Were governments justified in imposing lockdowns to contain the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic? We argue that a convincing answer to this question is to date wanting, by critically analyzing the factual basis of a recent paper, “How Government Leaders Violated Their Epistemic Duties During the SARS-CoV-2 Crisis” (Winsberg et al. 2020). In their paper, Winsberg et al. argue that government leaders did not, at the beginning of the pandemic, meet the epistemic requirements necessitated to impose lockdowns. We focus on (...) Winsberg et al.’s contentions that knowledge about COVID-19 resultant projections were inadequate; that epidemiologists were biased in their estimates of relevant figures; that there was insufficient evidence supporting the efficacy of lockdowns; and that lockdowns cause more harm than good. We argue that none of these claims are sufficiently supported by evidence, thus impairing their case against lockdowns, and leaving open the question of whether lockdowns were justified. (shrink)

In order to prevent the rapid spread of COVID-19, governments have placed significant restrictions on liberty, including preventing all non-essential travel. These restrictions were justified on the basis the health system may be overwhelmed by COVID-19 cases and in order to prevent deaths. Governments are now considering how they may de-escalate these restrictions. This article argues that an appropriate approach may be to lift the general lockdown but implement selective isolation of the elderly. While this discriminates against the elderly, (...) there is a morally relevant difference—the elderly are far more likely to require hospitalisation and die than the rest of the population. If the aim is to ensure the health system is not overwhelmed and to reduce the death rate, preventing the elderly from contracting the virus may be an effective means of achieving this. The alternative is to continue to keep everyone in lockdown. It is argued that this is levelling down equality and is unethical. It suggests that in order for the elderly to avoid contracting the virus, the whole population should have their liberty deprived, even though the same result could be achieved by only restricting the liberty of the elderly. Similar arguments may also be applied to all groups at increased risk of COVID-19, such as men and those with comorbidities, the obese and people from ethnic minorities or socially deprived groups. This utilitarian concern must be balanced against other considerations, such as equality and justice, and the benefits gained from discriminating in these ways must be proportionately greater than the negative consequences of doing so. Such selective discrimination will be most justified when the liberty restriction to a group promotes the well-being of that group. (shrink)

Governments around the world have faced the challenge of how to respond to the recent outbreak of a novel coronavirus disease. Some have reacted by greatly restricting the freedom of citizens, while others have opted for less drastic policies. In this paper, I draw a parallel with vaccination ethics to conceptualize two distinct approaches to COVID-19 that I call altruistic and lockdown. Given that the individual measures necessary to limit the spread of the virus can in principle be achieved (...) voluntarily as well as through enforcement, the question arises of how much freedom governments ought to give citizens to adopt the required measures. I argue that an altruistic approach is preferable on moral grounds: it preserves important citizen freedoms, avoids a number of potential injustices, and gives people a much-needed sense of meaning in precarious times. (shrink)

At this stage of the COVID-19 pandemic, two policy aims are imperative: avoiding the need for a general lockdown of the population, with all its economic, social and health costs, and preventing the healthcare system from being overwhelmed by the unchecked spread of infection. Achieving these two aims requires the consideration of unpalatable measures. Julian Savulescu and James Cameron argue that mandatory isolation of the elderly is justified under these circumstances, as they are at increased risk of becoming severely (...) ill from COVID-19, and are thus likely to put disproportionate strain on limited healthcare resources. However, their arguments for this strategy are contingent on the lack of viable alternatives. We suggest that there is a possible alternative: a mandatory, centralised contact-tracing app. We argue that this strategy is ethically preferable to the selective isolation of the elderly, because it does not target members of a certain group, relying instead on the movements of each individual, and because it avoids the extended isolation of certain members of the society. Although this type of contact-tracing app has its drawbacks, we contend that this measure warrants serious consideration. (shrink)

In their recent article, ‘Why lockdown of the elderly is not ageist and why levelling down equality is wrong’, Savulescu and Cameron argue for selective isolation of the elderly as an alternative to general lockdown. An important part of their argument is the claim that the latter amounts to ‘levelling down equality’ and that this is ‘unethical’ or even ‘morally repugnant’. This response argues that they fail to justify either part of this claim: the claim that levelling down (...) is always morally wrong is subject to challenges that Savulescu and Cameron do not consider; and a policy of maintaining general lockdown does not constitute levelling down, as it provides absolute benefits to those who would be worse off under selective isolation. (shrink)

