in decision-making within the ethically challenging situations when the usual approved behaviors are dangerous to others. I analyze the importance of the virtue of solidarity, benevolence, honesty, and equity to deal with this crisis. (shrink)

In her book, Illness as Metaphor, Susan Sontag focuses on metaphors and myths on diseases such as cancer and tuberculosis, which occur in different historical periods. Sontag argues that the metaphors produced related to illness overhaul illness and the things that define illness now have become metaphors produced related to them rather than their concrete and physical aspects. Illness becomes not just an illness, but a phenomenon defined by evil, mystery, fear, evil, madness, passions, wealth and poverty, temporal loginess or (...) speed, and a set of metaphors or myths that are spatially identified with the space. Metaphors and myths turn into means of socially stigmatizing the illness itself rather than giving a meaning to illness. The disease literally turns into a situation that needs to be hidden in order to avoid social stigma. The explanation of mass diseases through metaphors and myths has been seen since ancient times and this understanding of mass diseases continues to exist today. As a matter of fact, the Covid-19 pandemic has also ceased to be the subject of only medical science since it first emerged, and it has turned into an issue that concerns many areas from politics to economics, from sociology to psychology. The metaphors generated on the Covid-19 disease, which we have witnessed its reflections in many areas from the discourses of daily life to the discourse of politicians, from art to literature, have a similar function with the metaphors attributed to diseases like cancer and tuberculosis that Sontag discussed. Covid-19 is not only seen as a disease, but as a disease defined by a series of metaphors such as mysterious, evil, invisible enemy, insidious danger, and democratic virus. The metaphors generated on the disease cause the struggle against the disease itself to be explained with various metaphors. The metaphors derived from Covid-19 such as "invisible enemy" and "biological war" cause the struggle against it to be turned into a military terminology, and the metaphor of "Chinese virus" is a means of social stigmatization / marginalization by racializing the virus directly. This study tackles the issue of how Covid-19, which is the subject of medical science, has become the subject of unscientific myths and metaphors attributed to the disease, and that the disease is perceived through metaphors rather than itself in the context of Susan Sontag's thought. In the study, answers for the questions of what kind of effects appeared due to the stigmatizing power of metaphors derived from the Covid-19 and whether the metaphors are the outcomes of the strategy for coping with the pandemic will be sought. (shrink)

Purpose Telemedicine has been advancing for decades and is more indispensable than ever in this unprecedented time of the COVID-19 pandemic. As shown, eHealth appears to be effective for routine management of chronic conditions that require extensive and repeated interactions with healthcare professionals, as well as the monitoring of symptoms and diagnostics. Yet much needs to be done to alleviate digital inequalities that stand in the way of making the benefits of eHealth accessible to all. The purpose of this (...) paper is to explore the recent shift in healthcare delivery in response to the COVID-19 pandemic towards telemedicine in healthcare delivery and show how this rapid shift is leaving behind those without digital resources and exacerbating inequalities along many axes. Design/methodology/approach Because the digitally disadvantaged are less likely to use eHealth services, they bear greater risks during the pandemic to meet ongoing medical care needs. This holds true for both medical conditions necessitating lifelong care and conditions of particular urgency such as pregnancy. For this reason, the authors examine two case studies that exemplify the implications of differential access to eHealth: the case of chronic care diseases such as diabetes requiring ongoing care and the case of time-sensitive health conditions such as pregnancy that may be compromised by gaps in continuous care. Findings Not only are the digitally disadvantaged more likely to belong to populations experiencing greater risk – including age and economic class – but they are less likely to use eHealth services and thereby bear greater risks during the pandemic to meet ongoing medical care needs during the pandemic. Social implications At the time of writing, almost 20% of Americans have been unable to obtain medical prescriptions or needed medical care unrelated to the virus. In light of the potential of telemedicine, this does not need to be the case. These social inequalities take on particular significance in light of the COVID-19 pandemic. Originality/value In light of the COVID-19 virus, ongoing medical care requires exposure to risks that can be successfully managed by digital communications and eHealth advances. However, the benefits of eHealth are far less likely to accrue to the digitally disadvantaged. (shrink)

The outbreak of the novel coronavirus disease and the efforts to contain the raging pandemic raise not only health, but also existential concerns. The present work sets out to examine how the pandemic impacts on the African socio-cultural life. The approach is analytical, phenomenological and above all conversational. For the African, the pandemic has two-pronged, positive and negative existential implications. On the one hand, the search for a possible cure and a vaccine for the novel coronavirus disease, when interpreted from (...) the anthropological point of view, present an opportunity for cultural creativity in the areas of medicine and therapeutics. African traditional medicine as a cultural element is, here, referenced.On the other hand, it is discovered that the isolationist tendency of the pandemic, aggravated by another ‘virus of disinformation’ ─ an infodemics, threatens the social relations within the African world that is largely interdependent. The work argues that a fruitful utilization of the good cultural traits the pandemic brings can serve to boost the African self-confidence and cultural pride. The positive cultural traits that trail the pandemic can be absorbed to enrich the African culture whereas the negative traits should be jettisoned. Keywords: COVID-19 pandemic, African identity, equality, anthropology, medicine, and cultural pride. (shrink)

