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Keywords Early-life exposure; Long-term effect; Meningitis epidemic; Risk preference; Risky behaviors Highlights * This paper evaluates the long-term impacts of exposure to China's 1967 meningitis epidemic. * Intense exposure to the meningitis epidemic during childhood led to increased risk aversion. * Exposure to the meningitis epidemic decreased risky behaviors, including financial investment, credit card usage, entrepreneurship, and migration. * Our study may have broad implications for economic--epidemic modeling and post-epidemic assistance programs. Abstract This study investigates the long-term effects of exposure to infectious disease on individuals' risk preference and behaviors. Using nationally representative datasets in China, we adopt a difference-in-differences strategy to evaluate the long-term impacts of exposure to China's 1967 meningitis epidemic. We find that intense exposure to the meningitis epidemic during childhood led to increased risk aversion. In addition, we show that exposure to the meningitis epidemic decreased risky behaviors, including financial investment, credit card usage, entrepreneurship, and migration. Our study may have broad implications for economic--epidemic modeling and post-epidemic assistance programs.

Social interactions present opportunities for both information and infection to spread through populations. Social learning is often proposed as a key benefit of sociality, while infectious disease spread are proposed as a major cost. Multiple empirical and theoretical studies have demonstrated the importance of social structure for the transmission of either information or harmful pathogens and parasites, but rarely in combination. We provide an overview of relevant empirical studies, discuss differences in the transmission processes of infection and information, and review how these processes have been modelled. Finally, we highlight ways in which animal social network structure and dynamics might mediate the tradeoff between the sharing of information and infection. We reveal how modular social network structures can promote the spread of information and mitigate against the spread of infection relative to other network structures. We discuss how the maintenance of long-term social bonds, clustering of social contacts in time, and adaptive plasticity in behavioural interactions, all play important roles in influencing the transmission of information and infection. We provide novel hypotheses and suggest new directions for research that quantifies the transmission of information and infection simultaneously across different network structures to help tease apart their influence on the evolution of social behaviour.

About a century ago, there was a shift from humans contracting and dying from infectious diseases to living with non-infectious chronic diseases. Through advancements in medicine, chronic diseases are manageable, however, they are life-long and often debilitating. When chronically ill individuals struggle to adjust, and make sense of their disease, they are likely to benefit from participating in illness support groups. The benefits of support groups are usually explained by proximal factors such as social support. We explore three sets of evolutionary adaptations to provide ultimate explanations for the value of social support: attachment, group membership, and collective identity. These three concepts suggest that support groups assist with regulating emotions, belonging, and integrating chronic illness into one's identity. Although attachment theory highlights important aspects of coping with chronic illness, it is framed in dyadic terms, which is ill-fitting for support groups. Support groups are beneficial because they capitalize on the ancient adaptations of belonging and collective identity. Practical applications of these evolutionary concepts for chronic illness support groups are discussed., Author(s): Emaan N. Lehardy [sup.1], Blaine J. Fowers [sup.1] Author Affiliations: (1) grid.26790.3a, 0000 0004 1936 8606, Department of Educational and Psychological Studies, University of Miami, , 5205 Memorial Drive, [...]