How could the initial, drastic decisions to implement “lockdowns” to control the spread of COVID-19 infections be justifiable, when they were made on the basis of such uncertain evidence? We defend the imposition of lockdowns in some countries by first, and focusing on the UK, looking at the evidence that undergirded the decision, second, arguing that this provided us with sufficient grounds to restrict liberty given the circumstances, and third, defending the use of poorly-empirically-constrained epidemiological models as tools that can (...) legitimately guide public policy. (shrink)

Lockdowns in Australia have been strict and lengthy. Policy-makers appear to have given the preservation of quantity of lives strong priority over the preservation of quality of lives. But thought-experiments in population ethics suggest that this is not always the right priority. In this paper, I'll discuss both negative impacts on quantity of lives caused by the lockdowns themselves, including an increase in domestic violence, and negative impacts on quality of lives caused by lockdowns, in order to raise the question (...) of whether we each had reason to choose quantity over quality in our own lives in a way that would justify the lockdowns we had. (shrink)

Our aim in this brief essay is not to defend a particular policy or attitude toward lockdown measures in the United States or elsewhere, but to consider the scope and limits of different types of arguments that can be offered for them. Understanding the complexity of these issues will, we hope, go some way to helping us understand each other and our attitudes toward state responses to the pandemic.

The coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic is influencing our lives in an enormous and unprecedented way. Here, we explore COVID-19-lockdown's consequences for creative activity. To this end, we relied on two extensive diary studies. The first, held on March 2019, involved 78 students who reported their emotions and creativity over 2 weeks. The second, conducted on March 2020, involved 235 students who reported on their emotions, creativity, and the intensity of thinking and talking about COVID-19 over a month. We found (...) that compared with 2019, during the lockdown, students engaged slightly yet statistically significantly more in creative activities. An analysis of diaries collected during the pandemic also showed that the days when students spent more time discussing or searching for information about COVID-19 were characterized by a higher creative activity yet also mixed emotions. We discuss potential explanations of these unexpected results along with future study directions. (shrink)

This poem was written during the first COVID-19 lockdown in 2020 when many were feeling the painful impact of sudden isolation. During this time, mental health crises were increasingly attended to by local emergency services who may or may not have had relevant training to respond appropriately to vulnerable persons. The outcomes of these 911 calls concerned me, loaded as they can be with bias and...

In many countries and regions across the world, the initial response to the massive health risks posed by COVID-19 has been the institution of lockdown measures. Although they vary from place to place, these measures all involve trade-offs between ethical goods and imperatives, imposing significant restrictions on central human capabilities—including citizens’ ability to work, socialize, exercise democratic rights, and access education—in the name of protecting population health. As such, it seems imperative for philosophers to ask whether lockdown measures (...) are ethical.This is a difficult question. We are deeply uncertain about the possible effects of COVID-19 and of lockdown policies, raising questions about... (shrink)

In ‘Thinking Beyond the Lockdown’, Panagiotis Sotiris argues that lockdowns are repressive and should be opposed. In this response I take issue with his analysis. He posits the existence of a ‘lockdown strategy’ which has little relation to reality. He identifies lockdowns with neoliberalism, flirts with the Great Barrington project, and calls for anti-lockdown resistance – without so much as a glance at the right-wing libertarian camps that are also staked out on this terrain. On these points, (...) and in respect of his interpretation of Foucault, I offer a rebuttal. (shrink)

Lockdown measures in response to the COVID-19 pandemic involve placing huge burdens on some members of society for the sake of benefiting other members of society. How should we decide when these policies are permissible? Many writers propose we should address this question using cost-benefit analysis, a broadly consequentialist approach. We argue for an alternative non-consequentialist approach, grounded in contractualist moral theorising. The first section sets up key issues in the ethics of lockdown, and sketches the apparent appeal (...) of addressing these problems in a CBA frame. The second section argues that CBA fundamentally distorts the normative landscape in two ways: first, in principle, it allows very many morally trivial preferences—say, for a coffee—might outweigh morally weighty life-and-death concerns; second, it is insensitive to the core moral distinction between victims and vectors of disease. The third section sketches our non-consequentialist alternative, grounded in Thomas Scanlon’s contractualist moral theory. On this account, the ethics of self-defence implies a strong default presumption in favour of a highly restrictive, universal lockdown policy: we then ask whether there are alternatives to such a policy which are justifiable to all affected parties, paying particular attention to the complaints of those most burdened by policy. In the fourth section, we defend our contractualist approach against the charge that it is impractical or counterintuitive, noting that actual CBAs face similar, or worse, challenges. (shrink)

