Myanmar: Pandemic in a Time of Transition

2021 ◽  
pp. 335-348
Author(s):  
Kai Ostwald ◽  
Tun Myint
Keyword(s):  
High Risk ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
The State ◽  
Contact Tracing ◽  
Population Movement ◽  
Structural Factors ◽  
Military Dictatorship ◽  
Large Scale Testing ◽  
Partial Opening ◽  
Political Economic

This chapter examines how Myanmar faced distinct disadvantages in its ability to respond to the Covid-19 pandemic relative to regional neighbours. This is due to its continued grappling with simultaneous political, economic, and conflict-related transitions: Myanmar was a largely closed-off military dictatorship for nearly fifty years prior to its partial opening in 2011. In conjunction with structural factors, the triple transition had several important implications for Myanmar’s response to the pandemic. First, many of the aggressive approaches to countering Covid-19 that were effective in other contexts were infeasible for Myanmar, as the state lacked the capacity to enforce comprehensive population movement controls and large-scale testing and contact tracing. Second, Myanmar’s structural conditions prevented a uniform response to the pandemic. Third, Myanmar has several high-risk subgroups that complicated responses to the pandemic.

scholarly journals Control of a Nosocomial Outbreak of COVID-19 in a University Hospital

2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (12) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sei Harada ◽  
Shunsuke Uno ◽  
Takayuki Ando ◽  
Miho Iida ◽  
Yaoko Takano ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
High Risk ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Secondary Infection ◽  
Control Measures ◽  
University Hospital ◽  
Contact Tracing ◽  
Effective Control ◽  
Primary Case ◽  
Pcr Screening ◽  
Social Distancing

Abstract Background Nosocomial spread of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) causes clusters of infection among high-risk individuals. Controlling this spread is critical to reducing COVID-19 morbidity and mortality. We describe an outbreak of COVID-19 in Keio University Hospital, Japan, and its control and propose effective control measures. Methods When an outbreak was suspected, immediate isolation and thorough polymerase chain reaction (PCR) testing of patients and health care workers (HCWs) using an in-house system, together with extensive contact tracing and social distancing measures, were conducted. Nosocomial infections (NIs) were defined as having an onset or positive test after the fifth day of admission for patients and having high-risk contacts in our hospital for HCWs. We performed descriptive analyses for this outbreak. Results Between March 24 and April 24, 2020, 27 of 562 tested patients were confirmed positive, of whom 5 (18.5%) were suspected as NIs. For HCWs, 52 of 697 tested positive, and 40 (76.9%) were considered NIs. Among transmissions, 95.5% were suspected of having occurred during the asymptomatic period. Large-scale isolation and testing at the first sign of outbreak terminated NIs. The number of secondary cases directly generated by a single primary case found before March 31 was 1.74, compared with 0 after April 1. Only 4 of 28 primary cases generated definite secondary infection; these were all asymptomatic. Conclusions Viral shedding from asymptomatic cases played a major role in NIs. PCR screening of asymptomatic individuals helped clarify the pattern of spread. Immediate large-scale isolation, contact tracing, and social distancing measures were essential to containing outbreaks.

Political Economy of the Greening of the State

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew Paterson
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
Driving Forces ◽  
Historical Sociology ◽  
The State ◽  
Test Case ◽  
Political Transformation ◽  
Green State ◽  
Political Transformations ◽  
Political Economic ◽  
Radical Transformation

Two different general claims have been made about large-scale political transformations produced by responses to environmental change. One is the claim that we are witnessing the potential emergence of a “green state,” where states internalize an ecological function as a core state imperative. Another is that we are undergoing a transition to an “environmental state.” The former claim thus envisages a radical transformation and its theory of the state based on historical sociology, while the latter is more skeptical about the capacity of states to undergo radical transformation, being informed by neo-Marxist accounts of the state. This chapter uses responses to climate change—a key test case for claims about large-scale political transformation—to suggest that some substantial transformations in the state are occurring, but that the driving forces are indeed political–economic and thus existing accounts of the “green state” need to be reformulated in this light.

scholarly journals IMPACT OF SOCIAL DISTANCING IN CURBING COVID-19 PANDEMIC: A SYSTEMATIC REVIEW

