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This paper explores the proximity of local media to audiences during the COVID-19 pandemic. It is based on a case study of Italian daily L'Eco di Bergamo combining two sets of data: a list of initiatives the newspaper took in 2019 and 2020 to be closer to audiences, and interviews shedding light on how staff viewed the paper's relationship with audiences during that time. An analysis of these two datasets shows that the pandemic increased the newspaper's proximity to audiences but did not fundamentally change the way in which it related with audiences, despite significant changes in journalists' work routines. Based on these findings, the paper proposes a conceptualization of proximity as a dynamic balance between three structuring dimensions (gatekeeping, social and commercial), with a focus on audiences as a plural figure determined by news organizations' strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The landscape–tourism nexus has been the subject of many scientific contributions that differ in nature and methodological approach. Beyond sectorial planning assessments and impact evaluations, which often fail to grasp this complex relationship, this paper draws on conceptual frameworks in the social sciences and humanities that define the nexus through the productive potential of mobilities, bodily presences and interactions to investigate tourist landscapes in pandemic times. More precisely, the blended concept of dwelling-in-motion is adopted to explore tourist landscapes as evolving constellations of intertwined places and practices of people engaging with empty spaces, redescribing their functions and values and defining new forms of proximity tourism. This study focuses on the Brenta Riviera in northeastern Italy between Padua and Venice—an extremely dense area in terms of landscape stratifications and an exemplary local case where the effects of COVID-19 restrictions have been reshaping physical orderings, social relations and cultural meanings. During the third wave of the pandemic in Italy, a mapping process based on an online survey collected significant georeferenced landscapes among visitors, residents and operators, unveiling multiple and often unexpected Riviera landscapes as expressions of changing attitudes and behaviours towards neighbouring places. Calling for intimate well-being or collective involvement, 'newcomers-on-the-move' have been blurring the lines between daily, recreational and tourist landscapes, leading to a reconsideration of who can be a tourist and what can be a tourist landscape in a (post-)COVID-19 world. From a tourism policy perspective, tracing these trajectories is one of the starting points for rethinking destination recovery and addressing sustainable goals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The COVID-19 pandemic is bringing disruptive effects on the healthcare systems, economy and social life of countries all over the world. Even though the elder portion of the population is the most severely affected by the COVID-19 disease, the counter-measures introduced so far by governments took into little account the age structure, with restrictions that act uniformly on the population irrespectively of age. In this paper, we introduce a SIRD model with age classes for studying the impact on the epidemic evolution of lockdown policies applied heterogeneously on the different age groups of the population. The proposed model is then applied to age-stratified COVID-19 Italian data. The simulation results suggest that control measures focused to specific age groups may bring benefits in terms of reduction of the overall mortality rate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The COVID‐19 pandemic is a highly dramatic concern for mankind. In Italy, the pandemic exerted its major impact throughout the period of February to June 2020. To date, the awkward amount of more than 134,000 deaths has been reported. Yet, post‐mortem autopsy was performed on a very modest number of patients who died from COVID‐19 infection, leading to a first confirmation of an immune‐thrombosis of the lungs as the major COVID‐19 pathogenesis, likewise for SARS. Since then (June–August 2020), no targeted early therapy considering this pathogenetic issue was approached. The patients treated with early anti‐inflammatory, anti‐platelet, anticoagulant and antibiotic therapy confirmed that COVID‐19 was an endothelial inflammation with immuno‐thrombosis. Patients not treated or scarcely treated with the most proper and appropriate therapy and in the earliest, increased the hospitalization rate in the intensive care units and also mortality, due to immune‐thrombosis from the pulmonary capillary district and alveoli. The disease causes widespread endothelial inflammation, which can induce damage to various organs and systems. Therapy must be targeted in this consideration, and in this review, we demonstrate how early anti‐inflammatory therapy may treat endothelia inflammation and immune‐thrombosis caused by COVID‐19, by using drugs we are going to recommend in this paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to analyse the use of Catholic miraculous images during the Covid-19 pandemic in Italy, focusing on the ways in which they have been used and the related rituals performed, especially involving movement, temporality, and nature. I take a multidisciplinary approach, based on a historical perspective, but enriched by the strong influence of anthropology and semiotics. An interesting focus emerges on the devotional practices, both online and, when possible, in presence, in which the miraculous power of historical images is rediscovered and sometimes re-elaborated in light of contemporary sensibilities. At the same time, the rituals performed by clergy constitute a complex negotiation, with the aim of imploring the miraculous power of the supernatural helper that the image represents. The devotees' idea of a miraculous power involved in the image is itself part of the representation of their power. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we present a new method for successfully simulating the dynamics of COVID-19, experimentally focusing on the third wave. This method, namely, the Method of Parallel Trajectories (MPT), is based on the recently introduced self-organized diffusion model. According to this method, accurate simulation of the dynamics of the COVID-19 infected population evolution is accomplished by considering not the total data for the infected population, but successive segments of it. By changing the initial conditions with which each segment of the simulation is produced, we achieve close and detailed monitoring of the evolution of the pandemic, providing a tool for evaluating the overall situation and the fine-tuning of the restrictive measures. Finally, the application of the proposed MPT on simulating the pandemic's third wave dynamics in Greece and Italy is presented, verifying the method's effectiveness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The COVID-19 epidemic is the latest in a long list of pandemics that have affected humankind in the last century. In this paper, we propose a novel mathematical epidemiological model named SUIHTER from the names of the seven compartments that it comprises: susceptible uninfected individuals (S), undetected (both asymptomatic and symptomatic) infected (U), isolated infected (I), hospitalized (H), threatened (T), extinct (E) and recovered (R). A suitable parameter calibration that is based on the combined use of the least-squares method and the Markov chain Monte Carlo method is proposed with the aim of reproducing the past history of the epidemic in Italy, which surfaced in late February and is still ongoing to date, and of validating SUIHTER in terms of its predicting capabilities. A distinctive feature of the new model is that it allows a one-to-one calibration strategy between the model compartments and the data that are made available daily by the Italian Civil Protection Department. The new model is then applied to the analysis of the Italian epidemic with emphasis on the second outbreak, which emerged in autumn 2020. In particular, we show that the epidemiological model SUIHTER can be suitably used in a predictive manner to perform scenario analysis at a national level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To understand how COVID-19 pandemic has changed radiology research in Italy. A questionnaire (n = 19 questions) was sent to all members of the Italian Society of Radiology two months after the first Italian national lockdown was lifted. A total of 327 Italian radiologists took part in the survey (mean age: 49 ± 12 years). After national lockdown, the working-flow came back to normal in the vast majority of cases (285/327, 87.2%). Participants reported that a total of 462 radiological trials were recruiting patients at their institutions prior to COVID-19 outbreak, of which 332 (71.9%) were stopped during the emergency. On the other hand, 252 radiological trials have been started during the pandemic, of which 156 were non-COVID-19 trials (61.9%) and 96 were focused on COVID-19 patients (38.2%). The majority of radiologists surveyed (61.5%) do not conduct research. Of the radiologists who carried on research activities, participants reported a significant increase of the number of hours per week spent for research purposes during national lockdown (mean 4.5 ± 8.9 h during lockdown vs. 3.3 ± 6.8 h before lockdown; p =.046), followed by a significant drop after the lockdown was lifted (3.2 ± 6.5 h per week, p =.035). During national lockdown, 15.6% of participants started new review articles and completed old papers, 14.1% completed old works, and 8.9% started new review articles. Ninety-six surveyed radiologists (29.3%) declared to have submitted at least one article during COVID-19 emergency. This study shows the need to support radiology research in challenging scenarios like COVID-19 emergency. • COVID-19 outbreak drastically impacted on Italian radiological research. • Most ongoing radiological trials have been stopped during the first national lockdown. • Italian radiologists spent even more time on radiology research during the lockdown. • Many COVID-19 and non-COVID-19 trials have been pushed forward during the lockdown. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers the pattens of international collaboration by analysing publications on COVID‐19 published in the first 6 months of the pandemic. The data set comprised articles on COVID‐19 indexed in the Web of Science Core Collection (WoS CC) downloaded four times between 1 April 2020 and 1 June 2020. The analysis of 5,827 documents revealed that 128 countries, 23,127 authors, and 6,349 institutes published on the pandemic. The data reveal that the three main publishing countries were the USA, China, and England with Italy closely following. Although publication was widely spread, most of the institutions with the highest volume of output were in China. Network analysis showed growth in international cooperation with an average degree of country/region cooperation rising to 23.06 by 1 June. There was also a clear core‐periphery structure to international collaboration. Institutional collaboration was shown to be highly regionalized. The data reveal a high and growing incidence of international collaboration on the pandemic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper concerns a new forecast model that includes the class of undiagnosed infected people, and has a multiregion extension, to cope with the in‐time and in‐space heterogeneity of an epidemic. The model is applied to the SARS‐CoV2 (COVID‐19) pandemic that, starting from the end of February 2020, began spreading along the Italian peninsula, by first attacking small communities in north regions, and then extending to the center and south of Italy, including the two main islands. It has proved to be a robust and reliable tool for the forecast of the total and active cases, which can be also used to simulate different scenarios. In particular, the model is able to address a number of issues, such as assessing the adoption of the lockdown in Italy, started from March 11, 2020; the estimate of the actual attack rate; and how to employ a rapid screening test campaign for containing the epidemic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The coronavirus pandemic is a world-historical event. We live in a post-Covid world. This paper addresses how Gestalt therapy's concepts of intentionality, contacting, and relationality come together as the intentionality of contacting that form the fabric of relationality. These concepts are presented from a clinical phenomenological and personal perspective of the author in New York City at the height of the pandemic. This article is an adaptation of a May 16, 2020, presentation at the online conference "Dialogues on Psychotherapy at the Time of Coronavirus," sponsored by Instituto di Gestalt HCC, Italy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper analysis the situation in CEE countries in terms of containment and mitigation strategies for the pandemic, but with a focus on the health systems and vulnerability factors (low scores for global health security index, understaffed health systems, higher shares of vulnerable people – obese persons, diabetic or those living in poor quality housing). As the new SARS-COV-2 spread throughout the world, Central and Eastern European governments rushed to preventive actions to reduce its spread, all the more considering that the first cases were imported from abroad (mainly from Italy). Public health measures carried out during the spring outbreak were effective, mainly due to the significant reduction in the contact rates and social distancing, which was partly voluntary, partly enforced. Thus, in early March, in person classes were suspended, persons returning from the areas with community spread of the virus were forced into quarantine, along with workplace closures, travel restrictions and shielding measures for individuals. In CEE countries, the lockdown, when enforced, preceded the curve of infections. There was little variation in the design and implementation of mitigation strategies, which were deployed very quickly, hence a much lower infection rate that did not pose additional strain on the health system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: COVID‐19 outbreak prompted health centres to reorganize their clinical and surgical activity. In this paper, we show how medical genetics department's activity, in our tertiary pediatric hospital, has changed due to pandemic. Methods: We stratified all our scheduled visits, from March 9th through April 30th, and assessed case‐by‐case which genetic consultations should be maintained as face‐to‐face visit, or postponed/switched to telemedicine. Results: Out of 288 scheduled appointments, 60 were prenatal consultations and 228 were postnatal visits. We performed most of prenatal consultations as face‐to‐face visits, as women would have been present in the hospital to perform other procedures in addition to our consult. As for postnatal care, we suspended all outpatient first visits and opted for telemedicine for selected follow‐up consultations: interestingly, 75% of our patients' parents revealed that they would have cancelled the appointment themselves for the fear to contract an infection. Conclusions: Spread of COVID‐19 in Italy forced us to change our working habits. Given the necessity to optimize healthcare resources and minimize the risk of in‐hospital infections, we experienced the benefits of telegenetics. Current pandemic made us familiar with telemedicine, laying the foundations for its application to deal with the increasing number of requests in clinical genetics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: Overview of bladder cancer (BC) management in Italy during the first month of the COVID-19 pandemic (March 2020) with head to head comparison of the data from March 2019, considered “usual activity” period. The aim is to analyze performance of different Italian Centers in North, Center and South, with a special eye for Lombardy (the Italian epicenter). Patients and methods: During April 2020, a survey containing 14 multiple-choice questions focused on general staffing and surgical activity related to BC during the months of March 2019 and March 2020 was sent to 32 Italian Centers. Statistical analysis was performed using IBM SPSS Statistics (v26) software. A Medline search was performed, in order to attempt a comparative analysis with published papers. Results: 28 Centers answered, for a response rate of 