In response to the spread of COVID-19, governments across the world have, with very few exceptions, enacted sweeping restrictive lockdown policies that impede citizens’ freedom to move, work, and assemble. This paper critically responds to the central arguments for restrictive lockdown legislation. We build our critique on the following assumption: public policy that enjoys virtually unanimous support worldwide should be justified by uncontroversial moral principles. We argue that that the virtually unanimous support in favor of restrictive lockdowns is (...) not adequately justified by the arguments given in favor of them. Importantly, this is not to say that states ought not impose restrictive lockdown measures, but rather that the extent of the acceptance of these measures is not proportionate to the strength of the arguments for lockdowns. -/- We begin by exploring the case for restrictive lockdowns. We first argue that several of the principles that are used to justify the lockdowns yield unexpectedly revisionary implications for other political problems that many would be unwilling to accept. We then outline what we consider the strongest argument for a lockdown—namely, that its net welfare benefits are great enough to defeat the moral presumption against restricting citizens’ civil liberties to move, work, and assemble. However, we give a number of reasons for doubting that the lockdown’s net welfare benefits are, in fact, sufficiently high to defeat the presumption against it. (shrink)

In ‘Thinking Beyond the Lockdown’, Panagiotis Sotiris argues that lockdowns are repressive and should be opposed. In this response I take issue with his analysis. He posits the existence of a ‘lockdown strategy’ which has little relation to reality. He identifies lockdowns with neoliberalism, flirts with the Great Barrington project, and calls for anti-lockdown resistance – without so much as a glance at the right-wing libertarian camps that are also staked out on this terrain. On these points, (...) and in respect of his interpretation of Foucault, I offer a rebuttal. (shrink)

On 22nd September 2020 the UK Government announced new lockdown restrictions to supress the COVID-19 virus, with some areas of England having more restrictive lockdown guidance. Students in a number of cities have been confined to their halls of residences after outbreaks of COVID-19 and in Manchester security guards were preventing students leaving the buildings. The scientific community are, unsurprisingly, divided over the question of how far lockdowns should extend.1 Monday 21st September 2020 saw the publication of two (...) open letter to the UK government and Chief Medical Officers. One group, Sunetra Gupta et al,2 argued for a selective lockdown targeting the most vulnerable. The other, headed by Trisha Greenhalgh, arguing that attempts to suppress the virus should operate across the whole community.3 As we enter what appears to be a second wave of COVID-19 infections and accompanying lockdown measures, ethical debates over the appropriateness and extent of such measures are critical. Julian Savulescu and James Cameron4 in their article on lockdown of the elderly and why this is not ageist, put forward the case that, ‘an appropriate approach may be to lift the general lockdown but implement selective isolation of the elderly.’ Their central claim is that selective isolation of the elderly is to be preferred to imposing lockdown on all members of society. The aim of lockdown, restricting movement and key activities, is designed to reduce the number of deaths from COVID-19 and also to prevent the healthcare system from becoming overwhelmed. As the elderly are at significantly more risk of having severe cases of COVID-19 and therefore more likely to place demands on healthcare services, they are clearly prime candidates for lockdown measures, measures that will not only benefit them but the whole of society. This is not ageist as …. (shrink)

As many Western countries emerged from initial periods of lockdown in spring 2020, they had brought COVID-19 infection rates down significantly. This was followed, however, with more drastic second and third waves of viral spread, which many of these same countries are struggling to bring under control, even with the implementation of further periods of lockdown. Could this have been prevented by policymakers? We revisit two strategies that were focus of much discussion during the early stages of the (...) pandemic, and which were implemented in several Western countries, albeit in a weakened form. These strategies both proceed by targeting certain segments of the population, while allowing others to go about their lives unhindered. The first suggests selectively isolating those that would most likely suffer severe adverse effects if infected – in particular the elderly. The second involves identifying and quarantining those who are likely to be infected through a contact tracing app that would centrally store users’ information. We suggest that both strategies showed promise in preventing the need for further lockdowns, albeit in a significantly more stringent form than anything that was implemented in Western countries. We then proceed to an ethical evaluation of these more stringent policies. We contend that selective isolation strategies face severe ethical problems due to its discriminatory nature, while the ethical issues with a more aggressive contact tracing regime can be mitigated. This analysis has implications for how to respond effectively and ethically to future pandemics, and perhaps contains lessons on how to successfully emerge from our current predicament. (shrink)

