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When COVID-19 broke out in Wuhan in 2019, the world looked at it as a 'Chinese' disease and no international efforts were made to assist China. Countries that supported China just offered solidarity messages. China adopted a raft of measures that included prescribing a lockdown on Wuhan and construction of infrastructure such as hospitals. In 2020, COVID-19 extended its tentacles across the globe. A majority of countries adopted the lockdown as a mitigatory measure. The lockdown activated an extraordinary instant emergency in the education sector as schools, colleges and universities shut down. What worsened the situation was that no solution was in sight as the medical researchers dithered from one suggestion to the other. This paper examines possible ways to deal with the emergency in the education sector by suggesting alternative learning solutions. The major argument of this paper is that countries should not simply copy and paste solutions that are not in sync with their local settings. Using the multistage designs sampling technique, three universities from a target of eighteen were selected. Convenience sampling was used to select the three universities and analytic rubrics were used to analyse clarity of policy and disaster preparedness by universities in Zimbabwe. For comparative purposes, four international webinars on education and COVID-19 were selected. This paper contributes towards addressing the lacunae created by global lockdown and subsequent shutdown of learning institutions due to COVID-19. The findings were that the lockdown approach was adopted and implemented without adaptation. Learning institutions were closed indefinitely despite the economic environment, the digital divide and the rural-urban divide militating against lockdown's entire adoption. Key proposals to deal with the lockdown include scaling up distance education based on mixed technologies, a paradigm shift on perceptions on digital education and resuscitation of postal services. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper evaluated whether the citizens are satisfied with outcomes and performance of lockdown initiatives in defending against COVID-19. We statistical analyzed participants' characteristics and used a logit regression to analyze the factors associated with their experience and satisfaction with the lockdown initiative. According to our results, the issues of information disclosure, reasonable resource arrangements, and timely governmental responses significantly influenced the experiences of citizens during the lockdown period. The findings can guide policy makers regarding implementing more progressive initiatives to limit the spread of COVID-19 and facilitate the use of emergency measures for the sake of public health. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Self-Efficacy Questionnaire for Children (SEQ-C) is a well-established measure of self-efficacy including three specific task demands, that is, academic self-efficacy, social self-efficacy, and emotional self-efficacy. The present study examined the applicability of the SEQ-C for measuring children's self-efficacy in a Chinese population. The sample was comprised of 1491 students in Grade 4 to 11 (boys = 52.8%; mean age = 13.0 years) in Wuhan, Hubei Province, China. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was conducted to test the factor structure of the SEQ-C. Also, bivariate correlations between SEQ-C and children's prosocial behavior, bullying behavior and victimized experience were tested to reflect the convergent validity of the SEQ-C. The results revealed that a modified 20-item Chinese version of the SEQ-C had excellent internal consistency reliability, good construct validity, overall acceptable convergent validity and measurement invariance across gender and school level. Only minor adaptions were necessary, and the rationale for making these adjustments was based on both content and performance of the measure. In addition to the cross-cultural validation, this study has extended the age range of the target users (14 to 17 years) by confirming the suitability of the SEQ-C for age groups spanning primary and secondary school children aged between 9 and 18 years. For those working and doing research in schools, this validation study increases confidence in the use of the Chinese SEQ-C and its subscales for identifying children's self-efficacy in specific domains and for conducting research on interventions where self-efficacy is an important predictor or outcome. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There were 27 novel coronavirus pneumonia cases found in Wuhan, China in December 2019, named as 2019-nCoV temporarily and COVID-19 formally by the World Health Organization (WHO) on the 11 February 2020. In December 2019 and January 2020, COVID-19 has spread on a large scale among the population, which brought terrible disaster to the life and property of the Chinese people. In this paper, we analyze the features and pattern of the virus transmission. Considering the influence of indirect transmission, a conscious-based Susceptible-Exposed-Infective-Recovered (SEIR) (C-SEIR) model is proposed, and the difference equation is used to establish the model. We simulated the C-SEIR model and key important parameters. The results show that (1) increasing people's awareness of the virus can effectively reduce the spread of the virus; (2) as the capability and possibility of indirect infection increases, the proportion of people being infected will also increase; (3) the increased cure rate can effectively reduce the number of infected people. Then, the virus transmission can be modelled and used for the inflexion and extinction period of pandemic development so as to provide theoretical support for the Chinese government in the decision-making of pandemic prevention and recovery of economic production. Further, this study has demonstrated the effectiveness of the prevention measures taken by the Chinese government such as multi-level administrative district isolation and public health awareness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The current debates on "digital labor" focus on a gorgeous and comprehensive experiential description and theoretical exposition but do not provide a thorough examination of the unique context and social structure. In China, the development of internet is closely tied to politics, the Chinese Government uses internet as a tool of social governance. More importantly, aside from desire-based communications produced by corporate ideology, the Chinese people's passion for the Internet also