In Mexico, significant ethical and social issues have been raised by the COVID-19 pandemic. Some of the most pressing issues are the extent of restrictive measures, the reciprocal duties to healthcare workers, the allocation of scarce resources, and the need for research. While policy and ethical frameworks are being developed to face these problems, the gender perspective has been largely overlooked in most of the issues at stake. Domestic violence is the most prevalent form of violence against women, (...) which can be exacerbated during a pandemic: stress and economic uncertainty are triggers for abuse, and confinement limits access to support networks. Confinement also exacerbates the unfair distribution of unpaid labor, which is disproportionately assigned to women and girls, and highlights inequality in the overall labor market. Lack of security measures has resulted in attacks towards health workers, particularly female nurses, due to fear of contamination. Finally, resource results in lack of access to other health necessities, including sexual and reproductive health services. Research across all disciplines to face—and to learn from—this crisis should be done through a gender lens, because understanding the realities of women is essential to understand the pandemic’s true effects in Mexico and the world. (shrink)

Soon after the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID‐19) pandemic outbreak, it became clear that vaccination will be the most useful tool to combat the disease. Despite the apparent safety and efficacy of the developed anti‐COVID‐19 vaccines, relatively high percentages of the population worldwide refused to get vaccinated, including many health workers and health students. The present cross‐sectional study examined the motives, attitudes, and personal characteristics of those who did not get vaccinated against COVID‐19 or vaccinated without complete willingness (...) among nursing students and nursing faculty members in Israel (n = 472). Results show that the vast majority of the study participants (97%) received at least one dose of the anti‐COVID‐19 vaccine. Nearly 37% of the participants indicated that they received the vaccine without complete willingness. As compared to faculty members, nursing students reported lower trust in the efficacy of the vaccine, perceived the COVID‐19 pandemic as a health threat to a lesser extent, exhibited lower institutional and personal trust, and had higher levels of posttraumatic stress disorder symptoms. Non‐Jewish participants were at risk of vaccinating without complete willingness. These findings underscore the need for developing evidence‐based strategies to promote the safety and efficacy of the anti‐COVID‐19 vaccines in nursing schools. (shrink)

Pandemics such as COVID-19 place everyone at risk, but certain kinds of risk are differentially severe for groups already made vulnerable by pre-existing forms of social injustice and discrimination. For people with disability, persisting and ubiquitous disablism is played out in a variety of ways in clinical and public health contexts. This paper examines the impact of disablism on pandemic triage guidance for allocation of critical care. It identifies three underlying disablist assumptions about disability and health status, quality (...) of life, and social utility, that unjustly and potentially catastrophically disadvantage people with disability in COVID-19 and other global health emergencies. (shrink)

The Coronavirus Disease 2019 pandemic, now a global health crisis, has surprised health authorities around the world. Recent studies suggest that the measures taken to curb the spread of the COVID-19 outbreak have generated issues throughout the population. Thus, it is necessary to establish and identify the possible risk factors related to the psychosocial and psychophysiological strain during the COVID-19 outbreak. The present extensive literature review assesses the social, psychological, and physiological consequences of COVID-19, reviewing the (...) impact of quarantine measures, isolation, vast human loss, social and financial consequences in the family’s economies, and its impact on the psychological health of the population. We also discussed the effect of psychophysiological factors, considering the impact of physical inactivity and modifications in nutritional habits, at psychological and physiological levels. The present review includes an actualized to date bibliography, articles for which were methodologically analyzed to verify they met the standards of quality and scientific accuracy. Authors understand the pandemic as a multifactorial event for which only a profound and extensive analysis would lead to better compression and efficient intervention in the near future. (shrink)

The Covid-19 pandemic has affected not only the health of populations but also their everyday social practices, transformed by orienting to risks of contagion and to health prevention discourses. This paper emanates from a project investigating the impact of Covid-19 on human sociality and more particularly the situated and embodied organization of social interactions. It discusses how Covid-19 impacts the design of ordinary actions in social interaction, how this is made publicly accountable by the (...) participants orienting to the pandemic in formatting their actions and in responding to the actions of others. Adopting an ethnomethodological and conversation analytic perspective, the analyses focus on a particular social activity: paying. The organization of payments in shops and services has been affected by the pandemic, not only by official regulations, favoring some modes of payment over others, but also in how sellers and customers situatedly adapt their practices to imperatives of prevention. On the basis of a rich corpus of video-recorded data, which spans from the pandemic’s prodromes to and after its peak, we show how money transfer is methodically achieved – imposed, negotiated, and readjusted – while variously taking into account possible risks of contagion. Thus, we show not only how pandemics affect social interaction, and how prevention is incarnated in social actions, but also how, in turn, situated solutions implemented by people during the pandemic reveal fundamental features of human action. (shrink)

BackgroundThe healthcare system is among the institutions operating under the most challenging conditions during the period of outbreaks like pandemic which affects the whole world and leads to deaths. During pandemics that affect the society in terms of socioeconomic and mental aspects, the mental health of healthcare teams, who undertake a heavy social and work load, is affected by this situation.AimThis research was conducted with the aim of determining the effect of stress, anxiety, and burnout levels of healthcare professionals (...) caring for COVID-19 patients on their quality of life.MethodThe sample of the study consisted of a total of 240 healthcare professionals, determined by random sampling method among the healthcare professionals working in pandemic hospitals in Tokat city center, Turkey. Perceived Stress Scale, Spielberger State-Trait Anxiety Inventory, Maslach Burnout Inventory and Quality of Life Scale were used in the study conducted in the relational screening model.FindingsWhile the stress, trait anxiety, and quality of life mean scores of healthcare professionals who were female, married and had children were higher than the other groups, high, moderate, negative, and positive correlations were found among all variables.ConclusionThe research concluded that the stress, anxiety, and burnout of healthcare workers caring for COVID-19 patients affected their quality of life. (shrink)