2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 165-172
Author(s):  
M. Ammar Luthfi Kurniawan ◽  
Litania Leona Hidayat ◽  
Jihan Natra Shafira ◽  
Iche Andriyani Liberty
Keyword(s):  
Systematic Review ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Critical Appraisal ◽  
Behavioral Adjustment ◽  
Contact Tracing ◽  
Social Distancing ◽  
Electronic Search ◽  
Large Scale Testing ◽  
The Impact

Social distancing includes strategies to ban public gatherings and advise individuals to stay at their home or maintain distance to one another by at least 1-2 meters. This study aims to intend to assess all the available evidence of social distancing in decreasing COVID-19 transmission in the general population. We conducted an electronic search of published literature using MEDLINE/Pubmed, Science direct, PMC, Wiley, and Google Scholar and we use Joanna Briggs Institute (JBI) critical appraisal checklist to assess methodological qualities. A total of 7 articles were decided to be included in this study. Social distancing has curb down the number and saved approximately 10 thousand Brazilian lives. A study by VoPham et al on the association of social distancing and COVID-19 incidence found higher social distancing was associated with a 29% reduction of COVID-19 incidence (adjusted IRR 0.71;95% CI (0,57-0,87) and 35% reduction of COVID-19 mortality (adjusted IRR 0,65; 95% CI 0,55-0,76). Social distancing is one of the major policies implemented for long-term behavioral adjustment in managing the COVID-19 pandemic. Passive social distancing is not enough to drag down the number, there needs to be large scale testing, isolation, and contact tracing. However, we believe we have illuminated the impact of social distancing on the COVID-19 pandemic and add to the available literature the basis of social distancing in reducing transmission of COVID-19.

scholarly journals Single-tube collection and nucleic acid analysis of clinical samples: a rapid approach for SARS-CoV-2 saliva testing

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kyle H Cole ◽  
Alexis Bouin ◽  
Caila Ruiz ◽  
Bert L Semler ◽  
Matthew A Inlay ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
Diagnostic Testing ◽  
Sodium Dodecyl ◽  
Tween 80 ◽  
Contact Tracing ◽  
Assay Method ◽  
Clinical Samples ◽  
Enzymatic Reactions ◽  
Single Tube ◽  
Large Scale Testing

The SARS-CoV-2 pandemic has brought to light the need for expedient diagnostic testing. Cost and availability of large-scale testing capacity has led to a lag in turnaround time and hindered contact tracing efforts, resulting in a further spread of SARS-CoV-2. To increase the speed and frequency of testing, we developed a cost-effective single-tube approach for collection, denaturation, and analysis of clinical samples. The approach utilizes 1 μL microbiological inoculation loops to collect saliva, sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS) to inactivate and release viral genomic RNA, and a diagnostic reaction mix containing polysorbate 80 (Tween 80). In the same tube, the SDS-denatured clinical samples are introduced to the mixtures containing all components for nucleic acids detection and Tween 80 micelles to absorb the SDS and allow enzymatic reactions to proceed, obviating the need for further handling of the samples. The samples can be collected by the tested individuals, further decreasing the need for trained personnel to administer the test. We validated this single-tube sample-to-assay method with RT-qPCR and RT-LAMP and discovered little-to-no difference between Tween- and SDS-containing reaction mixtures, compared to CDC-approved reagents. This approach significantly reduces the logistical burden of traditional large-scale testing and provides a method of deployable point-of-care diagnostics to increase testing frequency.

scholarly journals Strategizing COVID-19 lockdowns using mobility patterns

2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (12) ◽  
Author(s):  
Olha Buchel ◽  
Anton Ninkov ◽  
Danise Cathel ◽  
Yaneer Bar-Yam ◽  
Leila Hedayatifar
Keyword(s):  
High Risk ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Contact Tracing ◽  
Mobility Patterns ◽  
Multi Scale ◽  
Community Mobility ◽  
Natural Break ◽  
Risk Areas ◽  
Break Points ◽  
Border Controls

