Search

• We examined panic buying and hoarding at the onset of the COVID-19 outbreak. • Perceived scarcity was the strongest predictor of panic buying. • Intolerance of uncertainty was the strongest predictor of hoarding. • Buying restrictions imposed by retailers may reduce panic buying. The COVID-19 pandemic led to panic buying in many countries across the globe, preventing vulnerable groups from accessing important necessities. Some reports inaccurately referred to the panic buying as hoarding. Although hoarding is a separate issue characterised by extreme saving behaviour, the two problems may be influenced by similar factors. Participants from Australia and the United States (final N = 359) completed online self-report measures of panic buying, hoarding, shopping patterns, perceived scarcity, COVID-19 illness anxiety, selfishness, and intolerance of uncertainty. Our findings showed that panic buying was related to hoarding symptoms (r 's =.23 -.36), and yet, both were uniquely associated with different psychological factors. Whilst panic buying was most strongly related to greater perceived scarcity (r 's =.38 -.60), hoarding was most related to a general intolerance of uncertainty (r 's =.24 -.57). Based on our findings, future strategies to prevent panic buying should focus on reducing perceived scarcity cues in the community, as this seems to be the primary driver of panic buying. Another preventative strategy to reduce excessive acquiring and saving may be to implement educational programs to increase people's ability to tolerate distress and uncertainty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Loneliness contributes to mortality risk, comparable to the risks associated with smoking and obesity, although the causal determinants of loneliness remain less clear. This paper leverages mandatory stay-at-home orders in Australia as a natural experiment and employs data from a panel study to investigate the causal link between physical isolation and loneliness. By analyzing variations in the number of lockdown days experienced by respondents up until their interview dates, and utilizing difference-in-differences analyses with individual, region, and year fixed-effects estimations, we find, contrary to expectations, that the number of days in lockdown does not significantly impact loneliness. Our study examines cumulative, concurrent, and non-linear effects, and assesses external validity through community morale and peer effects during lockdowns using spatial analysis. Additionally, we delve into heterogeneous effects across various factors, such as income, age, personality, living arrangements, and remoteness, finding statistically and empirically insignificant effects. However, for extroverts and young people, we observe weak statistical significance. We investigate exclusion restrictions by analyzing factors including social contacts, internet access, job industry, and household characteristics in relation to loneliness; as well as time use and relationship satisfaction to better understand the underlying mechanism. Our study challenges the notion that 'being alone' and 'being lonely' are interchangeable concepts, providing the first empirical causal evidence of no links between the two. Furthermore, our findings refine earlier understandings of social isolation, highlighting that it likely encompasses factors beyond physical isolation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper (Part 2 in the paper series), building on earlier studies examining the Australian response, extends on findings related to travel activity, commuting, and attitudes towards COVID-19 measures (Part 1 in the paper series). In this paper we focus in detail on the impact of, and experiences with, working from home (WFH), perhaps the largest of the positive unintended consequence of the pandemic, with respect to transport, and a key lens through which the changing patterns in travel activity and attitudes discussed in Part 1 need to be understood. We conclude that through the widespread adoption of WFH as a result of nationwide public health orders, there is evidence emerging that WFH is now seen as an appealing instrument of change by employees and employers, there is growing support to continue to support WFH into the future. This represents a significant potential contribution to the future management of the transport network, especially in larger metropolitan areas. We also discuss policy implications of this result and what the international community may take from the Australian experience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While many countries have experienced more than one wave of the pandemic throughout 2020, Australia has been able to contain the virus in a way that makes it a stand out (with New Zealand) in the way that it has been contained, with an exception in Victoria linked to failed quarantine procedures for travellers returning from overseas. Through descriptive analysis, this paper builds on earlier papers by the authors on the Australian response, with a focus on the changing dynamics of travel activity, concern with public transport, and attitudes surrounding activity given the perception of risk of COVID-19 and the level of public support for regulatory intervention and restrictions on movement. We find that Australia