The tsunami effect of the COVID-19 pandemic is affecting many aspects of scientific activities. Multidisciplinary experimental studies with international collaborators are hindered by the closing of the national borders, logistic issues due to lockdown, quarantine restrictions, and social distancing requirements. The full impact of this crisis on science is not clear yet, but the above-mentioned issues have most certainly restrained academic research activities. Sharing innovative solutions between researchers is in high demand in this situation. The aim of this (...) paper is to share our successful practice of using web-based communication and remote control software for real-time long-distance control of brain stimulation. This solution may guide and encourage researchers to cope with restrictions and has the potential to help expanding international collaborations by lowering travel time and costs. (shrink)

In absence of effective pharmaceutical treatments, the individual's compliance with a series of behavioral recommendations provided by the public health authorities play a critical role in the control and prevention of SARS-CoV2 infection. However, we still do not know much about the rate and determinants of adoption of the recommended health behaviors. This paper examines the compliance with the main behavioral recommendations, and compares sociocultural, psychosocial, and social cognitive explanations for its variation in the French population. Based on the (...) current literature, these 3 categories of factors were identified as potential determinants of individual differences in the health preventive behaviors. The data used for these analyses are drawn from 2 cross-sectional studies conducted after the lockdown and before the peak of the COVID-19 epidemic in France. The participants were drawn from a larger internet consumer panel where recruitment was stratified to generate a socio-demographically representative sample of the French adult population. Overall, the results show a very high rate of compliance with the behavioral recommendations among the participants. A hierarchical regression analysis was then performed to assess the potential explanatory power of these approaches in complying with these recommendations by successively entering sociocultural factors, psychosocial factors, social cognitive factors in the model. Only the inclusion of the cognitive variables substantially increased the explained variance of the self-reported adoption of preventive behaviors, providing better support for the social cognitive than the sociocultural and psychosocial explanations. (shrink)

The central focus of this research is the fast and crucial impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, and its exceptionally serious consequences in terms of healthcare, state intervention and impositions, radical changes in people’s life, on a crucial psychological, relational, and political construct: trust. In this survey, addressed to 4260 Italian citizens, we tried to analyze and measure such impact, focusing on various aspects of trust. This attention to multiple dimensions of trust constitutes the key conceptual advantage of this research, (...) since trust is a complex and layered construct, with its own internal dynamics. In particular, the analysis focuses on how citizens attribute trust to Public Authorities, in relation to the management of the health crisis: with regard to the measures and guidelines adopted, the purposes pursued, the motivations that determine them, their capacity for involvement and their effectiveness for the containment of the virus itself. A pandemic creates a bilateral need for trust, both in Public Authorities (they have to rely on citizens’ compliance, and must try to promote and maintain their trust in order to be effective), and in citizens, since they need to feel that somebody can do something, can (has the power) to protect them, to act at the needed collective level. We are interested to explore how this need for trust affects the attributional process, regarding both attitudes and the corresponding decisions and actions. The most striking result of this survey is the very high level of institutional trust expressed by respondents: 75% of them trust Italian public authorities to be able to deal with the COVID-19 emergency. This is in sharp contrast with the relatively low levels of institutional trust characteristic of Italy, both historically and in recent surveys. Moreover, the survey allowed to discriminate several potential predictors for trust, thus emphasizing factors that, during this crisis, are exhibiting an anomalous impact on trust. (shrink)

The COVID-19 crisis has forced a difficult trade-off between limiting the health impacts of the virus and maintaining economic activity. Welfare economics offers tools to conceptualize this trade-off so that policy-makers and the public can see clearly what is at stake. We review four such tools: the Value of Statistical Life (VSL); the Value of Statistical Life Years (VSLYs); Quality-Adjusted Life-Years (QALYs); and social welfare analysis, and argue that the latter are superior. We also discuss how to choose (...) policies that differentially affect people’s wellbeing. We argue in favor of evaluating policies using a Social Welfare Function (SWF), which evaluates the possible distributions of wellbeing across individuals that may result from a policy. Such a function, we argue, should regard increases in the wellbeing of the less well-off as especially valuable. We then use a model to illustrate how such a framework can help evaluate two broad policy types in response to the pandemic: eradication of the virus, and more lenient control of the spread. Our model reveals how such evaluations depend on many empirical facts but also on key value judgments about the relative importance of health and on the extent of special concern for the worse off. The purpose of this brief is not to make precise recommendations, as conditions vary widely across countries and over time, but to provide a methodology. (shrink)

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the media have repeatedly praised healthcare workers for their ‘heroic’ work. Although this gratitude is undoubtedly appreciated by many, we must be cautious about overuse of the term ‘hero’ in such discussions. The challenges currently faced by healthcare workers are substantially greater than those encountered in their normal work, and it is understandable that the language of heroism has been evoked to praise them for their actions. Yet such language can have potentially negative consequences. Here, (...) I examine what heroism is and why it is being applied to the healthcare workers currently, before outlining some of the problems associated with the heroism narrative currently being employed by the media. Healthcare workers have a clear and limited duty to treat during the COVID-19 pandemic, which can be grounded in a broad social contract and is strongly associated with certain reciprocal duties that society has towards healthcare workers. I argue that the heroism narrative can be damaging, as it stifles meaningful discussion about what the limits of this duty to treat are. It fails to acknowledge the importance of reciprocity, and through its implication that all healthcare workers have to be heroic, it can have negative psychological effects on workers themselves. I conclude that rather than invoking the language of heroism to praise healthcare workers, we should examine, as a society, what duties healthcare workers have to work in this pandemic, and how we can support them in fulfilling these. (shrink)