During the COVID-19 pandemic, governments have attempted to control infections within their territories by implementing border controls and lockdowns. While large-scale quarantine has been the most successful short-term policy, the enormous costs exerted by lockdowns over long periods are unsustainable. As such, developing more flexible policies that limit transmission without requiring large-scale quarantine is an urgent priority. Here, the dynamics of dismantled community mobility structures within US society during the COVID-19 outbreak are analysed by applying the Louvain method with modularity optimization to weekly datasets of mobile device locations. Our networks are built based on individuals' movements from February to May 2020. In a multi-scale community detection process using the locations of confirmed cases, natural break points from mobility patterns as well as high risk areas for contagion are identified at three scales. Deviations from administrative boundaries were observed in detected communities, indicating that policies informed by assumptions of disease containment within administrative boundaries do not account for high risk patterns of movement across and through these boundaries. We have designed a multi-level quarantine process that takes these deviations into account based on the heterogeneity in mobility patterns. For communities with high numbers of confirmed cases, contact tracing and associated quarantine policies informed by underlying dismantled community mobility structures is of increasing importance.

scholarly journals Screening High-Risk Groups and the General Population for SARS-CoV-2 Nucleic Acids in a Mobile Biosafety Laboratory

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zhimin Guo ◽  
Lin Li ◽  
Yuanyuan Song ◽  
Jiancheng Xu ◽  
Jing Huang
Keyword(s):  
High Risk ◽  
General Population ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
High Mobility ◽  
Risk Groups ◽  
Remote Areas ◽  
Staff Members ◽  
Large Scale Testing ◽  
Exposure Risks ◽  
Mixed Samples

The Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) pandemic has challenged public health systems worldwide. Therefore, large-scale testing capacity is extremely important diagnosis and exclusion diagnosis. However, fixed laboratories are limited or far away from remote areas. Fortunately, MBS-Lab is characterized by high mobility and rapid on-site detection of SARS-CoV-2 nucleic acid. MBS-Lab was first used in northern Australia during a melioidosis outbreak in 1997. The MBS-Lab and a well-trained diagnostic team were dispatched to Dongchang District, Tonghua City, Jilin Province, China to assist the SARS-CoV-2 virus screening and diagnosis on January 17, 2021. Altogether, 93,952 oropharyngeal swabs samples were collected and tested among the high-risk groups and the general population in Dongchang District. Two single samples were identified as positive in the second turn screening. In the second turn screening, 3 mixed samples (10 in 1) were identified as positive; 10 mixed samples were identified as positive in the third turn screening. By resampling again, one and four cases were identified as positive, respectively. The positive cases were properly isolated and treated in hospital and avoided to visit family members, friends, colleagues and any other persons. Through this way of large-scale screening, human-human spread of SARS-CoV-2 can be effectively avoided. In addition, all staff members strictly executed multiple safety precautions and reduce exposure risks. In the end, none of the staffs was infected with SARS-CoV-2 virus or other pathogens. As an emergency facility for infectious disease control, the MBS-Lab satisfies the requirements of ports and other remote areas far from fixed laboratories and supplements the capabilities of fixed laboratories.

Global production network dis/articulations in Zanzibar: practices and conjunctures of exclusionary development in the tourism industry

2019 ◽  
Vol 19 (4) ◽  
pp. 943-971 ◽  
Author(s):  
James T Murphy
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
Tourism Industry ◽  
Structural Factors ◽  
Production Network ◽  
Production Networks ◽  
Global Production Networks ◽  
Development Outcomes ◽  
Context Specific ◽  
Global Production Network ◽  
Political Economic

Abstract Recent assessments of economic geographers’ work on global production stress the need for improved understandings of the immanent, structural and contingent drivers of disarticulations—uneven and exclusionary development outcomes that often occur when places become connected to global production networks (GPN). Some argue that a productive approach is to view the places or regions linked to GPN as ‘conjunctures’ of context-specific and multi-scalar processes, social formations, power relations, histories and structures that shape the quality of GPN couplings and help to produce disarticulations. This article argues that an epistemological focus on the practices of firms connected to GPN can yield insights into industry-specific processes (e.g. value creation, upgrading) and region- or place-specific conjunctural factors that produce disarticulations. The approach is elaborated on and applied illustratively to the case of Zanzibar’s (Tanzania) tourism industry, a sector that has grown rapidly but in a manner that has excluded many of the archipelago’s residents from the benefits of increasing integration into GPN. The practices of Zanzibari enterprises and foreign-owned resorts show how local enterprises are increasingly marginal in tourism GPN, while large-scale resorts and non-local firms capture and subsequently offshore much of the value generated by the industry. A qualitative analysis of these practices highlights how they are shaped in part by the conjuncture of several structural factors and processes—political, economic, racial and technological—that help to produce disarticulations in Zanzibar.