Byline: Andrew L. Dannenberg (1), Howard Frumkin (1,2), Jeremy J. Hess (1), Kristie L. Ebi (1) Keywords: Managed retreat; Public health; Sea level rise; Climate change adaptation; Indigenous peoples Abstract: In coming decades, sea level rise associated with climate change will make some communities uninhabitable. Managed retreat, or planned relocation, is a proactive response prior to catastrophic necessity. Managed retreat has disruptive health, sociocultural, and economic impacts on communities that relocate. Health impacts include mental health, social capital, food security, water supply, sanitation, infectious diseases, injury, and health care access. We searched peer-reviewed and gray literature for reports on small island or coastal communities at various stages of relocation primarily due to sea level rise. We reviewed these reports to identify public health impacts and barriers to relocation. We identified eight relevant small communities in the USA (Alaska, Louisiana, and Washington), Panama, Fiji, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, and Vanuatu. Affected populations range from 60 to 2700 persons and are predominantly indigenous people who rely on subsistence fishing and agriculture. Few reports directly addressed public health issues. While some relocations were successful, barriers to relocation in other communities include place attachment, potential loss of livelihoods, and lack of funding, suitable land, community consensus, and governance procedures. Further research is needed on the health impacts of managed retreat and how to facilitate population resilience. Studies could include surveillance of health indicators before and after communities relocate due to sea level rise, drought, or other environmental hazards. Lessons learned may inform relocation of both small and large communities affected by climate change. Author Affiliation: (1) 0000000122986657, grid.34477.33, Center for Health and the Global Environment, Dept. of Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences, School of Public Health, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA (2) 0000 0004 0427 7672, grid.52788.30, Wellcome Trust, London, UK Article History: Registration Date: 23/01/2019 Received Date: 01/04/2018 Accepted Date: 23/01/2019 Online Date: 08/02/2019

"We play too much in this country" is a popular and handy response to funny statements or events and an affirmation of Nigerians' aptitude for humour. This comic impulse in the Nigerian unconscious has been variously seen as a means of releasing stress, coping with harsh realities, critiquing social and political situations, and even enhancing democracy. While acknowledging these observations, two more fundamental questions arise: Why does humour proliferate in Nigeria? And how does this tendency work against the nation? To attend to these questions, we explore three forms of humour: jokes, conversational humour, and accidental humour. The data analysed in this article were collected from Twitter, Facebook, and reports on national events in Nigerian newspapers. The analysis is anchored on Todd McGowan's theory of the comic as a coincidence of lack and excess. The findings show that the increasing production of humour in various forms is a symptom of a fundamental lack, a defectiveness in the country's socio-political and socioeconomic reality, and that these playful responses to situations trivialise the problems, weaken confrontational impulses, and heighten legal and moral laxity. Thus, as Nigerians we are "amusing ourselves to death". [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article investigates humour as a crucial instrument for the expression of young people's perceptions regarding Covid-19 in Nigeria. The article relies on creative digital data sourced from the online environment (Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and WhatsApp) and discusses these data based on thematic categories to demonstrate how young people use humour to express doubts about the existence of the virus and to downplay its deadly global threat. The article uncouples the manner in which humour as a performative idiom is heuristically exploited to signify collective sociopolitical discontent with a political establishment that is disconnected from its people. Drawing insights from multimodal critical discourse analysis and performance theory, the article engages digital comic narratives, skits, and memes as dialogic new media texts that sustain indigenous comic oral performances for collective socio-psychological healing and to engage in political satire. Beyond these, we conceive of digital humour and its responses to the Covid-19 pandemic as one more creative enterprise in which social media provide a platform for young people to engage a conservative system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this study is to critically examine humorous responses to the Covid-19 pandemic, in various contexts, with a focus on discursive structures of presupposition and dissociation which are ideologically laden based on people's prior knowledge about Covid-19 situation management in Nigeria, and their attitudes towards the published guidelines. The study is based on Teun van Dijk's socio-cognitive approach to discourse, which attempts to show how the relation between discourse and society is cognitively mediated by way of the mental representations created by language users as members of society. The data for this study are Nigerian comedies about the novel coronavirus, purposively selected from YouTube. The study finds that Nigerians consider the guidelines published by the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) as ridiculous, hence the humorous responses found in comedies. The study also finds that this attitude may be based on people's views of the intrigues surrounding the pandemic, and that the laughter generated signifies audience involvement in the humour created when the comedies reference the NCDC guidelines. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous studies in educational pedagogy and commercial marketing have focused on the perceived impact of humour in dissolving barriers to positive consumer behaviour. However, the function of humour as a sensitisation tool during a pandemic is yet to attract scholarly attention. The article addresses this gap by examining the strategies some popular Nigerian comedians have resorted to in the social media landscape to sensitise citizens to the need to adhere to Covid-19 safety protocols. The study draws on the elaboration likelihood model (ELM), a theory of persuasion which postulates that persuasive information is processed through two distinct psychological routes: central and peripheral, the first leading to positive reception and the second to negative reception. Through exploring purposively sampled skits, the study uncovers the strategies deployed to counter harmful conspiracy narratives about the pandemic in Nigeria. It is argued that the positive responses on the part of certain characters to the comedians' humorous messages imply that these skits are an effective sensitisation tool. The article concludes that because most Nigerians lack confidence in government policies due to increasing socioeconomic failures and clumsiness in handling the Covid-19 pandemic, the strategies used by the comedians to sensitise audience members to safety protocols are more creative and effective than the government's messaging. In effect, the comedians become strategic partners in the war against Covid-19. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study, deviating from the extant literature's focus on interactional frames in Nigerian humour, focuses on the primary frameworks—signifying social parameters and resources—with which humorists represented the fears and inhumanities of the tragic global Covid-19 pandemic, especially in the first quarter of 2020. The project draws on Gregory Bateson's mood-sign, a signifying emotional response to stimulation; Erving Goffman's theory of social frames; and Arthur Schopenhauer's notion of suffering owing to human beings' innate and perpetual cruelty to their fellows. Goffman's notions of key, keying, fabrication, and primary frameworks untangle the different social signifying practices drawn on to present Nigerians' painful encounters with Covid-19, while Schopenhauer's work assists in unveiling the mode of suffering encountered. Each skit provides a perspective on the suffering experienced. The skits that are most versatile in their incorporation of transformative keys, framing elements, and suffering during that uneasy period are analysed. The results indicate that the primary frameworks were transformed in order for Nigerian comedians to represent the suffering experienced by Nigerians. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the unique comedic expressions that evolved during the first wave of the Covid-19 pandemic in Egypt is a Facebook page called "Coronavirus". What is exceptional about the memes published on this page is that the author adopts the persona of the coronavirus to explore issues of the pandemic in the Egyptian context. Moreover, followers of the page fully participate in this make-believe scenario that the author has established. In addition, most of the posts mock the illogical actions undertaken by both the public and the state. Memes have been created, and shared, by Facebook users, not only as comic relief but also as a means of documenting events during the pandemic. This article aims to analyse different memes created by the "Coronavirus" Facebook page in the Egyptian context. The discussion is based on content and visual analysis. Memes were contextualised in relation to real incidents or decisions criticised by the author of the page, or the meme creator. The discussion also examines the different styles and types of humour employed by the author of the page to deliver his/her message in a comic way. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The ongoing Covid19 pandemic is producing dramatic effects on the economic and social life of many countries, which in turn may further undermine people's health and well-being. This note focuses on some potential effects on the achievement of the UN Sustainable Development Goal 2 'Zero Hunger' (Target 2.1) and, specifically, on the prevalence of undernourishment. After discussing the main changes induced by the Covid19 outbreak in various dimensions of food security, as identified by the preliminary literature on the topic, the note presents the dynamic estimates (GMM) of the recent determinants of food security, measured through the prevalence of undernourishment (SDG indicator 2.1.1), using a sample of 84 developing countries observed over the period 2000–2017. Since the rate of economic growth turns out to be a relevant determinant, the analysis quantifies the potential consequences that the economic downturn caused by the pandemic may have on the short- and long-run achievements of SDG 2 if proper counterbalancing measures will not be implemented. Such consequences in the short run would consist of millions of new undernourished people, while in the long run the progress made towards the 'Zero Hunger' goal are at risk of being completely reversed in the majority of countries. The note concludes by suggesting some directions for future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The appearance of infectious disease outbreaks and pandemics in Hollywood movies since 1914 is examined. Dehumanization, biowarfare, failed political leadership, stigmatization, social class and heroic physicians are the common themes that characterize these films.