The COVID-19 pandemic has undoubtedly become an era-defining challenge for the entire world. It has implications not only in the public health sector but also in the global economy and political landscape. The prevention strategy that has been followed in Sri Lanka is unique. Early action taken by the government and the ministry of health, being one of pre-emptive quarantining and isolation of suspected contacts even before they developed symptoms, was vital to contain the spread of the disease. During (...) the early phase, a nationwide lockdown in the form of a curfew was imposed which helped mitigate the spread of the virus. However, due to several lapses, there was a threat of community transmission; this was swiftly brought under control through ongoing government interventions. Thus, strict social/physical distancing measures enforced by the government, together with an increase in testing capacity, prevented widespread community transmission. Strictly containing the outbreaks as and when they were identified made it easier to bring the spread under control through contact tracing. In this article, we give an account of the strategy taken by Sri Lanka to mitigate the pandemic and comment on the lessons learned concerning the ethical responses to the COVID-19 crisis. (shrink)

Objective: Mindfulness disposition is associated with various psychological factors and prevent emotional distress in chronic diseases. In the present study, we analyzed the key role of mindfulness dispositions in protecting the individual against psychological distress consequent to COVID-19 social distancing and quarantining. Methods: An online survey was launched on March 13, 2020, with 6,412 responses by April 6, 2020. Socio-demographic information, exposure to the pandemic, and quarantining were assessed together with psychological distress and mindfulness disposition. Multivariate (...) linear regression analysis was performed to study the influence of predictive factors on psychological distress and quality of life in Italian responders during the early days of lockdown. Pearson correlations were calculated to study the relations between mindfulness and psychiatric symptoms. Results: Multivariate linear regression run on socio-demographics, COVID-19-related variables, and mindfulness disposition as moderators of overall psychological distress showed that mindfulness was the best predictor of psychological distress (β = -0.504; p =.000). High negative correlations were found between mindfulness disposition and overall Global Severity Index (r = -.637; p =.000), while moderate to high associations were found between mindfulness and all SCL-90 sub-scales. Discussion: Findings showed that high dispositional mindfulness enhances well-being and helps in dealing with stressful situations such as the COVID-19 pandemic. Mindfulness-based mental training could represent an effective intervention to stem the post-traumatic psychopathological beginnings and preventing the onset of chronic mental disorders. (shrink)

The Covid-19 pandemic has resulted in disruption of work and other social activities of so many people. Some were forced to stay at home and many decided to stay at home for fear of being infected with the virus. This phenomenon brought different reactions and even mental stress to many people. However, there were people who turned this kind of tragedy into creative work. This paper discusses the experiences and insights of known plant lovers in Digos City, Davao (...) del Sur Philippines. Digos City is one of the heavily affected places during the series of earthquakes that jolted Davao del Sur last year. While people are still recovering, COVID-19 added an additional burden to the residents. In this paper, we argue that their decision to focus on gardening was not only to fight boredom and to divert their attention during lockdown but this was their way of maintaining their well-being by participating in the on-going work of creation and recreation and to rise from the tragedy. We further argue that it might be good that this creative work will go beyond home gardening and beyond pots and slowly extend to creative work for environmental protection and preservation through more active engagements into reforestation activities. (shrink)

In this paper the authors present the psychological consequences of social isolation on domestic violence during the Covid-19 pandemic as well as the legal framework in the RNM on addressing the phenomenon of domestic violence. In this age of globalization and drive for material conformity, family life is quite difficult to cope with. This “war” for material comfort during the pandemic, has strained and stressed many families as a result of the created circumstances. Public safety measures, including physical (...) distance and social isolation, which have also been implemented in the RNM have contributed in making family problems even more pronounced. Social distance and staying at home are very effective in reducing the transmission of Covid-19 virus, but these safeguards disrupt the routines of spouses and families. Domestic violence affects a large number of families, and it is estimated that in times of social isolation, all forms of violence have been inflicted against family members regardless of their gender and age. The most common forms of domestic violence during Covid-19 pandemic in our country are psychological, physical and economic violence. Some countries affected by Covid-19 have seen increases in levels of domestic violence, including violence against children, violence against partners, and violence against the elderly. This paper presents the results of research conducted which highlight the fact that during the Covid-19 pandemic, there has been an increase in levels of domestic violence in the Republic of North Macedonia in the first six months of 2020. The authors give their recommendations on the need for action by state institutions during the Covid-19 pandemic in order to adapt methods and circumstances towards the protection of victims of domestic violence. (shrink)

In late 2019, an infectious disease with a high rate of human-to-human transmission was identified in Wuhan, China, which was called Covid-19. In a short time, this disease affected several regions of the world and became a pandemic, with huge impacts on people's lives and the environment. This article aims to investigate the existing relationships between health and the environment, at the moment of confronting Covid-19 in Brazil, focusing on the socioenvironmental issues of sanitation and agglomeration and its (...) consequences/limits for prevention/care in Public Health. For the development of the research, a systematic review was carried out between May and June 2020. The article brings aspects about the industrial revolution and its relationship with life forms; the issue of sanitation, agglomeration as a reflection of geographical inequalities and their impact on combating Covid-19. Thus, there is an urgent need to understand the various health measures that dialogue with environmental, social and political actions that need to be built, in the various dimensions, in order to fight socio-environmental inequalities. (shrink)