continues to suppress travel, particularly that for commuting, that comfort in completing day-to-day activities continues to rise (with the exception of Victoria where confidence feel significantly), and while support for intervention measures remains high, there has been an erosion in sentiment. As with previous work, we discuss what this might mean for future transport policy, and attempt to draw lessons from the Australian experience. [Display omitted] [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The COVID-19 disease continues to cause unparalleled disruption to life and the economy world over. This paper is the second in what will be an ongoing series of analyses of a longitudinal travel and activity survey. In this paper we examine data collected over a period of late May to early June in Australia, following four-to-six weeks of relatively flat new cases in COVID-19 after the initial nationwide outbreak, as many state jurisdictions have begun to slowly ease restrictions designed to limit the spread of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. We find that during this period, travel activity has started to slowly return, in particular by private car, and in particular for the purposes of shopping and social or recreational activities. Respondents indicate comfort with the idea of meeting friends or returning to shops, so authorities need to be aware of potential erosion of social distancing and appropriate COVID-safe behaviour in this regard. There is still a concern about using public transport, though it has diminished noticeably since the first wave of data collection. We see that working from home continues to be an important strategy in reducing travel and pressure on constrained transport networks, and a policy measure that if carried over to a post-pandemic world, will be an important step towards a more sustainable transport future. We find that work from home has been a generally positive experience with a significant number of respondents liking to work from home moving forward, with varying degrees of employer support, at a level above those seen before COVID-19. Thus, any investment to capitalise on current levels of work from home should be viewed as an investment in transport. • Aggregate travel has increased by 50% but is still less than two-thirds of that which occurred prior to COVID-19. • Motor vehicle travel rebounding more than other modes, those planning a return to train and bus intended to do so strongly. • Large increases in activity planned for shopping and social and recreation purposes. • People feel most comfortable with meeting with friends, going to the shops and visiting restaurants. • Working from home continues, and has been largely positive for those who have been able to do so.. • Concern about the risk of COVID-19 has decreased significantly since the initial outbreak. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Investigates relational enactments of gendered alcohol consumption during the pandemic, contrasted with special attention on women as a 'priority population' for alcohol-related harm reduction. • Adopts a gendered approach to understanding the alcohol-harm paradox, the breast cancer paradox, and the risk-pleasure paradox in women's health policies. • Synthesises evidence to construct a burden of proof that problematising women's consumption at an individual level alone has potential to worsen inequities in gendered alcohol-related harms and broader health outcomes. • Showcases how gender-responsive alcohol policy needs to be cross-sectoral and address upstream factors to protect women from alcohol harm. Drinking alcohol facilitates pleasure for women while also elevating disease risk. Symbolic expectations of what alcohol 'does in' life per lay insight (relax, identity-work, connect) sit in tension with scientific realities about what alcohol 'does to' women's bodies (elevate chronic disease risks such as breast cancer). Policy must work amidst – and despite – these paradoxes to reduce harm(s) to women by attending to the gendered and emergent configurations of both realities. This paper applies a logic of candidacy to explore women's alcohol consumption and pleasure through candidacies of wellness in addition to risk through candidacies of disease (e.g. breast cancer). Using qualitative data collected via 56 interviews with Australian women (n = 48) during early pandemic countermeasures, we explore how risk perceptions attached to alcohol (like breast cancer) co-exist with use-values of alcohol in daily life and elucidate alcohol's paradoxical role in women's heuristics of good/poor health behaviours. Women were aged 25–64 years, experienced varying life circumstances (per a multidimensional measure of social class including economic, social and cultural capital) and living conditions (i.e. partnered/single, un/employed, children/no children). We collated coding structures from data within both projects; used deductive inferences to understand alcohol's paradoxical role in candidacies of wellness and disease; abductively explored women's prioritisation of co-existing candidacies during the pandemic; and retroductively theorised prioritisations per evolving pandemic-inflected constructions of alcohol-related gendered risk/s and pleasure/s. Our analysis illuminates the ways alcohol was configured as a pleasure and form of wellness in relation to stress, productivity and respectability. It also demonstrates how gender was relationally enacted amidst the priorities, discourses and materialities enfolding women's lives during the pandemic. We consider the impact of policy regulation of aggressive alcohol marketing and banal availability of alcohol in pandemic environments and outline gender-responsive, multi-level policy options to reduce alcohol harms to women. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the reasons why many people are reticent about travelling in a COVID-adapted world. It reports on a study of residents of Southeast Queensland, Australia conducted in mid-2022, up to six months after borders reopened after a prolonged COVID-19 shutdown. About one quarter of respondents were less interested in travel in a COVID-adapted world than they were before the pandemic struck. They were a diverse group whose reasons for their reticence could be categorised into four broad risk groups of: ongoing anxiety; fear of catching the disease; satisfaction risk, and; travel risk as reflected by an overall loss of interest in travel. Each group displayed different COVID-adapted travel patterns that reflect the operationalisation of different risk categories. A follow-up survey conducted in August 2023 confirmed that up to one in four people still have less desire to travel as a result of COVID-19. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The need to recognise and account for the influence of working from home on commuting activity has never been so real as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Not only does this change the performance of the transport network, it also means that the way in which transport modellers and planners use models estimated on a typical weekday of travel and expand it up to the week and the year must be questioned and appropriately revised to adjust for the quantum of working from home. Although teleworking is not a new phenomenon, what is new is the ferocity by which it has been imposed on individuals throughout the world, and the expectation that working from home is no longer a temporary phenomenon but one that is likely to continue to some non-marginal extent given its acceptance and revealed preferences from both many employees and employ where working from home makes good sense. This paper formalises the relationship between working from home and commuting by day of the week and time of day for two large metropolitan areas in Australia, Brisbane and Sydney, using a mixed logit choice model, identifying the influences on such choices together with a mapping model between the probability of working from home and socioeconomic and other contextual influences that are commonly used in strategic transport models to predict demand for various modes by location. The findings, based on Wave 3 (approximately 6 months from the initial outbreak of the pandemic) of an ongoing data collection exercise, provide the first formal evidence for Australia in enabling transport planners to adjust their predicted modal shares and overall modal travel activity for the presence of working from home. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The COVID-19 pandemic has changed the way we go about our daily lives in ways that are unlikely to return to the pre-COVID-19 levels. A key feature of the COVID-19 era is likely to be a rethink of the way we work and the implications this may have on commuting activity. Working from home (WFH) has been the 'new normal' during the period of lockdown, except for essential services that require commuting. In recognition of the new normal as represented by an increasing amount of WFH, this paper develops a model to identify the incidence of WFH and what impact this could have on the amount of weekly one-way commuting trips by car and public transport. Using Wave 1 of an ongoing data collection effort done at the height of the restrictions in March and April 2020 in Australia, we develop a number of days WFH ordered logit model and link it to a zero-inflated Poisson (ZIP) regression model for the number of weekly one-way commuting trips by car and public transport. Scenario analysis is undertaken to highlight the way in which WFH might change the amount of commuting activity when restrictions are relaxed to enable changing patterns of WFH and commuting. The findings will provide one reference point as we continue to undertake similar analysis at different points through time during the pandemic and after when restrictions are effectively removed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper estimates the short-term reduction in money and time costs associated with a reduction in car and public transport commuting activity in the Greater Sydney Metropolitan Area (GSMA) during a period of the COVID-19 pandemic in which Australia started to see an easing of restrictions (see Beck and Hensher 2020a). As of late May 2020, three months after COVID-19 resulted in restrictions in Australia, we saw an annual travel time reduction for car and public transport commuters in the GSMA of $5.58 billion, representing a 54.02% reduction in the Pre-COVID-19 total time costs, much of which we would suggest can be associated with reductions in congestions costs. Adjusting further