87.5%. Most of the urology staff in the Lombardy region were employed in COVID wards (p = 0.003), with a statistically significant reduction in the number of radical cystectomies (RC) performed during that time (p = 0.036). The total amount of RC across Italy remained the same between 2019 and 2020, however there was an increase in the number of surgeries performed in the Southern region. This was most likely due to travel restrictions limiting travel the North. The number of Trans-Urethral Resection of Bladder Tumors (TURBT) (p = 0.046) was higher in Academic Centers (AC) in 2020 (p = 0.037). Conclusions: The data of our survey, although limited, represents a snap shot of the management of BC during the first month of the COVD-19 pandemic, which posed a major challenge for cancer centers seeking to provide care during an extremely dynamic clinical and political situation which requires maximum flexibility to be appropriately managed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Three months into the Covid-19 crisis, lockdown has become a global response to the pandemic. Why have so many countries resorted to lockdown? How is it being implemented in different places? Why have some places had more success with lockdowns and others not? What does the effectiveness of lockdowns tell us about the local institutions entrusted with enforcing them? This paper compares how lockdown orders have been implemented in China, Italy, and the U.S. The analysis points to two major factors that have shaped the enforcement: tensions between national and local governments, and the strength of local territorial institutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

SARS-CoV-2 pandemic is continuing to spread. There are growing concerns on the impact of COVID-19 in cancer patients. Several papers reporting recommendations and guidelines are published. But few data on cancer patients affected by COVID-19 are available. This is a retrospective study including all consecutive patients affected by gynecological cancer who developed COVID-19. All patients were treated in an academic setting (in Milan, Lombardy, Italy) between February and March 2020. Overall, 355 patients had active treatment during the study period due to newly diagnosed or recurrent gynecological disease. Among those, 19 (5.3%) patients affected developed COVID-19. All patients were asymptomatic at the time of COVID-19 detection. Six patients were diagnosed before starting planned treatments; while the remaining 13 were diagnosed for COVID-19 after their started their treatments. Considering the first group of six patients, one patient died due to COVID-19 3 days after the diagnosis; while the other patients recovered from COVID-19 after a median of three weeks. The latter group of 13 patients (treatments started) included five patients who underwent surgery and eight patients who underwent chemotherapy. Focusing on five patients who were diagnosed after surgery, we observed that two patients died during postoperative course, while in other two cases prolonged hospitalization was needed. One patient had no issues. Chemotherapy was delayed for the remaining patents without sequelae. Our report highlights that COVID-19 impacts the quality of treatments for cancer patients. Mortality rate is high, especially after surgery. More important, patients under active treatment for cancer are at high risk of developing severe evolution of COVID-19. Prioritizing patients journey during COVID-19 is of paramount importance. • There are growing concerns on the impact of COVID-19 in cancer patients. • COVID-19 is impacting oncologic practice directly and indirectly. • Prioritizing patients journey during COVID-19 is of paramount importance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, Italy was one of the worst-affected European countries. The rapid surge of cases and the limited capacity of intensive care unit departments have posed a serious threat to the Italian national health system. In this paper we describe the first response and the main measures carried by Italian policy makers, as coordinated by a governmental committee of public health experts, which have succeeded in preventing the pandemic from turning into a disaster. Early closure of the school, quarantine measures and lockdown were put in place and the response of the population has been good overall. Despite the Italian health care system of universal coverage is considered the second-best in the world, during phase 1, the Italian decentralisation and fragmentation of health services probably restricted timely interventions and effectiveness. In northern Italy, Lombardy, Emilia Romagna, Piedmont, and Veneto, which reported most of the Italian cases, carried out different strategies against COVID-19, with great differences in testing, quarantine, and public health procedures. The improvement of the epidemiological situation has allowed an easing of the restrictive measures, with a progressive restarting of work activities. The government and technical-scientific bodies have prepared health strategies to support a possible second epidemic wave in the autumn. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