Keywords COVID-19 perceptions; Analogies; Mental models Highlights * To understand a new disease, patients may draw comparisons to known diseases. * We asked US participants which diseases came to mind when thinking of COVID-19. * Seasonal influenza was most commonly mentioned, across demographic groups. * Pneumonia and emergent diseases (SARS, pandemic influenza) were also listed. * Which diseases came to mind was associated with reported protective behaviors. Abstract Rationale To understand novel diseases, patients may draw comparisons to other diseases. Objective We examined whether mentally associating specific diseases with COVID-19 was related to self-reported protective behaviors early in the pandemic. Methods In March 2020, a national sample of 6534 U.S. adults listed diseases that came to mind when thinking of COVID-19. They self-reported protective behaviors, demographics, and COVID-19 risk perceptions. Results Participants associated COVID-19 with common infectious diseases like seasonal influenza (59%), common cold (11%), and pneumonia (10%), or emergent infectious diseases like pandemic influenza (28%), SARS/MERS (27%), and Ebola (14%). Seasonal influenza was most commonly mentioned, in all demographic groups. Participants mentioning seasonal influenza or common cold reported fewer protective behaviors. Those mentioning pneumonia or emergent infectious diseases reported more protective behaviors. Mentioning pneumonia, SARS/MERS, and Ebola was associated with the most protective behaviors, after accounting for other generated diseases, demographics, and risk perceptions (e.g., for avoiding crowds, OR = 1.52, 95% CI = 1.26, 1.83; OR = 1.28, 95% CI = 1.13, 1.46; OR = 1.30, 95% CI = 1.11, 1.52, respectively). Conclusions Early in the pandemic, most participants mentally associated COVID-19 with seasonal flu, which may have undermined willingness to protect themselves. To motivate behavior change, COVID-19 risk communications may need to mention diseases that resonate with people while retaining accuracy.

Keywords SIR model; Self-isolation; COVID-19 epidemic Abstract We analyze the spread of an infectious disease in a population when individuals strategically choose how much time to interact with others. Individuals are either of the severe type or of the asymptomatic type. Only severe types have symptoms when they are infected, and the asymptomatic types can be contagious without knowing it. In the absence of any symptoms, individuals do not know their type and continuously tradeoff the costs and benefits of self-isolation on the basis of their belief of being the severe type. We show that all equilibria of the game involve social interaction, and we characterize the unique equilibrium in which individuals partially self-isolate at each date. We calibrate our model to the COVID-19 pandemic and simulate the dynamics of the epidemic to illustrate the impact of some public policies.

Keywords Infectious diseases; Macroeconomic outcomes; Public policy; Social distancing Abstract We analyze the determination of the optimal intensity and duration of social distancing policy aiming to control the spread of an infectious disease in a simple macroeconomic--epidemiological model. In our setting the social planner wishes to minimize the social costs associated with the levels of disease prevalence and output lost due to social distancing, both during and at the end of epidemic management program. Indeed, by limiting individuals' ability to freely move or interact with others (since requiring to wear face mask or to maintain physical distance from others, or even forcing some businesses to remain closed), social distancing has on the one hand the effect to reduce the disease incidence and on the other hand to reduce the economy's productive capacity. We analyze both the early and the advanced epidemic stage intervention strategies highlighting their implications for short and long run health and macroeconomic outcomes. We show that both the intensity and the duration of the optimal social distancing policy may largely vary according to the epidemiological characteristics of specific diseases, and that the balancing of the health benefits and economic costs associated with social distancing may require to accept the disease to reach an endemic state. Focusing in particular on COVID-19 we present a calibration based on Italian data showing how the optimal social distancing policy may vary if implemented at national or at regional level.