for reduced employment volumes relative to pre-COVID-19 levels, to take into account reduced commuting activity due, in part, to a lower volume of work associated with a loss of employment or lower employment hours, the annual time cost reduction for all commuters who still have regular pre-COVID-19 levels of employment are estimated as $4.4 billion. Hence there is $1.17 billion worth of reduced time costs associated with significantly reduced employment hours, including a loss of employment. The implications for road investment linked to congestion in particular is profound, and shows how much of an increase in benefit to society, through congestion busting, can be obtained by more flexible work arrangements, even allowing for some switching into car out of public transport. Whether the current decrease in travel costs will be long-lasting is unknown, but it does support the appeal of working from home, if it is sustainable, as a policy lever to reduce levels of congestion on the roads and crowding in public transport. • Estimates the short-term reduction in money and time costs associated with commuting activity during a period of the COVID-19 pandemic. • Annual travel time reduction for all car and PT commuters of $5.58 billion, a 54.02% reduction in the Pre-COVID-19 total time costs. • The implications for road investment linked to congestion in particular is profound. • Shows how much of an increase in benefit to society, through congestion busting, can be obtained by more flexible work arrangements. • Support the appeal of working from home as a policy lever to reduce levels of congestion on the roads and crowding in public transport. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When 2020 began, we had no idea what was to unfold globally as we learnt about the Novel-Coronavirus in Wuhan, in the Hubei province of China. As this virus spread rapidly, it became a matter of time before many countries began to implement measures to try and contain the spread of the disease. COVID-19 as it is referred to, resulted in two main approaches to fighting the viral pandemic, either through a progressive set of measures to slow down the number of identified cases designed to 'flatten the curve' over time (anticipated to be at least six months), or to attack it by the severest of measures including a total lock-down and/or herding exposure to fast track 'immunisation' while we await a vaccine. The paper reports the findings from the first phase of an ongoing survey designed to identify the changing patterns in travel activity of Australian residents as a result of the stage 2 restrictions imposed by the Australian government. The main restrictions, in addition to social distancing of at least 1.5 m, are closure of entry to Australia (except residents returning), and closure of non-essential venues such as night clubs, restaurants, mass attendee sporting events, churches, weddings, and all social gatherings in any circumstance. With some employers encouraging working from home and others requiring it, in addition to job losses, and many children attending school online from home, the implications on travel activity is extreme. We identify the initial impacts associated with the first month of stricter social distancing measures introduced in Australia. • General support for the actions of government and business. • Widespread suppression of travel demand for all trip purposes across all modes. • Sizeable shift to working from home by those who can. • Public transport will face the largest hurdles in regaining confidence. • Retail and food logistics will need to examine distribution processes • The aviation sector will likely need to restart with a heavy focus on domestic travel. • Public transport will need to take overt measures to restore confidence. • The dominance of the car is further enforced in the context of biosecurity concerns. • Active transport is a viable option for short inner-city trips. • Infrastructure investment should be carefully considered. • Flexible working arrangements are perhaps the biggest policy lever available to governments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Public health orders were introduced in many countries, including Australia, during the COVID-19 pandemic to reduce the spread of the virus. However, for many people this led to an exacerbation of mental health symptoms, particularly those living with severe or persistent mental illness (SPMI). Additionally, the conduct of clinical research was severely impacted during the pandemic, with many difficulties encountered in the conduct of clinical trials. This paper describes the COVID-related impacts experienced during the implementation of a randomised controlled trial (RCT) testing the effectiveness of a community pharmacist-led support service for people living with SPMI in Australia (the PharMIbridge RCT), and the strategies used to successfully implement the RCT. Australian public health orders led to interstate border closures, stay-at-home orders and work-from-home requirements, resulting in necessary changes to allow for the continuation of the RCT including; changes to trial regions, transferring some training materials online while delaying face-to-face (F2F) training components, delays in pharmacy and consumer recruitment, encouraging telehealth service