When the city of Wuhan was severely locked down on January 23, 2020 for 76 days due to the coronavirus outbreak, many residents started writing “lockdown diaries.” This article argues these diaries constitute a kind of performance art for their authors, specifically, an 'art of endurance' as described by Shalson. Keeping a diary requires a plan, but the following through of the plan is a contingent process requiring efforts and endurance. The challenges become particularly daunting for authors of online (...) diaries in pandemic times. The article analyzes multiple types of endurance associated with the Wuhan lockdown diarists, showing that in digitally-driven environments, where potential collective responses are a key context, the lockdown diaries of Wuhan, like works of endurance art, engage with meanings that reach far beyond their original experience and context. Their stories of endurance are an allegory of the endurance of the entire city of Wuhan. (shrink)

In this unprecedented time, there are many questions and plenty of speculation surrounding what life will be like after the South African nationwide lockdown. There is concern over the effects that the lockdown will have on worship services when churches are in a position to open their doors to the public once more. As a result of recognising the lockdown as a liminal phase, perspectives are shared when considering how the church will gather again in a post- (...) class='Hi'>lockdown context and therefore a post-liminal phase. One prevailing perspective in considering this post-liminal phase involves koinonia and how an undiscriminating virus can remind those to further practise inclusivity and ubuntu, by embracing sameness and difference when ‘being church’. In contrast, another important perspective focuses on ritualising certain measures in the worship service to prevent the spread of coronavirus disease 2019, when gathering in church buildings is permissible in a post-lockdown context. This is concluded by echoing the spirit of ubuntu, namely, ‘I am because we are’, in ‘being church’ during and after the crisis of the COVID-19 global pandemic.Contribution: From the perspective of Liturgical and Ritual Studies, this article aims to contribute to the Theological perspectives of COVID-19. (shrink)

To fight against the spread of the coronavirus disease, more than 3 billion people in the world have been confined indoors. Although lockdown is an efficient solution, it has had various psychological consequences that have not yet been fully measured. During the lockdown period in France, we conducted two surveys on two large panels of participants to examine how the lockdown disrupted their relationship with time and what this change in their experiences of time means. Numerous questions (...) were asked about the experience of time but also the nature of life during the lockdown: the emotions felt, boredom, the activities performed, sleep quality, and the daily rhythm. The participants also completed a series of self-reported scales used to assess depression, anxiety, and impulsivity. The results showed that time seemed to pass more slowly during the lockdown compared to before. This feeling of a slowing down of time has little to do with living conditions during the lockdown and individual psychological characteristics. The main predictor of this time experience was boredom and partly mediated by the lack of activity. The feeling of being less happy and the presence of sleep disturbance also explained this specific experience of time albeit to a lesser extent. (shrink)

The COVID-19 pandemic and associated measures to restrict the spread of the virus correlated with limitations in healthcare and changes in depression-related lifestyle elements for depressed patients, both of which are known to negatively affect the course of depression. This paper examines, the reporting of a worsening state of illness as a result of COVID-19-related measures among individuals with depressive disorders; and whether this worsening was related to restrictions in healthcare for depression or changes in depression-related lifestyle. The analysis was (...) based on a population-representative survey of the German population aged 18–69 years. The key findings were: 49% of respondents with self-reported diagnosed depression reported that the measures against the pandemic had a negative impact on their depressive illness. Of those who reported impaired access to healthcare for their depressive illness, 70% also reported a worsening of their depressive illness. This was a significantly higher percentage than those who did not experience impaired access to healthcare. Of those who reported changes in depression-related lifestyle, 58% reported a worsening of their depressive illness. This was a significantly higher percentage than those who did not exhibit any of the outlined behaviours. Worsening of the depressive illness was most common among those who reported a lack of daily structure or extended bedtimes. People who mentioned a lack of exercise also reported a worsening of their depressive illness. These findings reinforce the need to consider the suffering and possible increased suicide risk to people suffering from depression induced by measures designed to constrain the COVID-19 pandemic; an important consideration in identifying the optimal risk-benefit ratio when setting pandemic measures. Our study highlighted the importance of maintaining healthcare, even in crisis situations, and ensuring access to guideline-based treatment for people who need urgent care. It also showed that political interventions can influence individual behaviours that can have negative effects on depressive illness. (shrink)