scholarly journals Countrywide population movement monitoring using mobile devices generated (big) data during the COVID-19 crisis

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Miklos Szocska ◽  
Peter Pollner ◽  
Istvan Schiszler ◽  
Tamas Joo ◽  
Tamas Palicz ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Mobile Phones ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
National Level ◽  
Contact Tracing ◽  
Population Movement ◽  
School Closures ◽  
Practical Applications ◽  
Mobility Data ◽  
Almost All ◽  
The Impact

AbstractMobile phones have been used to monitor mobility changes during the COVID-19 pandemic but surprisingly few studies addressed in detail the implementation of practical applications involving whole populations. We report a method of generating a “mobility-index” and a “stay-at-home/resting-index” based on aggregated anonymous Call Detail Records of almost all subscribers in Hungary, which tracks all phones, examining their strengths and weaknesses, comparing it with Community Mobility Reports from Google, limited to smartphone data. The impact of policy changes, such as school closures, could be identified with sufficient granularity to capture a rush to shops prior to imposition of restrictions. Anecdotal reports of large scale movement of Hungarians to holiday homes were confirmed. At the national level, our results correlated well with Google mobility data, but there were some differences at weekends and national holidays, which can be explained by methodological differences. Mobile phones offer a means to analyse population movement but there are several technical and privacy issues. Overcoming these, our method is a practical and inexpensive way forward, achieving high levels of accuracy and resolution, especially where uptake of smartphones is modest, although it is not an alternative to smartphone-based solutions used for contact tracing and quarantine monitoring.

Is economic inequality a universal evil?

2019 ◽  
pp. 91-106 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rostislav I. Kapeliushnikov
Keyword(s):  
Quantitative Data ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Economic Inequality ◽  
The State ◽  
Fair Play ◽  
Left Wing ◽  
Ordinary People ◽  
The Public ◽  
Discursive Power ◽  
A Current

Using published estimates of inequality for two countries (Russia and USA) the paper demonstrates that inequality measuring still remains in the state of “statistical cacophony”. Under this condition, it seems at least untimely to pass categorical normative judgments and offer radical political advice for governments. Moreover, the mere practice to draw normative conclusions from quantitative data is ethically invalid since ordinary people (non-intellectuals) tend to evaluate wealth and incomes as admissible or inadmissible not on the basis of their size but basing on whether they were obtained under observance or violations of the rules of “fair play”. The paper concludes that a current large-scale ideological campaign of “struggle against inequality” has been unleashed by left-wing intellectuals in order to strengthen even more their discursive power over the public.

Social inequality in the evolution of human societies

2019 ◽  
pp. 98-120
Author(s):  
Georgi Derluguian
Keyword(s):  
Social Inequality ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Mass Violence ◽  
Public And Private ◽  
Tangible Assets ◽  
Transition To Agriculture ◽  
New Institutions ◽  
High Level ◽  
Political Economic

The author develops ideas about the origin of social inequality during the evolution of human societies and reflects on the possibilities of its overcoming. What makes human beings different from other primates is a high level of egalitarianism and altruism, which contributed to more successful adaptability of human collectives at early stages of the development of society. The transition to agriculture, coupled with substantially increasing population density, was marked by the emergence and institutionalisation of social inequality based on the inequality of tangible assets and symbolic wealth. Then, new institutions of warfare came into existence, and they were aimed at conquering and enslaving the neighbours engaged in productive labour. While exercising control over nature, people also established and strengthened their power over other people. Chiefdom as a new type of polity came into being. Elementary forms of power (political, economic and ideological) served as a basis for the formation of early states. The societies in those states were characterised by social inequality and cruelties, including slavery, mass violence and numerous victims. Nowadays, the old elementary forms of power that are inherent in personalistic chiefdom are still functioning along with modern institutions of public and private bureaucracy. This constitutes the key contradiction of our time, which is the juxtaposition of individual despotic power and public infrastructural one. However, society is evolving towards an ever more efficient combination of social initiatives with the sustainability and viability of large-scale organisations.

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