delivery and extensions to timelines with existing funding. Having a solution-focussed and flexible approach, while still ensuring critical trial protocol elements were adhered to, such as providing opportunities for F2F skills-based training for pharmacists, as well as F2F site visits from researchers and mentors to support trial implementation, resulted in high pharmacy and consumer participant retention through to trial conclusion. Future planning for RCTs should consider possible pandemic-related risks and rapid responses from approval bodies to ensure researchers can be agile and adapt to ensure successful trial completion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The SARS-CoV2 pandemic led to drastic social restrictions globally. Early data suggest that women in science have been more adversely affected by these lockdowns than men, with relatively fewer scientific articles authored by women. However, these observations test broad populations with many potential causes of disparity. Australia presents a natural experimental condition where several states of similar demographics and disease impact had differing approaches in their social isolation strategies. The state of Victoria experienced 280 days of lockdowns from 2020 to 2021, whereas the comparable state of New South Wales experienced 107 days, most of these in 2021, and other states even fewer restrictions. To assess how the gender balance changed in Australian biomedical publishing with the lockdowns, we created a custom workflow to analyse PubMed data from more than 120,000 published articles submitted in 2019–2021 from Australian authors. Broadly, Australian women have been incredibly resilient to the challenges faced by the lockdowns. There was an increase in the number of published articles submitted in 2020 that was equally due to women as men, including from Victoria. On the other hand, articles specifically addressing COVID-19 were significantly less likely to be authored by women than those on other topics, a finding not likely due to particular gender imbalance in virology or viral epidemiology, since publications on HIV followed similar patterns to previous years. By 2021, this imbalance had reversed, with more COVID-19-related papers authored by women than men. These data suggest women from Victoria were less able to rapidly transition to new research early in the pandemic but had accommodated to the new conditions by 2021. This work indicates we need strategies to support women in science as the pandemic continues and to continue to monitor the situation for its impact on vulnerable groups. • We analyzed PubMed data from >120,000 articles from Australian authors. • COVID-19 pandemic lockdown severity had no gender-specific effect. • Women authored fewer COVID-19 articles than expected in 2020. • Women's publishing of COVID-19 work normalized in 2021. • Women were less able to rapidly transition to new research in the COVID pandemic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to explore the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on the human rights of persons with mental and cognitive impairments subject to coercive powers in Australia. It sets out the relevant human rights in the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities which have been engaged by the COVID-19 pandemic and the government's response to it. It examines the effect of emergency legislation on the relaxation of human rights safeguards in mental health laws, with a focus on mental health tribunals (although it is limited by a lack of published decisions and gaps in publicly available information). However, some of the issues created for persons with disabilities during the COVID-19 pandemic are evident in some decisions published by the New South Wales Guardianship Tribunal. The paper critically analyses two guardianship decisions UZX [2020] NSWCATGD 3 (3 April, 2020) and GZK [2020] NSWCATGD 5 (23 April, 2020) and some emergency South Australian legislation COVID-19 Emergency Response Act, 2020 (SA) Schedule 1 to demonstrate the ways in which the human rights of persons with mental and cognitive impairments can be more at risk than those of the general population, even when the general population is itself in "lockdown." [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the onset of COVID-19 restrictions and the slow relaxing of many restrictions, it is imperative that we understand what this means for the performance of the transport network. In going from almost no commuting, except for essential workers, to a slow increase in travel activity with working from home (WFH) continuing to be both popular and preferred, this paper draws on two surveys, one in late March at the height of restrictions and one in late May as restrictions are starting to be partially relaxed, to develop models for WFH and weekly one-way commuting travel by car and public transport. We compare the findings as one way to inform us of the extent to which a sample of Australian residents have responded through changes in WFH and commuting. While it is early days to claim any sense of a new stable pattern of commuting activity, this paper sets the context for ongoing monitoring of adjustments in travel activity and WFH, which can inform changes required in the revision of strategic metropolitan transport models as well as more general perspectives on future transport and land use policy and planning. • Two wave study examining work from home (WFH) and commute behaviour through COVID-19 pandemic. • New models for WFH and impact on commuting activity. • Evidence of changes WFH and commuting from immediately after restrictions to their initial easing • Small decreases in WFH and increases in car-based commuting starting to occur. • WFH has been a positive experience and many would to WFH more than before COVID-19, if they have an appropriate space. • Policy makers should encourage employer support for working from home and help identify and reduce barriers to doing so. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers the observed impacts of COVID-19 on the behaviour of a cross-section of the general aviation (GA) community in Australia. It specifically observes the nature of management decision making observed in the sector, and the financial impacts of such choices. This paper highlights a lack of financial acumen in the Australian GA community which is likely to inhibit resilience in the sector and limit its ability to learn from the economic shock COVID-19 represents. Finally, the paper proposes several initiatives to improve the quality of management decision making in the sector's leadership, with a view to improving its financial outlook and visibility to policy makers. • COVID-19 a challenge to General Aviation in Australia. • Operators ill-prepared due to lack of business continuity planning. • Problems acerbated by lack of policy insights into the GA community. • New dimensions of cost are yet to be mapped, including staff welfare. • Remodelling of oversight needs to focus on acumen and sustainability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

COVID-19 and its restrictions have had widely documented negative impacts for private and social rental sectors, internationally. Limited evidence exists about how the pandemic effects were experienced in alternative forms of renting such as housing cooperatives. Rental cooperatives, recognised for their principles of democratic control, education and training and concern for community, may offer different outcomes for members than more individually-oriented rental forms. This paper seeks to explore whether and how COVID-19 was responded to within cooperative rental housing models, and if the pandemic posed a challenge to cooperative principles. Using a social practices approach, the analysis first identifies cooperative members' formal and informal responses to COVID-19, and second explores the meaning of such activities in the pandemic context in Australia and Honduras cooperatives. The continuity of usual housing cooperative practices and pandemic measures were analysed via in-depth interviews with 15 residents. Findings indicate that cooperative responses acted to reduce negative impacts of the pandemic or to find effective solutions. Rental housing cooperative residents' lived experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic, invite us to reflect on the role of housing cooperatives in the housing sector, the importance of collaborative housing models and the relevance of housing-based community resilience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While the notion of external referencing has been undertaken across a range of disciplines, its adoption in a tourism setting remains largely fragmented. This project applies a 'floating classroom' as part of a virtual Community of Practice (CoP) to enable tourism policy and planning educators to perform a benchmarking exercise for maintaining teaching quality despite geographical separation and social distancing mandates. Virtual CoPs can help maintain teaching quality at a time when universities are increasingly required to uphold international standards of excellence and as the coronavirus continues to make face-to-face interactions risky. The CoP enabled mutual support and knowledge sharing for the design of teaching approaches, materials, and authentic assessments. The paper was limited to three educators teaching similar courses in Anglophone institutions and reports the results of a one-off study. But findings will assist educators interested in maintaining or enhancing teaching quality over the course of the pandemic and post-COVID-19 futures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The COVID-19 pandemic is causing unprecedented damage to our society and economy, globally impacting progress towards the SDGs. The integrated perspective that Agenda 2030 calls for is ever more important for understanding the vulnerability of our eco-socio-economic systems and for designing policies for enhanced resilience. Since the emergence of COVID-19, countries and international institutions have strengthened their monitoring systems to produce timely data on infections, fostering data-driven decision-making often without the support of systemic-based simulation models. Evidence from the initial phases of the pandemic indicates that countries that were able to implement effective policies before the number of cases grew large (e.g. Australia) managed to contain COVID-19 to a much greater extent than others. We argue that prior systemic knowledge of a phenomenon provides the essential information to correctly interpret