The COVID-19 emergency has hit the whole world, finding all countries unprepared to face it. The first studies focused on the medical aspects, neglecting the psychological dimension of the populations that were forced to face changes in everyday life and in some cases to stay forcedly at home in order to reduce contagion. The present research was carried out in Italy, one of the countries hardest hit by the pandemic. The aim was to analyze the perception of happiness, mental health, (...) and the sense of loneliness experienced by adults during the lockdown due to the COVID pandemic. Specifically, the variables will be examined in relation to gender difference, living alone, with partner, or with partner and children. The research followed a quantitative approach using an online questionnaire. The project involved 1100 subjects from whom 721 participants were extrapolated. Of them, 17.3% claimed to live alone, 39.5% with their partner, and 43.1% with their partner and children. The results show that people in general experienced a lower level of happiness and mental health and higher levels of loneliness compared to normative sample. The lockdown and pandemic condition due to COVID-19 seems to have canceled the gender differences in the perception of happiness and mental health, while it seems to have increased the perception of loneliness experienced by males compared to the pre-pandemic condition. In addition, those who lived alone perceived a greater level of loneliness than those who lived with their partner or partner and children. Unexpectedly, no significant differences emerged regarding the level of happiness and mental health between those who had direct contact with the virus and those who did not. These data should make political decision-makers reflect on the need to pay more attention to the implications that such drastic measures as a lockdown can have on people’s psychological well-being. (shrink)

The spread of COVID-19 in Italy resulted in the implementation of a lockdown that obligated the first time the general populace to remain at home for approximately two months. This lockdown interrupted citizens’ professional and educational activities, in addition to closing shops, offices and educational institutions. The resulting changes in people’s daily routines and activities induced unexpected changes in their thoughts, feelings and attitudes, in addition to altering their life perceptions. Consequently, the present study explores how young adults (...) perceived their lives under lockdown during the final week of March 2020, when the reported number of daily coronavirus infections reached its peak in Italy. The research was carried out among 293 university students with an average age of 20.85 years old. The researchers asked participants to describe the emotions, thoughts and experiences that characterized their time under lockdown. The study analyzed specific narratives related to time and space using grounded theory methodology, which was applied using Atlas 8 software, leading to the creation of 68 codes. The study organized these codes into three specific categories: confined in the present, confined in the past, and striving toward one’s goals. Finally, the researchers also created a core-category labeled “continuity of being.” The results showed that the closure of open spaces caused a division in participants’ perceptions of time continuity, with many viewing themselves as feeling fragmented and as living the present in a static and fixed way. Additionally, participants also saw the present as being discontinuous from the past, while, simultaneously, projecting toward the future and the changes it might bring. Finally, this study examined further implications surrounding individual projecting among young people in greater depth. (shrink)

A wide range of countries decided to go into lockdown to contain the coronavirus disease pandemic of 2020, a setting separating people and restricting their movements. We investigated how musicians dealt with this sudden restriction in mobility. Responses of 234 people were collected. The majority of respondents resided in Belgium or the Netherlands. Results indicated a decrease of 79% of live music making in social settings during lockdown compared with before lockdown. In contrast, an increase of 264% (...) was demonstrated for online joint music making. However, results showed that most respondents were largely or even completely unaccustomed with specialized platforms for online joint music making. Respondents reported to mostly use well-known video-conferencing platforms such as Zoom and Skype when playing together virtually. However, when such video-conferencing platforms were used, they were often not employed for synchronized playing and were generally reported to insufficiently deal with latency issues. Furthermore, respondents depending on music making as their main source of income explored online real-time methods significantly more than those relying on other income sources. Results also demonstrated an increase of 93% in the use of alternative remote joint music-making methods. All in all, results of this study provide a more in-depth view on joint music making during the first weeks of lockdown induced by the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020, and demonstrate users’ perceptions of performance and usability of online real-time platforms as well as alternative methods for musical interaction. (shrink)