This paper comprises a case study illustrating ethical and practical challenges for a Ugandan hospital-based social worker early in the COVID-19 pandemic, followed by a commentary. The hospital was under-resourced, with staff and patients experiencing lack of information and panic. The social worker, Denis Adia, recounts his responses to new and ethically challenging situations, including persuading Muslim patients to stop fasting for the good of their health; deciding to keep a baby in hospital with parents although this (...) was against the rules; and supporting a stigmatised former patient in the face of intimidation by colleagues. He reflects on the importance of recognising each person’s unique needs and circumstances, seeing this as a vital role for social workers. The case is followed by a commentary from a UK academic (Sarah Banks), who notes the cognitive and emotional effort (‘ethics work’) undertaken by the social worker to: see the ethical aspects of particular situations; take account of patients’ specific needs; ensure they are treated with respect; promote their well-being; and perform as a good social worker. Banks draws attention to the key role of the virtue of courage in pandemic conditions, which involves working with new risks and facing fears with confidence. (shrink)

Tourism, as an industry, has become one of the most dynamic sectors of the world economy these days and has specific features that are different from other industries. In the tourism industry, production and consumption points occur spatially at the same time. In addition, the tourism industry contributes to the economic growth of developed regions and can simultaneously distribute the wealth created geographically. It is notable that the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has caused many challenges in the tourism (...) industry regarding the presence of tourists in tourism centres and the closing of all tourism service chains, including food, entertainment, transportation and travel services worldwide. Tourism-related businesses, which are considered as invisible export and one of the engines of development and occupation, have been rendered obsolete. In other words, the businesses, as well as multiple units and activities in the related chain, have been damaged and employees of this industry have lost their jobs. This has led to the recession and regressive course of the developing and large industry of tourism in the world. It is worth noting that the tourism industry includes various sections, the most important of which is religious tourism. All religions in the world have different religious places, works, traditions and customs, which have become amongst the most important tourist attractions. Meanwhile, Muslims and the religion of Islam play a significant role in this branch of tourism. The Hajj, pilgrimage to holy places and the existence of mourning ceremonies or religious celebrations of Muslims are amongst the largest religious tourism events in the world. Given the importance of this issue, the present study aimed to evaluate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on religious tourism in Iraq in 2021. This field study was conducted on 4500 Muslim managers and staff of restaurants, hotels, grocery stores, clothing stores and souvenir shops around the holy shrines of imams and religious places in Karbala, Najaf, Kufa, Samarra and Kazemi. According to the results, the tourism of Iraq, which is mainly limited to Muslim religious sites in several major Iraqi cities, has also seen a decline in the number of religious tourists. The negative effects of COVID-19 on religious tourism have also been proved statistically by the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS), as µ ≥ 3 has been counted in all indices.Contribution: Our findings offered new insights into the impact of COVID-19 on tourism, based on statistical analysis. In this study, the authors showed how COVID-19 affects various aspects of religious tourism, which has not been addressed in previous researches. (shrink)

Summary. The prerequisites of this study have three interwoven sources, the natural sciences and philosophical and socio-political ones. They are trends in the way of being of a modern, technogenic civilization. The COVID-19 pandemic caused significant damage to the image of the omnipotent techno-science that has developed in the mentality of this sociocultural type.Our goal was to study the co-evolutionary nature of this phenomenon as a natural consequence of the nature of the evolutionary strategy of our biological species. Technological (...) civilization as a cultural-civilizational type is one of the evolutionary options of Homo sapiens, the ontological basis of which is a stable evolutionary strategy (SESH). The latter is capable to spontaneous development and is consisting from biological, sociocultural, and techno-rationalistic modules. Evolutionary risks inextricably linked with it. At present, humankind has entered an era when its existence should be ensured by the meta-system engineering of its own cultural and ecological niche. By such artificially created elements, it implies the design and implementation of ecological systems of various levels of complexity, from the design of elements of such systems (which are biological individuals, populations and species) to the design of a global ecological system (biosphere). At the same time, there is a sharp jump in the value of anthropogenic and technological risk due to a sharp increase in the instability of the structure of ecological systems. We are witnessing a third wave of breaking and reconstruction of the existing relations between the elements of such systems after the Neolithic revolution and great geographical discoveries. Technological innovations led to sharp violations of normal social ecodynamics, leading to outbreaks of new infections, in particular. Theuncontested development of all sectors of controlled evolution technology is the way out of the last such crisis and the prevention of similar ones in the future. There are global nature of the organization of modern technological civilization and the transformation of the biosphere not so much into the noosphere (according to Vernadsky) but into the technosphere that determines the effect of a cascade reaction: any local co-adaptive conflict between elements of a cultural, socio-ecological niche tends to turnglobal and systemic problems. Humanity is constantly forced to make a choice between the stability and adaptability of the technosphere. (shrink)