data, develop a better understanding of the emerging behavioural patterns and potentially develop early qualitative awareness of how to react promptly in the early phases of destructive phenomena, eventually providing the ground for building more effective simulation models capable of better anticipating the effects of policies. This is even more important as, on its path to 2030, humanity will face other challenges of similar dynamic nature. Chief among these is Climate Change. In this paper, we show how a Systems Thinking and System Dynamics modelling approach is useful for developing a better understanding of these and other issues, and how systemic lessons learned from the COVID-19 case can help decision makers anticipate the destructive dynamics of Climate Change by improving perceptions of the potential impacts of reinforcing feedback and delays, ultimately leading to more timely interventions to achieve the SDGs and mitigate Climate Change risks. • COVID-19 and Climate Change display similar archetypal structures, relevant in describing the early phases of the phenomena. • Systemic qualitative approaches are useful for easy and early awareness of the potential evolution of destructive phenomena. • Early understanding of the archetypical structures with systemic frameworks is essential to anticipating adverse behaviours. • Lessons learned from COVID-19 should warn policy makers not to underestimate the accelerating dynamics of Climate Change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Surveyed 220 Australian students in final year of compulsory school during COVID-19. • Interested in how students learning practices were disrupted by the pandemic. • Confusion and uncertainty combined with high-stakes testing were challenging. • Altered relationships with teachers and peers changed the experiences of learning. • Missing important celebrations and milestones impacted on motivation. The final year of secondary schooling is an intense and important one for many young people. In 2020, Australian students in Year 12 were subjected to a range of disruptions to their learning practices because of the COVID-19 pandemic and the resulting public health measures that distanced them from their schools, teachers and peers. This paper reports on a survey of 241 Australian Year 12 students. The survey sought to collect insights into how these students experienced learning in 2020. This research contributes to an emerging body of literature seeking to understand student learning during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. We found that the provision of engaging content with clear understandings of performance, access to motivational events and activities, and strong and supportive relationships with teachers and peers were challenges to learning practices in 2020 and that these are important to the learning experiences of final year students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The COVID-19 pandemic has changed the way we go about our daily lives in ways that are unlikely to return to the pre-COVID-19 levels. A key feature of the COVID-19 era is likely to be a rethink of the way we work and the implications on commuting activity. Working from home (WFH) has been the 'new normal' during the period of lockdown, except for essential services that require commuting. In recognition of the new normal as represented by an increasing amount of WFH, this paper develops a model to identify the incidence of WFH and what impact this could have on the number of weekly commuting trips. Using data collected in eight countries (Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and South Africa), we developed a Poisson regression model for the number of days individuals worked from home during the pandemic. Simulated scenarios quantify the impact of the different variables on the probability of WFH by country. The findings provide a reference point as we continue to undertake similar analysis at different points through time during the pandemic and after when restrictions are effectively removed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper draws on findings from an Australia-wide survey with data collected in three waves throughout 2020 to explore the impact of COVID-19 on public transport trends in metropolitan areas of Australia. Following consideration of the public transport sector response to the pandemic and the emerging literature context, we explore three principal questions: (i) How has weekly travel composition changed across the waves? (ii) How has level of concern with using public transport changed over the course of the pandemic given new bio-security concerns? and (iii) How has attitudes to risk been associated with the changes in PT use? A key finding is that concerns over bio-security issues around public transport are enduring, that concern about hygiene is significantly negatively related to public transport use and that those with higher concern about the hygiene of public transport also held higher concern about COVID-19 at work. Even as COVID-19 restrictions are eased, both concern about crowds and hygiene have a significant and negative correlation with public transport use. Concluding remarks are offered on what might need to happen for public transport patronage to start returning. • New data on changing patterns of use and attitudes towards public transport, including biosecurity concern during COVID-19. • We investigate how has weekly travel composition changed since March 2020 • The level of biosecurity concern with using public transport over the course of the pandemic is documented. • We identify the drivers for use of public transport over the course of the pandemic • The implications for public transport operations and policy are set out. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The impact of COVID-19 has been massive and unprecedented, affecting almost every aspect of our daily lives. This paper attempts to quantify the impact of COVID-19 on the future size, composition and distribution of Australia's population by projecting a range of scenarios. Drawing on the academic literature, historical data and informed by expert judgement, four scenarios representing possible future courses of economic and demographic recovery are formulated. Results suggest that Australia's population could be 6 per cent lower by 2040 in a Longer scenario than in the No Pandemic scenario, primarily due to a huge reduction in international migration. Impacts on population ageing will be less severe, leading to a one percentage point increase in the proportion of the population aged 65 and over by 2040. Differential impacts will be felt across Australian States and Territories, with the biggest absolute and relative reductions in growth occurring in the most populous states, Victoria and New South Wales. Given the ongoing nature of the crisis at the time of writing, there remains significant uncertainty surrounding the plausibility of the proposed scenarios. Ongoing monitoring of the demographic impacts of COVID-19 are important to ensure appropriate planning and recovery in the years ahead. • The Australian population will be up to 6 per cent smaller in 2040 than in would have been in the absence of COVID-19. • This is a deficit of 1.9 million people caused by 860,000 fewer births and over 1 million fewer immigrants. • Even with a re-opening of international borders by mid-2022, Australia will be short of 462,000 people by 2040. • Lower population growth in all states and territories but the impact wille the greatest in New South Wales and Victoria. • Potential implications for tax revenue distribution and apportionment of seats in the Australian House of Representatives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Access to abortion in Australian has been the subject of significant legal reforms to the point that in some jurisdictions, most legal barriers to access have been dismantled. Nevertheless, research reveals that many Australian women will not be in a position to fully realise their reproductive rights until the non-legal barriers to access are adequately addressed. Between March 2017 and November 2020, the authors conducted qualitative research into the barriers faced by Australian women when accessing, or attempting to access, abortion services. Three of the primary non-legal barriers to access raised repeatedly in our research are financial barriers to access, geographic barriers to access; and deficiencies in practitioner attitudes, education and training. Part I of this article focuses on these barriers to abortion access while Part II considers the significant new challenges created by the COVID-19 pandemic for women's access to reproductive health services. The paper concludes that the pandemic and the measures introduced in response have amplified pre-existing barriers and generated a disproportionate and intersectional impact on the most marginalised and disempowered women in society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• The impacts of COVID lockdown on six aged care communities' energy and peak demand are studied. • The lockdown period was compared with the same period of similar temperature in previous years. • The impacts of COVID lockdown varied enormously in different climate regions. • Effectiveness and limitations of existing energy KPIs are discussed. In late March to April 2020 residential aged care facilities (RAC) in Australia were under COVID-19 lockdown. This paper explores whether the resultant restrictions on entry and exit and elimination of site group activities within RACs impacted on the total electricity use, peak demand and electrical load profiles. Six RACs in four different climate zones are analysed, comparing historical electricity load and demand profiles with the lockdown period. The facilities in warm regions showed largest reductions in energy use and peak demands. There was a peak demand timing shift in temperate regions and hot regions' changes were negligible for energy use or peak demands. This study revealed the limitations of using aggregate data as the key performance indicator (KPI) – energy use per bed. Also, KPIs in relation to cooling degree days (or total cooling and heating degree days) have been examined and are not recommended for temperate regions or temperate seasons. The potential CO 2 emission reduction from onsite renewable generation is quantified. Further research is to investigate energy use changes at circuit levels under lockdowns, and develop more nuanced KPIs that include the rate of energy use and the timing of that use. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]