Global lockdowns during the COVID-19 pandemic have offered many people first-hand experience of how their daily online activities threaten their digital well-being. This article begins by critically evaluating the current approaches to digital well-being offered by ethicists of technology, NGOs, and social media corporations. My aim is to explain why digital well-being needs to be reimagined within a new conceptual paradigm. After this, I lay the foundations for such an alternative approach, one that shows how current digital well-being initiatives can (...) be designed in more insightful ways. This new conceptual framework aims to transform how philosophers of technology think about this topic, as well as offering social media corporations practical ways to design their technologies in ways that will improve the digital well-being of users. (shrink)

The COVID-19 pandemic is a health issue leading older adults to an increased vulnerability to unfavorable outcomes. Indeed, the presence of physical frailty has recently led to higher mortality due to SARS-CoV-2 infection. However, no longitudinal studies have investigated the role of neuropsychogeriatric factors associated with lockdown fatigue in healthy cognitive aging. Eighty-one healthy older adults were evaluated for their neuropsychological characteristics, including physical frailty, before the pandemic. Subsequently, 50 of them agreed to be interviewed and neuropsychologically re-assessed during (...) the lockdown and immediately after it. Moreover, during another home confinement, they performed a psychological screening to evaluate possible mood changes and fatigue. According to Fried's frailty criteria, at T0, 63% of the sample was robust, 34.5% pre-frail, and only 2.5% frail. Significantly, these subjects presented a decrease in handgrip strength and walking speed. Results from Principal Component Analyses and multiple regression models highlighted the contribution of “cognitive” and “psychological” factors in explaining handgrip strength and gait speed. At T3, lockdown fatigue was explained by higher scores on the Beck Depression Inventory and lower scores on the Trail Making Test part A. Results from a moderated-mediation model showed that the effect of psychomotor speed on lockdown fatigue was mediated by depression, with a moderating effect of gait speed. Our findings highlight the complex interrelationship between cognitive, psychological, and physical factors in the emergence of pandemic fatigue in a carefully selected older population. (shrink)

COVID-19 is not only a health emergency but also a strategic challenge for any politics of resistance, struggle and transformation. Understanding the social and political dynamics associated with morbidity and mortality and the many ‘ecologies of disease’ associated with the pandemic is necessary if we want to think beyond the limits of the lockdown strategy. It is here that the possibility of a democratic biopolitics emerges as part of a broader strategy for communism.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, many daughters, sisters, aunts, wives, and mothers found themselves with additional caretaking duties, and many were also vulnerable and unsafe in different constellations of relationships. Lockdown exacerbated this vulnerability. It also heightened stress, as vulnerable women were required to be constantly alert and risk aware in their reconfigured worlds. This not only included women in unsafe intimate relationships but also digital vulnerability for women as life moved online, economic risk for casually employed women unable to (...) work from home, and even increased exposure to misogyny for female political leaders navigating polarizing and volatile political communities. Whilst... (shrink)

COVID-19 has posed a serious threat to more than 200 countries, causing over one million deaths worldwide and leading to lockdowns that are unprecedented in modern times. Give...

The Covid-19 pandemic accelerated the global trend towards spending increasing amounts of time online. I explore some of the potential negative consequences of lockdown-induced increases in time spent online, and I argue that the stressful context of the pandemic and lockdowns is exacerbated by being online beyond that which is required for essential purposes. Time spent online may increase stress levels by perpetuating the sympathetic nervous system's fight-or-flight response, draining a person’s energy and diminishing one’s ability to deal with (...) illness. I frame the situation as one in which the pandemic context, combined with a mandatory need to be online more, forces many people into what Daniel Kahneman calls “System 1 thinking”, or “fast thinking”. I argue that digital hygiene requires the suspension of System 1 thinking, and that “philosophical perception” resonates with potential remedies in this regard. (shrink)