2019 Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) had a big impact in Italy, mainly concentrated in the northern part of the Country. All this was mainly due to similarities of this area with Wuhan in Hubei Province, according to geographical, environmental and socio-economic points of view. The basic hypothesis of this research was that the presence of atmospheric pollutants can generate stress on health conditions of the population and determine pre-conditions for the development of diseases of the respiratory system and complications related to them. In most cases the attention on environmental aspects is mainly concentrated on pollution, neglecting issues such as land management which, in some way, can contribute to reducing the impact of pollution. The reduction of land take and the decrease in the loss of ecosystem services can represent an important aspect in improving environmental quality. In order to integrate policies for environmental change and human health, the main factors analyzed in this paper can be summarized in environmental, climatic and land management. The main aim of this paper was to produce three different hazard scenarios respectively related to environmental, climatic and land management-related factors. A Spatial Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) method has been applied over thirteen informative layers grouped in aggregation classes of environmental, climatic and land management. The results of the health hazard maps show a disparity in the distribution of territorial responses to the pandemic in Italy. The environmental components play an extremely relevant role in the definition of the red zones of hazard, with a consequent urgent need to renew sustainable development strategies. The comparison of hazard maps related to different scenarios provides decision makers with tools to orient policy choices with a different degree of priority according to a place-based approach. In particular, the geospatial representation of risks could be a tool for legitimizing the measures chosen by decision-makers, proposing a renewed approach that highlights and takes account of the differences between the spatial contexts to be considered - Regions, Provinces, Municipalities - also in terms of climatic and environmental variables. • COVID-19 had a big impact in Italy, mainly in the northern part of the Country. • Reduction of land take and ecosystem services' loss improve environmental quality. • Environmental, climatic and land management can be leveraged for pandemic policies. • Geospatial representation of risks is a useful approach to support decision-makers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• The effect of the lockdown due to COVID-19 on the Italian power system are discussed. • A critical analysis of the reduction in the Italian power consumption and electricity cost in 2020 is presented. • Some countermeasures against the effect of generation and load reduction are proposed. • A blockchain-based architecture for Demand Response is proposed as a countermeasure. The paper analyses the dramatic effects of the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic on the Italian power system, considering the impacts on load and generation, market issues and ancillary services provision. During the period between March and May 2020, the Italian scenario was considered as exemplary due to the large reduction of loads and thermal generation caused by the hard lockdown across the Country. Italy has experienced the most severe effects of pandemic in terms of increase of death rates and of pressure on the health system as well as severity of the countermeasures. As a domino effect, the total lockdown of one of the most industrialized countries in the world has created an emergency situation that has put a big stress on the power system, reducing the possibility for the system to recover under contingencies. The weakness of the system in such an extreme situation is analyzed in depth using open data, while some countermeasures for providing resilience to the power systems in such cases are analyzed in simulation. Two technologies are here considered as exemplary countermeasures for providing resilience to the Italian power system: Fast Frequency Response by Photovoltaic and Wind plants with rated power above 10 MVA and the massive implementation of Demand Response programs through Energy communities and aggregation using Blockchain technology. The simulations show, on one hand, that the frequency recovery under contingency seems compromised in the current situation and that the support from such innovative technologies can provide a significant relief bringing the operational features close to those before the COVID-19 pandemic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As the main title 'COVID-19 revolution: a new challenge for the internist' states, the global coronavirus infection disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic represented a new challenge for the internists. This paper is part of a series of articles written during the difficult period of the ongoing global pandemic and published all together in this fourth issue of the Italian Journal of Medicine, with the aim of sharing the direct experiences of those who were the first to face this severe emergency, expressing each point of view in the management of COVID-19 in relation to other diseases. Each article is therefore the result of many efforts and a joint collaboration between many colleagues from the Departments of Internal Medicine or Emergency Medicine of several Italian hospitals, engaged in the front line during the pandemic. These preliminary studies therefore cover diagnostic tools available to health care personnel, epidemiological reflections, possible new therapeutic approaches, discharge and reintegration procedures to daily life, the involvement of the disease not only in the lung, aspects related to various comorbidities, such as: coagulopathies, vasculitis, vitamin D deficiency, gender differences, etc.. The goal is to offer a perspective, as broad as possible, of everything that has been done to initially face the pandemic in its first phase and provide the tools for an increasingly better approach, in the hope of not arriving unprepared to a possible second wave. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, antecedents and consequences of conspiracy beliefs are investigated in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic in Italy. 618 individuals residing in different geographical area of Italy participated in the study. We found that perceived mortality rate of COVID-19 is positively associated with adherence to conspiracy beliefs and, in turn, with negative outcomes such as: (a) a reduced support for the measures taken to deal with the pandemic emergency, (b) a weaker feeling of guilt for the violation of anti-COVID-19 government rules, and (c) a stronger utilitarian stance which prioritizes economic over health-related outcomes of lockdown. Also, framing pandemic within the "natural order of things" – fundamental and implicit expectations concerning how life and the world should function – was expected to moderate the relationship between perceived mortality rate and conspiracy beliefs: we found this relationship to be weaker when people believe that pandemic falls into the "natural order of things". [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper addresses the problem of describing the spread of COVID-19 by a mathematical model introducing all the possible control actions as prevention (informative campaign, use of masks, social distancing, vaccination) and medication. The model adopted is similar to SEIQR, with the infected patients split into groups of asymptomatic subjects and isolated ones. This distinction is particularly important in the current pandemic, due to the fundamental the role of asymptomatic subjects in the virus diffusion. The influence of the control actions is considered in analysing the model, from the calculus of the equilibrium points to the determination of the reproduction number. This choice is motivated by the fact that the available organised data have been collected since from the end of February 2020, and almost simultaneously containment measures, increasing in typology and effectiveness, have been applied. The characteristics of COVID-19, not fully understood yet, suggest an asymmetric diffusion among countries and among categories of subjects. Referring to the Italian situation, the containment measures, as applied by the population, have been identified, showing their relation with the government's decisions; this allows the study of possible scenarios, comparing the impact of different possible choices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Covid-19 pandemic has caused an unprecedented global crisis and led to a huge number of deaths, economic hardship and the disruption of everyday life. Measures to restrict accessibility adopted by many countries were a swift yet effective response to contain the spread of the virus. Within this topic, this paper aims to support policies and decision makers in defining the most appropriate strategies to manage the Covid-19 crisis. Precisely the correlation between positive Covid-19 cases and transport accessibility of an area was investigated through a multiple linear regression model. Estimation results show that transport accessibility was the variable that better explained the number of Covid-19 infections (about 40% in weight), meaning that the greater is the accessibility of a certain geographical area, the easier the virus reaches its population. Furthermore, other context variables were also significant, i.e. socio-economic, territorial and pollutant variables. Estimated findings show that accessibility, which is often used to measure the wealth of an area, becomes its worst enemy during a pandemic, providing to be the main vehicle of contagion among its citizens. These original results allow the definition of possible policies and/or best practices to better manage mobility restrictions. The quantitative estimates performed show that a possible and probably more sustainable policy for containing social interactions could be to apply lockdowns in proportion to the transport accessibility of the areas concerned, in the sense that the higher the accessibility, the tighter should be the mobility restriction policies adopted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Given the importance of perceived susceptibility to a disease in adopting preventive behaviors, and the negative impact of optimism bias on prevention, this paper aimed to explore to what extent comparative optimism bias (understood as the tendency to assess a lower probability for oneself to experience negative health events compared to others) is present in the specific context of the Covid-19 pandemic, in two countries with different profiles in terms of the spread of the disease: Italy and Romania. After identifying optimism bias in both countries, we tested whether it depends on respondents' characteristics like gender, age, education, health status and whether or not they have the opportunity to work from home. We surveyed 1126 Romanians and 742 Italians, and found that optimism bias depends on self-reported health status, and that optimism bias increases with age. Inconclusive evidences were found regarding gender and education level, as well as the option to work from home. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]