The widespread effects of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic have negatively impacted upon many athletes’ mental health and increased reports of depression as well as symptoms of anxiety. Disruptions to training and competition schedules can induce athletes’ emotional distress, while concomitant government-imposed restrictions (e.g., social isolation, quarantines) reduce the availability of athletes’ social and emotional support. Written Emotional Disclosure (WED) has been used extensively in a variety of settings with diverse populations as a means to promote (...) emotional processing. The expressive writing protocol has been used to a limited extent in the context of sport and predominantly in support of athletes’ emotional processing during injury rehabilitation. We propose that WED offers an evidence-based treatment that can promote athletes’ mental health and support their return to competition. Research exploring the efficacy of the expressive writing protocol highlights a number of theoretical models underpinning the positive effects of WED; we outline how each of these potential mechanisms can address the multidimensional complexity of the challenging circumstances arising from the COVID-19 pandemic (e.g., loss of earnings, returning to training and competition). Considerations and strategies for using WED to support athletes during the COVID-19 pandemic are presented. (shrink)

The global Covid-19 pandemic has resulted in social and economic disruption unprecedented in the modern era. Many countries have introduced severe measures to contain the virus, including travel restrictions, public event bans, non-essential business closures and remote work policies. While digital technologies help governments and organizations to enforce protection measures, such as contact tracing, their rushed deployment and adoption also raises profound concerns about surveillance, privacy and data protection. This article presents two critical cases on digital surveillance technologies (...) implemented during the Covid-19 pandemic and delineates the privacy implications thereof. We explain the contextual nature of privacy trade-offs during a pandemic and explore how regulatory and technical responses are needed to protect privacy in such circumstances. By providing a multi-disciplinary conversation on the value of privacy and data protection during a global pandemic, this article reflects on the implications digital solutions have for the future and raises the question of whether there is a way to have expedited privacy assessments that could anticipate and help mitigate adverse privacy implications these may have on society. (shrink)

Quantification is particularly seductive in times of global uncertainty. Not surprisingly, numbers, indicators, categorizations, and comparisons are central to governmental and popular response to the COVID-19 pandemic. This essay draws insights from critical data studies, sociology of quantification and decolonial thinking, with occasional excursion into the biomedical domain, to investigate the role and social consequences of counting broadly defined as a way of knowing about the virus. It takes a critical look at two domains of human activity that (...) play a central role in the fight against the virus outbreak, namely medical sciences and technological innovation. It analyzes their efforts to craft solutions for their user base and explores the unwanted social costs of these operations. The essay argues that the over-reliance of biomedical research on “whiteness” for lab testing and the techno-solutionism of the consumer infrastructure devised to curb the social costs of the pandemic are rooted in a distorted idea of a “standard human” based on a partial and exclusive vision of society and its components, which tends to overlook alterity and inequality. It contends that to design our way out of the pandemic, we ought to make space for distinct ways of being and knowing, acknowledging plurality and thinking in terms of social relations, alterity, and interdependence. (shrink)

This paper furnishes a brand storytelling account of the Covid-19 pandemic. By adopting a fictional ontological standpoint, the virus’ narrative space is mapped out by recourse to metaphorical modeling. The disease imagery stems from global mainstream media in the context of Covid-19’s brand globalization, as increasing interconnectedness of and interdependence between social, cultural and economic discourses. The main narrative components (actors, settings, actions, relationships) are outlined as episodes that make up the virus’ brand personality, against the background (...) of a reading grid. Subsequently, a nexus of ontological (deep) metaphors is identified as the virus’ master narrative, by identifying transfers between the global mediascape and the brand’s narrative space. Deep metaphors are equivalent to cultural archetypes or mythopoetic structures which make up a collective structural unconscious. Deep metaphors stem from reducing surface metaphors to their most universal semantic dimensions by identifying permeating themes. Instead of ascribing primacy to the . (shrink)

Key ethical challenges for healthcare workers arising from the COVID-19 pandemic are identified: isolation and social distancing, duty of care and fair access to treatment. The paper argues for a relational approach to ethics which includes solidarity, relational autonomy, duty, equity, trust and reciprocity as core values. The needs of the poor and socially disadvantaged are highlighted. Relational autonomy and solidarity are explored in relation to isolation and social distancing. Reciprocity is discussed with reference to healthcare workers’ (...) duty of care and its limits. Priority setting and access to treatment raise ethical issues of utility and equity. Difficult ethical dilemmas around triage, do not resuscitate decisions, and withholding and withdrawing treatment are discussed in the light of recently published guidelines. The paper concludes with the hope for a wider discussion of relational ethics and a glimpse of a future after the pandemic has subsided. (shrink)

The COVID-19 pandemic has had a significant impact globally. Most affected, however, are those individuals and groups routinely disadvantaged by the social injustice created by the misdistribution of power, money, and resources. Simple measures that prevent the spread of COVID-19, such as frequent hand washing and social distancing, are unavailable to millions of people in the wealthiest of nations and in the poorest of nations. Disadvantaged groups are impacted more directly and in disproportionately higher numbers due (...) to existing poor health, and the disruption of services central to securing an income and an education will have lasting consequences for their futures. The unintended effect of exclusionary government policies is that privileged citizens and healthcare systems are also at greater risk. This paper seeks to highlight the impact of COVID-19 on those already suffering health inequities through consideration of some of the social determinants of health on groups in affluent and poorer nations. It also highlights some of the factors that may assist in tackling health inequities as we emerge from this pandemic. (shrink)