Panic buying of toilet rolls in Australia began in early March 2020. This was related to the realisation that the novel coronavirus was spreading across the country. To the general population the impact of the virus was unknown. Gradually the federal government started closing the country's borders. The panic buying of toilet rolls was not unique to Australia. It happened across all societies that used toilet paper rather than water to clean after defecation and urination. However, research suggests that the panic buying was most extreme in Australia. This article argues that the panic buying was closely linked to everyday notions of Western civilisation. Pedestal toilets and toilet paper are key aspects of civilisation and the fear of the loss of toilet paper is connected to anxiety about social breakdown, the loss of civilisation. This is the fear manifested in the perceived threat posed by the virus. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: The COVID-19 pandemic has changed many routines worldwide and has also affected the mental health of psychiatric patients and mental health professionals. One of the suggested methods for mental health improvement is more intensive contact with nature, including birdwatching as a hobby. Material and methods: After an ornithological walk in February 2021 for 5 psychiatrists and psychotherapists, in spite of unfavourable weather, all participants very positively evaluated the impact of birding on their well-being, mood and subjective evaluation of stress level. Results: Particularly important is an observation that the pandemic reality forced the whole society, including mental health professionals, to limit their behaviours and attitudes to very “adult” and responsible ones. Everyday life was reduced to functioning based on a very concrete approach to reality while abandoning activities that stimulate imagination (travels, theatre, arts). The ornithological walk allowed participants to abandon the pandemic reality and enter the space of playfulness, fantasies and childhood experiences. It enabled immersion in a friendly “mother-world” in which sensory perceptions proved to be important: smell, touch (“rush of air”), feeling of space. Birds were perceived not only as direct objects of observations but also as symbols of freedom, energy and lightness. Conclusions: Despite the small group size, ornithological walks are recommended as a nature-based intervention exerting a positive influence on the mental health of psychiatrists and psychotherapists. It is also believed to positively affect the management of their patients, although this and many other aspects require further research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research examines the role of hotel employees' satisfaction with their organization's COVID-19 responses in reducing their perceived job insecurity (PJI) and maintaining their job performance (JP). We conducted two studies using an explanatory sequential mixed-methods design. The results indicated that employees' satisfaction with organization COVID-19 responses (SOCV19R) positively influences JP and moderates (1) the positive association between perceived health risk associated with COVID-19 (PHRCV19) and PJI and (2) the negative link between PJI and JP. Unexpectedly, PHRCV19 was found to positively affect JP, and the moderating effect of SOCV19R on the relationship between PHRCV19 and JP was significant and positive. We also found that PJI has a mediating role in the PHRCV19–JP relationship. This study fills a significant gap in hospitality research by exploring the role of the organization's crisis responses in tempering the impact of perceived health risk of a global health crisis on hotel employees. Theoretically, this research revealed that employees' SOCV19R helps raise JP, mitigate the positive influence of PHRCV19 on PJI and the negative impact of PJI on JP, and strengthen the positive effect of PHRCV19 on JP. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The COVID-19 pandemic that broke out in Israel in February 2020 prompted widespread public response, which included a deluge of humorous memes. The current article discusses the main meme cycles of the pandemic with the aim of uncovering the functions of the humorous meme, and particularly its singular language, which incorporates the universal and the particular, the global and the local, the hegemonic and the subversive. The memes are examined in their immediate context, as responses to news announcements, restrictions, and rumors relating to the pandemic, and from a comparative perspective, with emphasis on the various functions of disaster jokes and the use of folklore in response to previous epidemics, crises, or risks. Alongside the hybrid nature of the genre, these meme cycles demonstrate that COVID-19 is not just a threatening virus but a new reality that undermines our experience of time and space, evoking old beliefs and new, and threatening to change everyday practices. These narratives not only reflect the incongruities evoked by the virus, but also give vent to anxieties and aggressions brought on by the pandemic and convey a communal need to protect and foster group cohesion and a local sense of belonging. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A correlational study (n = 180 adults) in the United States tested the hypothesis that self-directed humor styles predict emotional responses to COVID-19, specifically stress and hopelessness, and in turn predict engagement in protective behaviors. Results from a sequential mediation analysis supported our hypotheses. First, to the extent that people have a self-enhancing humor style they perceived less stress and hopelessness associated with COVID-19 and as a result reported engaging in more protective behaviors. Second, people higher in self-defeating humor style showed the opposite pattern; they perceived more stress and hopelessness due to COVID-19 and thus reported engaging in less protective behaviors. Implications for theory and application are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In spring 2020, with most national football (soccer) leagues being suspended, fans from around the world turned to the Belarusian Premier League — Europe's only championship to continue amid the COVID-19 pandemic. In March, a group of Australian football fans created the FK Slutsk Worldwide Facebook group, dedicated to the eponymous Belarusian club, which quickly transformed into a diverse online community. Initially, the group demonstrated many features of ironic fandom, with members producing various humorous forms and performing exaggerated loyalty in recognition of the peculiar circumstances behind the intense international focus on an otherwise unremarkable team. As time passed and the Facebook group community evolved, however, the practices of ironic fandom began to give way to attributes of a genuine fandom. Through an examination of the group's development, this paper makes a case for viewing the relationship between ironic and genuine fandom not in oppositional, but in temporal terms. It argues that, in order for a fandom to sustain itself, it must be rooted in a shared sensibility that is not limited to a sense of irony, and that a transition from ironic to genuine fandom stems from this sensibility taking precedence over the ironic aspect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the increased risks and vulnerabilities that children and young people face due to the Coronavirus (COVID-19), they are also some of the most active in their participatory responses to this global emergency. Drawing on transdisciplinarity, this paper considers how COVID-19 has opened up new spaces and opportunities for the participation of children. For example, young people across the globe have been actively involved in raising digital awareness about COVID-19, participating in environmental activism, and engaging in unique educational opportunities. While children and young people are often constructed as vulnerable, innocent and in need of protection, this pandemic reveals that they can transcend these adultist constructs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Children have a right to have their views sought and given due weight on all matters affecting them, including at times of emergency and crisis. This article describes the process and findings of the ground-breaking CovidUnder19 survey ("Life Under Coronavirus") which was co-designed with children for children, capturing the experiences of over 26,000 children in 137 countries as to the realisation of their human rights during the first six months of the COVID-19 pandemic. Key findings are discussed through the lens of the CRC' s four general principles, read alongside children's rights, inter alia, to education, play and to be protected from harm. It argues that governments and public bodies should have sought children's views – not just because they were under an obligation to do so – but because such engagement, now and in crises to come, provides an early warning system that enables decision-makers to mitigate some of the adverse consequences of their responses for children and their rights. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: To determine the association between income inequality and COVID-19 cases and deaths per million in OECD countries. Methods: Cross-sectional regression methods are used to model the relationship between income inequality, as measured by the Gini coefficient, and COVID-19 reported cases and deaths per-million. Results: The results demonstrate a significant positive association between income inequality and COVID-19 cases and death per million in all estimated models. A 1% increase in the Gini coefficient is associated with an approximately 4% increase in cases per-million and an approximately 5% increase in deaths per-million. Conclusions: The results demonstrate that countries with high levels of income inequality have performed significantly worse when dealing with the COVID-19 outbreak in terms cases and deaths. Income inequality is a proxy for many elements of socioeconomic disadvantage that may contribute to the spread of, and deaths from, COVID-19. These include poor housing, smoking, obesity and pollution. Policy Implications: The findings suggest the importance of closing the gap in income inequality and improving the health and incomes of the poorest and most vulnerable groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 1899, diphtheria claimed the life of W. E. B. Du Bois's son, Burghardt. How can Burghardt's death help us to understand the racialized consequences of the present coronavirus pandemic? This article considers what Du Bois described as the "phantasmagoria" that ensnares racial structures. I examine COVID as the latest iteration of a distinctly racialized American trauma narrated in the grammar of Du Bois's reflections on disease, extrajudicial killings, and kinship. This fever dream of conflagration and asphyxiation has haunted Black lives since slavery. Du Bois gave meaning to this racial spectre in religious terms as a story of perpetual death but eventual emancipation. By situating Du Bois in relation to the work of Christina Sharpe (2016. In the Wake: On Blackness and Being. Durham, NC: Duke University Press), this essay ruminates on the orthography of slavery's inheritances with regard to disease and its symbiotic relationship with lynching. I conclude by considering Du Bois's invocation to darkwater as a demand for Black healing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the impact of governmental management of the pandemic on the morbidity and mortality of migrants, gendered and racialized groups by focussing on the relation of its public health message campaign to accommodation, health and survival. The Hostile Environment immigration policies have restricted the ability of these groups to adhere to Government's public health guidelines, increasing risks of their contracting coronavirus. These policies exacerbate existing health inequalities in intersectional ways. The Covid virus, in its socially reproductive capacity, can thus be understood as a biological descriptor for a political crisis of intersectional inequality in the politics of health. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social scientists working on race and ethnicity are facing up to the challenge of how the Covid-19 pandemic is impacting on their research agendas. In this introduction, we discuss the emerging evidence about the impact of Covid-19 in terms of race and ethnicity, on migrants and refugees, and on research agendas. By focusing on the discussion that has developed about these issues during 2020 we aim to provide some of the broader background to the specific concerns to be found in the rest of this themed issue. We move on from this overview of key developments to a discussion of the key themes that are explored by the fourteen papers that follow. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study used data from the American Trends Panel to examine the interplay between the perceived COVID-19 health threat, discriminatory beliefs in medical settings, and psychological distress among Black Americans. We measured psychological distress as an average of five items modified from two established scales and used self-reports of perceived COVID-19 health threat and beliefs about discrimination in medical settings as focal predictors. Ordinary least squares regression was used to examine these relationships. Holding all else constant, we found that perceived COVID-19 health threat and the belief that Black Americans face racial discrimination in medical settings were both positively and significantly associated with higher levels of psychological distress. We also found a significant perceived COVID-19 health threat by belief about discrimination in medical settings interaction in the full model. Future studies should assess how these relationships vary across age groups and over time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article offers a collectively developed analysis of the Covid-19 crisis as it relates to contemporary cultures of rejection, i.e. the socio-cultural conditions in which authoritarian and right-wing populist politics thrive, in Europe. We explore how the pandemic and its management reinforces, transforms and/or overrides existing antagonisms and institutes new ones in Serbia, Croatia, Austria, Germany and Sweden. We discuss how the Covid-19 crisis affects the rise of new statisms; gendered patterns of social reproduction; mobility and migration; digital infrastructures; and new political mobilizations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the United States (U.S.), most reports regarding racial disparities in incidence and death from COVID-19 understate the importance of majority-Black local jurisdictions' fiscal capacity in shaping African Americans' resilience during the pandemic and majority-Black locales' economic trajectories afterward. Black households and jurisdictions manage legacy and ongoing racialized capitalism. My data are fieldwork findings from a 2017 and 2018 study of the U.S. county with the highest concentration of middle-class African Americans, Prince George's County (PGC), Maryland, a suburb of Washington, D.C., alongside government reports on how D.C.-area counties experience COVID-19 fallout. I find PGC's fragile fiscal state prior to the coronavirus means it weathers harsher consequences from COVID-19 than two neighbouring counties with significantly smaller Black populations. My analysis explicates how layers of racial disadvantage compound across time, region, and level of social organization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, we consider how, due to a spike in anti-Asian hate crimes, Asians might face a disproportionate mental health impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. Analyzing data from the University of Southern California's Center for Economic and Social Research Understanding Coronavirus in America survey, we report several findings. First, since the onset of the pandemic, Asians (Asian Americans in particular) have experienced higher levels of mental disorders than whites. Second, Asian Americans and Asian immigrants are about twice as likely as whites to report having encountered instances of COVID-19-related acute discrimination. Third, experiences of COVID-19-related discrimination increase mental disorders for all Americans. Finally, COVID-19-related discrimination partially explains the disproportionate mental health impact of the pandemic on Asians. In conclusion, we highlight the importance of tackling hate, violence, and discrimination so as to address the disproportionate mental health impacts of COVID-19 on minority populations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Racism and xenophobia associated with the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic disproportionately affect migrants and minority groups worldwide. They exacerbate existing patterns of discrimination and inequity, impacting especially those already facing intersecting social, economic and health vulnerabilities. In this article, we explore the nature and extent of racism sparked by COVID-19. We briefly introduce the relationship between historical pandemics and racist sentiments and discuss ethnic and racial disparities in relation to COVID-19. We contextualize racism under COVID-19, and argue that an environment of populism, resurgent exclusionary ethno-nationalism, and retreating internationalism has been a key contributor to the flare-up in racism during the COVID-19. We then discuss links between racism, nationalism and capitalism, and consider what intercultural relations may look like in a post-outbreak world. We conclude by highlighting the potential effects of COVID-racism on intercultural relations, and the national and global implications for social policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