comes from individual survival, especially the middle and lower class of information represented by the disabled people. This means that analysis of the digital labor among people with disabilities in China must be done from a variety of angles, including politics, society and culture. Methods: This study combines life-history interviews and field research methods to explore the value and significance of digitalized livelihoods and free prosumer labor for people with disabilities in China through self-narration. Since 2020, researchers have been volunteering at two social organizations serving people with physical disabilities in Wuhan city, Hubei Province. We participated in 26 assistance activities for disabled groups which included three 14-day training camps, and interviewed 40 people with physical disabilities. Results: This study found that although the digitalized livelihoods practice of people with disabilities is still "precarious labor" in nature, whose self-expression in the cyberspace is easy to fall into the shackles of capital flow logic. However, digital labor practice provides them with the opportunity to "sit at home, enter the community and society," also enables them to "live independently." More importantly, this opportunity and possibility enable people with disabilities to experience a sense of value and self-esteem as "competent people." Therefore, in the realistic environment of structural obstacles in the social life of the people with disabilities in China, the possibility of "inclusiveness" brought by digital labor is the core value brought by digital society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

COVID-19 ushered in almost unprecedented socioeconomic and political challenges. A typical social reaction during such emergencies is rumormongering, which has intensified since the advent of social media. This study explored factors affecting users' willingness to spread pandemic-related rumors in Wuhan, China and Israel. We tested a multi-variant model of factors affecting the forwarding of COVID-19 rumors. In an online survey conducted in April–May 2020, users of each country's leading social media platform (WeChat and WhatsApp, respectively) reported on patterns of exposure to and spread of COVID-19 rumors, as well as on their motives for doing so. Despite major differences between the two societies, interesting similarities were found: in both cases, individual drives, shaped by personal needs and degree of negative feelings, were the leading factors behind rumormongering. Exposure to additional sources of information regarding the rumors was also a significant predictor, but only in the Chinese case. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After the Covid-19 outbreak in Wuhan in January 2020, governments around the world evacuated their citizens from China. Soon, problems arose in relation to the evacuation of families made up of white Western migrants and Chinese citizens, as their mixed citizenship status prevented them from being evacuated as a family. By analyzing news reports, policy documents, and social media discussions about these families' predicaments, this article investigates the reasons why they faced being separated in this time of crisis. Drawing on the concept of white mobility capital, it argues that the Covid-19 era brings to our attention the weak foundation of long-assumed mobility privileges among white migrants in China and sheds light on the precarious status of increasing numbers of mixed-status families in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: In the current era of big data, it is critical to address people's demand for health literacy. At present, the traditional mode of communicating scientific health knowledge and information technology is interchangeable, resulting in the emergence of a new mode of communicating health literacy. To publicize health education and health literacy in a targeted way, to meet the public's needs, and to understand how the public's demand for subjects, contents, and forms of health literacy service has changed in the era of COVID-19, the investigation of public's demand for health information and health literacy was conducted. Objective: This study aims to understand the differences in demand for health literacy service providers, contents, channels, forms, and facilities among Chinese citizens with different genders, ages, education levels, economic conditions, and living environments, and to provide reasonable recommendations for developing public health literacy. Methods: Questionnaire Star was used to conduct a large sample of random online surveys. In Wuhan, Hubei Province, 2184 questionnaires were issued, 8 invalid questionnaires were eliminated, and 2176 were recovered, with an effective rate of 99.6%. IBM SPSS Statistics 20 was utilized to analyze the survey data. Results: (1) In health literacy service providers selected by the public, the proportion of government departments or government collaboration with other institutions exceeded 73%, indicating that health literacy services are public goods; (2) access to health literacy services was lower in township areas than in urban areas (P < 0.001, 3) internet media and communicating with acquaintances, which have the highest popularity rate, were also the two channels that were least trusted by the public; and (4) the differences in contents and service channels of health literacy among residents with different genders, ages, education levels, economic status, and living environments were statistically significant. Conclusions: (1) It is recommended to establish an integrated health literacy service model with multi-center supply. Government departments, medical institutions, and media should cooperate effectively to provide health literacy services. (2) The government should pay attention to the fairness of health education and strengthen the supply of health literacy services in township areas. (3) It is critical to strengthen the public's ability to discriminate network information and pay attention to scientific thinking cultivation. (4) Health literacy service providers must focus on the differences between public demands and improve the connotation of health literacy services. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using Van Gennep's theory of Rite of Passage as its framework, this article examines the impact of Coronavirus (COVID-19) on Chinese culture as depicted through death and mourning in Wang Fang's (penname Fang Fang) recently published Wuhan Diary: Dispatches from a Quarantined City. As part of the efforts to control the outbreak, the Chinese government took over the managing of the deceased, which triggered heated discussions on Chinese social media. Fang Fang's diary, originally written as daily entries on Chinese social media platform Weibo, serves as a voice for those suffering during the pandemic, mediating between personal accounts, accounts of friends, family and those living in Wuhan during the pandemic. These flesh out how the virus has not only been disturbing for Chinese people's lives but also disrupted the death rites and mourning rituals for those who have passed. Our article infuses a digital ontological reading with an anthropological twist that helps to understand how the diary mitigates the disturbances to mourning rituals inside and outside the confines of digital metaphysics. We argue that the digital diary mitigates these disruptions by allowing Chinese people to nourish their sorrow by identifying with the symbolic rites of passage and mourning rituals online at the heart of the COVID-19 pandemic in Wuhan. In doing so, this article examines three stages of rite of passage, including separation, liminality and integration as they unfold in the diary, through which discourses and subjectivities based on collective and individual traumatic experiences are built, as a form of digital mourning that could reconcile both the official and the alternative voices of anonymous narratives about the handling of this crisis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The governmental responses to coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, including the approach, interventions, and their associated effectiveness, vary across social, cultural, political, and institutional contexts. In China, the Wuhan lockdown significantly reduced the transmission of COVID-19 throughout the country. Chinese central and local governments' responses to disease containment and mitigation were uniform in policymaking but implemented differently across local governing contexts. This study examines the variation in the effects of human mobility restrictions on inter-provincial migration flow during the COVID-19 outbreak in China. The results show that mobility restrictions reduced the inter-provincial in-migration flow by 63%, and the out-migration flow by 62% from late January to early May in 2020, but the effects varied significantly across provinces. Further, the negative effects of mobility restrictions on province's outflow migration were greater in provinces where local governments had higher levels of social media involvement, greater public security spending, and longer duration of first-level response to public health emergencies. The finding provides important insights for understanding China's local governmental responses to mobility restrictions and their effects on the spread of COVID-19. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pandemics often lead to food stigma, and the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID‐19) pandemic provides some evidence to this belief. Mitigating food stigma during the pandemic is vital for consumption replenishment and economic recovery and helping the stigmatized people. We conduct an empirical study to examine consumer behaviors using Wuhan hot instant noodles (WHINs), a packaged version of the famous Chinese dish reganmian, as a case study. Although WHIN's name and origin signify Wuhan, the epicenter of the pandemic, the noodles could be actually produced elsewhere, but since the COVID‐19 outbreak, WHIN has been avoided. On the basis of our results, we find that providing scientific information about the irrelevance between WHIN and the coronavirus is not effective in changing the minds of people with stigma. Moreover, stigma is more emotional than rational, especially among people with a lower self‐identified social class and poor psychological state. Therefore, psychological intervention programs may be warranted during pandemics to avoid potential stigmatization. The findings of this study could help to resolve the stigma affecting regional agriculture and the food economy. [EconLit citations: Q11, Q13]. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background/Aims The role of psychosocial factors on irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) in adolescents is incompletely understood. The aim of this study is to investigate the association between the psychosocial factors and the risk of developing IBS in college freshmen. Methods A cross-sectional survey was conducted in a randomly selected freshmen population in Wuhan China (n = 2449). Questionnaire evaluated demographics and psychosocial risks. The population was divided into 3 groups: non-discomfort, chronic abdominal discomfort and IBS. The association between the development of IBS and psychosocial factors was analyzed by ordinal and multiple logistic regression analysis. Results A total of 2053 (83.8%) completed this survey (mean age, 18.2 ± 0.9 years; female, 35.6%). Among them, 82 (4.0%) fulfilled the Rome III criteria for IBS. Female (odds ratio [OR], 3.31; 95% confidence interval [CI], 2.47-4.45), experience of abuse (OR, 2.44; 95% CI, 1.10-5.56), and suicidal intention (OR, 2.17; 95% CI, 1.15-4.17) were more likely to have IBS. Compared with chronic abdominal discomfort, however, depression (OR, 5.55; 95% CI, 1.36-22.71) was the only dependent risk factor for IBS. Conclusion The prevalence of IBS in college freshmen is 4.0%, and to the freshmen, psychosocial factors such as experience of abuse, depression, and suicidal intention were associated with high risk of developing IBS. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article aims to apply the concept of 'glocalization' to the study of theology and culture. China is chosen as a case study, with particular focus on a Chinese theologians discussion of the interplay between Christianity and Chinese Culture in the early twentieth century China. Francis Wei was the first Chinese President of Huazhong University in Wuhan, 1929–1952, and he was appointed as the first Henry Luce Visiting Professor of World Christianity in 1945–46. Wei's conviction was that Christianity and Chinese culture could be complementary. He held that China needed Christianity for a better understanding of God's nature and the way human beings could communicate with God, while maintaining that Christianity needed China to move beyond western denominationalism. Moreover, Christianity could not become a universal religion without including China. This article argues that Wei's work is relevant to the contemporary discussion about interaction between globalization and localization, known as 'glocalization'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]