scholarly journals The health policy response to COVID-19 in Malawi

2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (5) ◽  
pp. e006035
Author(s):  
Grace W Mzumara ◽  
Marlen Chawani ◽  
Melody Sakala ◽  
Lily Mwandira ◽  
Elias Phiri ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Central Committee ◽  
International Travel ◽  
School Closures ◽  
Public Events ◽  
University Of Oxford ◽  
Head Of State ◽  
Social Cash Transfers ◽  
Policy Direction ◽  
The University ◽  
National Disaster

Malawi declared a state of national disaster due to the COVID-19 pandemic on 20th March 2020 and registered its first confirmed coronavirus case on the 2 April 2020. The aim of this paper was to document policy decisions made in response to the COVID-19 pandemic from January to August 2020. We reviewed policy documents from the Public Health Institute of Malawi, the Malawi Gazette, the Malawi Ministry of Health and Population and the University of Oxford Coronavirus Government Response Tracker. We found that the Malawi response to the COVID-19 pandemic was multisectoral and implemented through 15 focused working groups termed clusters. Each cluster was charged with providing policy direction in their own area of focus. All clusters then fed into one central committee for major decisions and reporting to head of state. Key policies identified during the review include international travel ban, school closures at all levels, cancellation of public events, decongesting workplaces and public transport, and mandatory face coverings and a testing policy covering symptomatic people. Supportive interventions included risk communication and community engagement in multiple languages and over a variety of mediums, efforts to improve access to water, sanitation, nutrition and unconditional social-cash transfers for poor urban and rural households.

scholarly journals Which COVID policies are most effective? A Bayesian analysis of COVID-19 by jurisdiction

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Phebo Wibbens ◽  
Wesley Wu-Yi Koo ◽  
Anita M. McGahan
Keyword(s):  
Growth Rate ◽  
Bayesian Analysis ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Control Strategies ◽  
Relative Effectiveness ◽  
International Travel ◽  
School Closures ◽  
Information Campaigns ◽  
Public Events ◽  
At Home

AbstractThis paper reports the results of a Bayesian analysis on large-scale empirical data to assess the effectiveness of eleven types of COVID-control policies that have been implemented at various levels of intensity in 40 countries and U.S. states since the onset of the pandemic. The analysis estimates the marginal impact of each type and level of policy as implemented in concert with other policies. The purpose is to provide policymakers and the general public with an estimate of the relative effectiveness of various COVID-control strategies. We find that a set of widely implemented core policies reduces the spread of virus but not by enough to contain the pandemic except in a few highly compliant jurisdictions. The core policies include the cancellation of public events, restriction of gatherings to fewer than 100 people, recommendation to stay at home, recommended restrictions on internal movement, implementation of a partial international travel ban, and coordination of information campaigns. For the median jurisdiction, these policies reduce growth rate in new infections from an estimated 270% per week to approximately 49% per week, but this impact is insufficient to prevent eventual transmission throughout the population because containment occurs only when a jurisdiction reduces growth in COVID infection to below zero. Most jurisdictions must also implement additional policies, each of which has the potential to reduce weekly COVID growth rate by 10 percentage points or more. The slate of these additional high-impact policies includes targeted or full workplace closings for all but essential workers, stay-at-home requirements, and targeted school closures.

scholarly journals Which COVID policies are most effective? A Bayesian analysis of COVID-19 by jurisdiction

PLoS ONE ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 15 (12) ◽  
pp. e0244177
Author(s):  
Phebo D. Wibbens ◽  
Wesley Wu-Yi Koo ◽  
Anita M. McGahan
Keyword(s):  
Growth Rate ◽  
Bayesian Analysis ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Control Strategies ◽  
Relative Effectiveness ◽  
International Travel ◽  
School Closures ◽  
Information Campaigns ◽  
Public Events ◽  
At Home