Research highlights several risk and resilience factors at multiple ecological levels that influence individuals’ mental health and wellbeing in their everyday lives and, more specifically, in disaster or outbreak situations. However, there is limited research on the role of these factors in the early days of the COVID-19 crisis. The present study examined if and how potential risk factors and resilience factors are associated with mental health and well-being outcomes, and whether these resilience factors buffer the associations between risk (...) factors and said outcomes. One to two weeks after the government recommended preventative measures, 1,122 Canadian workers completed an online questionnaire, including multiple wellbeing outcome scales in addition to measures of potential risk and resilience factors. Structural equation models were tested, highlighting that overall, the considered risk factors were associated with poorer wellbeing outcomes, except social distancing which was associated with lower levels of stress. Each of the potential resilience factors was found to have a main effect on one or more of the wellbeing outcomes. Moderation analysis indicated that in general these resilience factors did not, however, buffer the risk factors. The findings confirm that the COVID-19 crisis encompasses several stressors related to the virus as well as to its impact on one’s social, occupational, and financial situation, which put people at risk for lower wellbeing as early as one to two weeks after the crisis began. While several resilience factors emerged as positively related to wellbeing, such factors may not be enough, or sufficiently activated at that time, to buffer the effects of the numerous life changes required by COVID-19. From an ecological perspective, while mental health professionals and public health decision-makers should offer/design services directly focused on mental health and wellbeing, it is important they go beyond celebrating individuals’ inner potential for resilience, and also support individuals in activating their environmental resources during a pandemic. (shrink)

BackgroundHumanitarian crises and emergencies, events often marked by high mortality, have until recently excluded palliative care—a specialty focusing on supporting people with serious or terminal illness or those nearing death. In the COVID-19 pandemic, palliative care has received unprecedented levels of societal attention. Unfortunately, this has not been enough to prevent patients dying alone, relatives not being able to say goodbye and palliative care being used instead of intensive care due to resource limitations. Yet global guidance was available. In (...) 2018, the WHO released a guide on‘Integrating palliative care and symptom relief into the response to humanitarian emergencies and crises’—the first guidance on the topic by an international body.AimsThis paper argues that while a landmark document, the WHO guide took a narrowly clinical bioethics perspective and missed crucial moral dilemmas. We argue for adding a population-level bioethics lens, which draws forth complex moral dilemmas arising from the fact that groups having differential innate and acquired resources in the context of social and historical determinants of health. We discuss dilemmas concerning: limitations of material and human resources; patient prioritisation; euthanasia; and legacy inequalities, discrimination and power imbalances.ImplicationsIn parts of the world where opportunity for preparation still exists, and as countries emerge from COVID-19, planners must consider care for the dying. Immediate steps to support better resolutions to ethical dilemmas of the provision of palliative care in humanitarian and emergency contexts will require honest debate; concerted research effort; and international, national and local ethical guidance. (shrink)

The COVID-19 pandemic redefines how we think about the body, physiologically and socially. But what does it mean to have and to be a body in the COVID-19 pandemic? The COVID-19 pandemic offers data scholars the unique opportunity, and perhaps obligation, to revisit and reinvent the fundamental concepts of our mediated experiences. The article critiques the data double, a longstanding concept in critical data and media studies, as incompatible with the current public health and social distancing (...) imperative. The data double, instead, is now the presupposition of a new data entity, which will emerge out of a current data shimmer: a long-sustaining transition that blurs the older boundaries of bodies and the social, and establishes new ethical boundaries around the activity and mobility of doing nothing to do something. The data double faces a unique dynamic in the COVID-19 pandemic between boredom and exhaustion. Following the currently simple rule to stay home presents data scholars the opportunity to revisit the meaning of data as something given, a shimmering embodied relationship with data that contributes to the common good in a global health crisis. (shrink)

BackgroundIn response to COVID-19 pandemic, the Government of Uganda adopted public health measures to contain its spread in the country. Some of the initial measures included refusal to repatriate citizens studying in China, mandatory institutional quarantine, and social distancing. Despite being a public health emergency, the measures adopted deserve critical appraisal using an ethics and human rights approach. The goal of this paper is to formulate an ethics and human rights criteria for evaluating public health measures and use (...) it to reflect on the ethical propriety of those adopted by the government of Uganda to contain the spread of COVID-19.Main bodyWe begin by illustrating the value of ethics and human rights considerations for public health measures including during emergencies. We then summarize Uganda’s social and economic circumstances and some of the measures adopted to contain the spread of COVID-19. After reviewing some of the ethics and human rights considerations for public health, we reflect upon the ethical propriety of some of Uganda’s responses to COVID-19. We use content analysis to identify the measures adopted by the government of Uganda to contain the spread of COVID-19, the ethics and human rights considerations commonly recommended for public health responses and their importance. Our study found that some of the measures adopted violate ethics and human rights principles. We argue that even though some human rights can sometimes be legitimately derogated and limited to meet public health goals during public health emergencies, measures that infringe on human rights should satisfy certain ethics and human rights criteria. Some of these criteria include being effective, strictly necessary, proportionate to the magnitude of the threat, reasonable in the circumstances, equitable, and least restrictive. We reflect on Uganda’s initial measures to combat the spread of COVID-19 and argue that many of them fell short of these criteria, and potentially limit their effectiveness.ConclusionThe ethical legitimacy of public health measures is valuable in itself and for enhancing effectiveness of the measures. Such legitimacy depends on the extent to which they conform to ethics and human rights principles recommended for public health measures. (shrink)