COVID-19 has created significant concern surrounding the impact of pandemic lockdown on mental health. While the pandemic lockdown can be distressing, times of crisis can also provide people with the opportunity to think divergently and explore different activities. Novelty seeking, where individuals explore novel and unfamiliarly stimuli and environments, may enhance the creativity of individuals to solve problems in a way that allows them to adjust their emotional responses to stressful situations. This study employs a longitudinal design to (...) investigate changes in novelty seeking and mental health outcomes before, during, and after COVID-19 pandemic lockdown, among a group of students from a university in southeast China. Participants were surveyed at three points: November, 2019 ; between February and March, 2020 ; and between May and June, 2020. Cross-sectionally, correlation analysis indicated that greater novelty seeking was associated with lower levels of stress, anxiety, and depression at all three time points. Univariate latent curve modeling indicated a growth trajectory in which novelty seeking increased over time and then remained high during the post-lockdown period. Stress, anxiety, and depression all showed V-shaped growth trajectories in which these variables decreased during lockdown, before increasing in the post-lockdown period. Multivariate LCM indicated the growth trajectory for novelty seeking was associated with the growth trajectories for stress, anxiety, and depression. This suggests that the observed decreases in stress, anxiety, and depression during the lockdown period may be attributable to the sample’s observed increase in novelty seeking. These findings are valuable in that they challenge the notion that lockdown measures are inherently detrimental to mental health. The findings indicate the important role of novelty seeking in responding to crises. It may be possible for future public health measures to incorporate the promotion of novelty seeking to help individuals’ respond to stressful situations and maintain good mental health in the face of crises. (shrink)

This article reports data collected from 385 performing arts professionals using the HEartS Professional Survey during the COVID-19 Lockdown 1.0 in the United Kingdom. Study 1 examined characteristics of performing arts professionals’ work and health, and investigated how these relate to standardized measures of wellbeing. Study 2 examined the effects of the lockdown on work and wellbeing in the respondents’ own words. Findings from Study 1 indicate a substantial reduction in work and income. 53% reported financial hardship, 85% (...) reported increased anxiety, and 63% reported being lonelier than before the crisis. 61% sought support on finances while only 45% did so on health and wellbeing. Multiple regression analyses, using the Mental Health Continuum-Short Form, Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale, Social Connectedness Scale, and Three-Item Loneliness Scale as outcome variables, indicate that perceived financial hardship was associated with lower wellbeing and higher depression and loneliness scores. Higher self-rated health was associated with higher wellbeing and lower depression scores. More physical activity before lockdown was associated with higher wellbeing and social connectedness scores, as well as lower loneliness scores, and an increase in physical activity during lockdown compared with before, as well as older age, were associated with higher wellbeing and social connectedness scores, and lower depression and loneliness scores. Thematic inductive analysis of 341 open responses in Study 2 identified five overarching themes characterizing the effects of Lockdown 1.0: lost or uncertain work and income, including canceled work, financial concerns, and uncertainties for the future; constraints of lockdown working, including challenges of working at home, struggles with online work and skill maintenance, and caring responsibilities; loss and vulnerability, including reduced social connections, lack of support, vulnerability, feelings of loss and grief, and concern for others; detrimental effects on health and wellbeing, including anxiety, low or unstable mood, poorer physical health, and lack of motivation; and professional and personal opportunities, including coping well or living more healthily, more time and less pressure, new possibilities and activities, enhanced social connections, and new skills. Lockdown 1.0 had profound effects on performing arts professionals, but our findings reveal some opportunities and compelling links between positive wellbeing and physical activity. (shrink)

During the COVID-19 epidemic, draconian countermeasures forbidding nonessential human activities have been adopted in several countries worldwide, providing an unprecedented setup for testing and quantifying the current impact of humankind on climate and for driving potential sustainability policies in the postpandemic era from a perspective of complex systems. In this study, we consider heterogeneous sources of environmental and human activity observables, considered as components of a complex socioenvironmental system, and apply information theory, network science, and Bayesian inference to analyze their (...) structural relations and nonlinear dynamics between January 2019 and August 2020 in northern Italy, i.e., before, during, and after the national lockdown. The topological structure of a complex system strongly impacts its collective behavior; therefore, mapping this structure is essential to fully understand the functions of the system as a whole and its fragility to unexpected disruptions or shocks. To this aim, we unravel the causal relationships between the 16 environmental conditions and human activity variables, mapping the backbone of the complex interplay between intervening physical observables—such as NO2 emissions, energy consumption, intervening climate variables, and different flavors of human mobility flows—to a causal network model. To identify a tipping point during the period of observation, denoting the presence of a regime shift between distinct network states, we introduce a novel information-theoretic method based on statistical divergence widely used in statistical physics. We find that despite a measurable decrease in NO2 concentration, due to an overall decrease in human activities, locking down a region as a climate change mitigation is an insufficient remedy to reduce emissions. Our results provide a functional characterization of socioenvironmental interdependent systems, and our analytical framework can be used, more generally, to characterize environmental changes and their interdependencies using statistical physics. (shrink)