COVID-19 is widely recognised as a challenge or even a game-changer for travel and tourism. It has also been a catalyst to serious debate in the "tourism academy," as revealed by a discussion on TRINET Tourism Information Network via email in May 2020. The catalyst to this debate was an email by academic Jim Butcher announcing his work entitled "the war on tourism," published in an online magazine. Presenting a binary between industry recovery and reform, Butcher's article denounced a body of tourism work he portrayed as hostile to the industry and as using COVID-19 as an opportunity to attack it. He argued that this resulted in harm to tourism businesses, tourism workers and ordinary tourists. These TRINET discussions worked to present a binary in schools of thought, divided by being either for the tourism industry or against it. This analysis explains how advocates of industry rapid recovery stand opposed to wider efforts to reform tourism to be more ethical, responsible and sustainable. The struggle concerns both the proper role of tourism and tourism academics. Outcomes from this debate have repercussions for the development of the discipline, the education of tourism students and the future of tourism practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The geographic isolation of Pacific states and people has meant that the region has managed to avoid the direct consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic. But the indirect consequences have nevertheless been significant. This article attempts to answer the question: what are the implications of the COVID-19 pandemic for understanding security in the Pacific Islands? To do this it considers three key questions. First, what does the COVID-19 pandemic reveal about the nexus between security and development in the Pacific? Second, does the concept of resilience offer an effective way to frame the Pacific response to the pandemic? Third, is there an optimal balance between isolation and globalisation for enhancing security and development in the Pacific? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Indian Government and policymakers remain more occupied by the Covid-19 lockdown's impact on financial crisis and the economy than on social issues such as gender-based violence (GBV) especially against women. From academic and nonacademic studies, we can fairly observe that the current pandemic has rightly grasped gender-based measurements in terms of justice and mitigation of the problem at every stage of the Covid-19, mainly during the lockdown periods. Women are already carrying out a significant proportion of the household work burden during the lockdown, escalating tensions related to the crunch in resource and space, are creating gender-based violence behind closed doors. Many of the vulnerable women, mostly employed in informal economic sectors and with negligible technological capital under lockdown, are denied entrance to the usual forms of mental and physical refuge as supplied by relatives, friends, and health-care system. The danger of gender-based violence for these women remain inside their own family set-ups. The article will examine how Covid-19 lockdown aggravated gender-based violence (GBV) in general (Sen, N., Singh Roy, A., Bagchi, S. S., 2020). It will also try to examine the policies to solve the intense problem based on previous academic and non-academic studies and reports. The pandemic has brought a catastrophic effect on higher education (HE) in India as the students are now facing marginalization, deteriorating mental health conditions and uncertain future. The schools, colleges and universities are closed for more than six months. The abrupt closure of colleges and universities and the concomitant shift towards online teaching is creating further digital divides and marginalization. Several female students are facing the maximum brunt of the pandemic as their confinement within households in addition to their family's deteriorating financial conditions are creating increasing pressures on them to leave HE to get married or take up jobs. Their plights are further compounded by increased pressure to do household chores and subjection to domestic abuses. A systematic review of literature on the impact of Covid-19 on gender-based violence within the Indian context will be undertaken. Keywords will be defined based on a specific inclusion criterion, which will be used to generate relevant qualitative and quantitative studies. Following further screening of studies to verify suitability, appropriate data on gender-based violence induced by the Covid-19 situation will be extracted. A narrative synthesis or meta-analysis will be applied to systematically combine the data from several studies to enable a robust evidence-based analysis. Summary of results and visualisations will also be carried out. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]