This study assessed the demographic characteristics of Koreans engaged in leisure sports activities during the COVID-19 pandemic and the differences in their preventive health behaviors and constraints on leisure activities. For this study, the demographic characteristics of 544 leisure sport participants, who were recruited on a nationwide basis, were examined through an online survey. Then, comparisons between groups were performed using independent t-tests, one-way analysis of variance, and multivariate analysis of variance. Women who participated in both indoor and outdoor (...) leisure sports showed higher adoption of health prevention behaviors than their male counterparts, and married individuals who participated in indoor leisure sports showed higher adoption of health prevention behaviors than unmarried participants. Moreover, individuals who participated in both indoor and outdoor leisure sports by themselves had many interpersonal constraints overall, and the group of married individuals who participated in indoor leisure sports showed structural constraints. In conclusion, leisure sports participants have adopted many health prevention behaviors during the COVID-19 pandemic, but this had led to some interpersonal constraints. These results indicate that, in the case of future pandemics, personal and institutional efforts will need to be made to promote participation in leisure sports and prevent excessive social isolation. (shrink)

The goal of this pilot study is to investigate expressions of the collective disquiet of people in the first months of Covid-19 pandemic, and to try to understand how they manage covert risk, especially with religion and magic. Four co-authors living in early hot spots of the pandemic speculate on the roles of science, religion, and magic, in the latest global catastrophe. They delve into the consolidation that should be occurring worldwide because of a common, viral enemy, but find (...) little evidence for it. They draw parallels to biblical works, finding evidence of a connection between plague and “social strife.” They explore changes in the purviews of science, religion, and magic, and how and why they have changed, as three systems of covert risk management. They speculate on the coming wave of grief when the world populations finally decide that too many people have died, and they envision cultural changes on the other side of the pandemic, to lifestyles, travel, reverse urbanization, and living and working in smaller communities. Using an unusual approach named “crowd-sourced ethnography”, they conduct un-traditional ethnography and speculate on management of covert risk in their native countries. (shrink)

In this review, we present some ethical imperatives observed in this pandemic from a data ethics perspective. Our exposition connects recurrent ethical problems in the discipline, such as, privacy, surveillance, transparency, accountability, and trust, to broader societal concerns about equality, discrimination, and justice. We acknowledge data ethics role as significant to develop technological, inclusive, and pluralist societies. - - - Resumen: En esta revisión, exponemos algunos de los imperativos éticos observados desde la ética de datos en esta pandemia. Nuestra exposición (...) busca conectar problemas éticos típicos dentro de esta disciplina, a saber, privacidad, vigilancia, transparencia, responsabilidad y confianza, con preocupaciones a nivel social relacionadas con la igualdad, discrimi nación y justicia. Consideramos que la ética de datos tiene un rol significativo para desarrollar sociedades tecnificadas, inclusivas y pluralistas. (shrink)

Burnout has been recognized as a serious health problem. In Portugal, before COVID-19 Pandemic, there were strong indicators of high prevalence of burnout in physicians and nurses. However, the Portuguese Health Care Service was able to efficiently respond to the increased demands. This study intends to understand how psychosocial variables might have been protective factors for burnout in physicians and nurses in Portugal. Specifically, we considered several psychosocial variables that have been found to be protective factors for burnout in (...) previous research and we compared their predictive and unique impact in the prediction of burnout. These variables are perceptions of justice (distributive, procedural, justice from colleagues, justice from patients, and their families), professional identification, meaningful work and empathy. We also included workload, as a risk factor, and controlled other variables that can be confounds for burnout, such as socio-demographic variables, ideological variables (religiosity, political orientation), and specific variables related with COVID-19 pandemic. The sample of the present study is composed by 229 physicians (aged between 23 and 70 years old,M= 36.54;SD= 10.72; 48% male and 52% female) and 268 nurses (aged between 22 and 69 years old,M= 34.96;SD= 9.52; 27% male and 73% female). An online survey was created using Qualtrics and participants were recruited via Facebook and LinkedIn. The data were collected during 29 days (between the 45th and the 74th days after the first diagnosed case of COVID-19 in Portugal). The results showed that workload was a significant risk factor, except for disengagement in physicians. The most consistent protectors across samples were procedural justice (for both dimensions of burnout, both in physicians and nurses) and professional identification (for disengagement, both in physicians and nurses; for exhaustion only in physicians). This study suggests that decreasing workload and promoting procedural justice and professional identification are key factors that might be simultaneously and independently addressed in interventions for reducing the risk of burnout or preventing it from occurring in the first place. (shrink)

Physical exercise is seen as the main ally for health promotion, preventing and protecting the organism from several diseases. According to WHO, there is a tendency of constant growth in the elderly population in the coming years. The regular practice of exercises by the elderly becomes relevant to minimize the deleterious effects of the aging process and to increase the fitness index. Recently, the world population started a confrontation against Corona Virus Disease (COVID-19), which is the most significant public (...) health challenge globally. Although social isolation is a reasonable measure in an attempt to stop contamination by COVID-19, this measure has limited the ability of individuals to exercise outdoors or in gyms and health clubs, which increased the risk of developing chronic illnesses related to a sedentary lifestyle. The critical point is that the recent recommendations on exercise prescription to combat the potentially harmful effects of COVID-19 failure to adequately address resistance exercise interventions as home-based exercise strategy. Thus, in this paper, we discussed the physical exercise as medicine if the training status is enough to protect the elderly against COVID-19 infection, about the role of physical activity on immunosuppression. Possible risks for COVID-19 infection, and the old training methods, such as no-load resistance training as possible resistance exercise strategies and high-intensity interval training, as new proposals of home-based exercise interventions, could perform during the current COVID-19 pandemic. (shrink)