Secondary education around the world has been significantly disrupted by covid-19. Students have been forced into new ways of independent learning, often using remote technologies, but without the social nuances and direct teacher interactions of a normal classroom environment. Using data from the School Attitudes Survey—which surveys students regarding the perceived level of difficulty, anxiety level, self-efficacy, enjoyability, subject relevance, and opportunities for creativity with regards to each of their school subjects—this study examines students' responses to this disruption from two (...) very different schools with two very different experiences of the pandemic. This paper reports on the composite attitudinal profiles of students in the senior secondary levels at each school. The findings challenged our expectation that the increased difficulty and anxiety caused by the disruption would reduce perceived opportunities for creativity. Indeed, our analyses showed that the students at both schools demonstrated generally positive attitudes toward their learning and strongly associated opportunities for creativity with other attitudinal constructs including enjoyability, subject relevance, and self-efficacy. These complex associations made by the students appear to have buffered the impacts of the disruption, and they may even have supported creative resilience. (shrink)

Behavioral immune system describes psychological mechanisms that detect cues to infectious pathogens in the immediate environment, trigger disease-relevant responses and facilitate behavioral avoidance/escape. BIS activation elicits a perceived vulnerability to disease which can result in conformity with social norms. However, a response to superficial cues can result in aversive responses to people that pose no actual threat, leading to an aversion to unfamiliar others, and likelihood of prejudice. Pathogen-neutralizing behaviors, therefore, have implications for social interaction as well as illness behaviors (...) and responses to health communications. In this study, we investigate how PVD influences conformity, attitudes to other people and to lockdown regulations through the lens of the Reinforcement Sensitivity Theory. RST describes personality in terms of biologically-driven approach and avoidance motivations which support personal goals. Participants from the United Kingdom public completed an RST personality questionnaire and then read either coronavirus morbidity-mortality statistics and current United Kingdom government lifestyle regulations, just the regulations, or no information at all. They all completed the Perceived Vulnerability to Disease scale to assess BIS-relevant Germ Aversion and Perceived Infectability, followed by questions measuring social conformity, warmth toward others and attitudes toward lockdown measures. Significantly lower PVD scores were observed in the no-information condition, with the other conditions showing no difference. In terms of RST, approach behaviors related to goal-drive persistence work alongside fear in explaining conformity to social norms. Reward related approach behaviors partially explained warmth toward others, indicating that social rewards gained through interaction continue to be strong drivers of behavior. We found no role for RST traits in attitudes toward lockdown. Overall, coronavirus-related behavior is not driven purely by fear, but also by social and/or protection goals regulated by approach motivation. This study presents new insights into public perceptions of coronavirus and government regulated lifestyle restrictions, helping to explain social behaviors in terms of biologically driven mechanisms. Such understanding is vital if we are to successfully motivate public behavior to constrain spread of the virus. (shrink)

Business Ethics, the Environment & Responsibility, EarlyView.

The COVID-19 pandemic and its associated stressors have impacted the daily lives and sleeping patterns of many individuals, including university students. Dreams may provide insight into how the mind processes changing realities; dreams not only allow consolidation of new information, but may give the opportunity to creatively “play out” low-risk, hypothetical threat simulations. While there are studies that analyze dreams in high-stress situations, little is known of how the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted dreams of university students. The aim of this (...) study was to explore how the dream content of students was affected during the university COVID-19 lockdown period. Using online survey methods, we analyzed dream recall content using the Hall-Van de Castle dream coding system and Fisher's exact tests for sex comparisons. Preliminary results indicate that female students experienced more nightmares as compared to male students. Dream analysis found that, relative to normative American College Student samples generated pre-COVID-19, women were more likely to experience aggressive interactions in their dream content, including increased physical aggression. Results indicate that university students did experience changes in dream content due to the pandemic lockdown period, with women disproportionally affected. These findings can aid universities in developing support programs for students by bringing forth an understanding of students' concerns and anxieties as they process the “new normal” of social distancing. (shrink)