This paper reports the results of a Bayesian analysis on large-scale empirical data to assess the effectiveness of eleven types of COVID-control policies that have been implemented at various levels of intensity in 40 countries and U.S. states since the onset of the pandemic. The analysis estimates the marginal impact of each type and level of policy as implemented in concert with other policies. The purpose is to provide policymakers and the general public with an estimate of the relative effectiveness of various COVID-control strategies. We find that a set of widely implemented core policies reduces the spread of virus but not by enough to contain the pandemic except in a few highly compliant jurisdictions. The core policies include the cancellation of public events, restriction of gatherings to fewer than 100 people, recommendation to stay at home, recommended restrictions on internal movement, implementation of a partial international travel ban, and coordination of information campaigns. For the median jurisdiction, these policies reduce growth rate in new infections from an estimated 270% per week to approximately 49% per week, but this impact is insufficient to prevent eventual transmission throughout the population because containment occurs only when a jurisdiction reduces growth in COVID infection to below zero. Most jurisdictions must also implement additional policies, each of which has the potential to reduce weekly COVID growth rate by 10 percentage points or more. The slate of these additional high-impact policies includes targeted or full workplace closings for all but essential workers, stay-at-home requirements, and targeted school closures.

Matthew Cheung Salisbury, Worship in Medieval England. Past Imperfect Series. Croydon: ARC Humanities Press, 2018, 92 pages.

Mediaevistik ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
pp. 315-318
Author(s):  
Jane Beal
Keyword(s):  
English Translation ◽  
Recent Book ◽  
Medieval England ◽  
Late Medieval ◽  
Cambridge University ◽  
Liturgical Studies ◽  
University Of Oxford ◽  
Medieval Church ◽  
Late Medieval England ◽  
The University

Matthew Cheung Salisbury, a Lecturer in Music at University and Worcester College, Oxford, and a member of the Faculty of Music at the University of Oxford, wrote this book for ARC Humanities Press’s Past Imperfect series (a series comparable to Oxford’s Very Short Introductions). Two of his recent, significant contributions to the field of medieval liturgical studies include The Secular Office in Late-Medieval England (Turnhout: Brepols, 2015) and, as editor and translator, Medieval Latin Liturgy in English Translation (Kalamazoo: Medieval Institute Publications, 2017). In keeping with the work of editors Thomas Heffernan and E. Ann Matter in The Liturgy of the Medieval Church, 2nd ed. (Kalamazoo: Medieval Institute Publications, 2005) and Richard W. Pfaff in The Liturgy of Medieval England: A History (Cambridge University Press, 2009), this most recent book provides a fascinating overview of the liturgy of the medieval church, specifically in England. Salisbury’s expertise is evident on every page.

The Oxford Group and the Emergence of Animal Rights

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Garner ◽  
Yewande Okuleye
Keyword(s):  
Animal Rights ◽  
Intellectual Development ◽  
Peter Singer ◽  
Animal Rights Movement ◽  
Friendship Group ◽  
University Of Oxford ◽  
Short Period ◽  
New Ideas ◽  
Oxford Group ◽  
The University

This book is an account of the life and times of a loose friendship group (later christened the Oxford Group) of ten people, primarily postgraduate philosophy students, who attended the University of Oxford for a short period of time from the late 1960s. The Oxford Group, which included—most notably—Peter Singer and Richard Ryder, set about thinking about, talking about, and promoting the idea of animal rights and vegetarianism. The group therefore played a role, largely undocumented and unacknowledged, in the emergence of the animal rights movement and the discipline of animal ethics. Most notably, the group produced an edited collection of articles published as Animals, Men and Morals in 1971 that was instrumental in one of their number—Peter Singer—writing Animal Liberation in 1975, a book that has had an extraordinary influence in the intervening years. The book serves as a case study of how the emergence of important work and the development of new ideas can be explained, and, in particular, how far the intellectual development of individuals is influenced by their participation in a creative community.

Dan Inman, The Making of English Theology: God and the Academy at Oxford (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2014). ISBN: 9781451469264

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Johannes Zachhuber
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Early Nineteenth Century ◽  
University Of Oxford ◽  
History Of ◽  
History Of The University ◽  
The University

This chapter reviews the book The Making of English Theology: God and the Academy at Oxford (2014). by Dan Inman. The book offers an account of a fascinating and little known episode in the history of the University of Oxford. It examines the history of Oxford’s Faculty of Theology from the early nineteenth century to the middle of the twentieth. In particular, it revisits the various attempts to tinker with theology at Oxford during this period and considers the fierce resistance of conservatives. Inman argues that Oxford’s idiosyncratic development deserves to be taken more seriously than it often has been, at least by historians of theology.

‘The Laughter of Satan’

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rosamund Oates
Keyword(s):  
Elizabeth I ◽  
University Of Oxford ◽  
The University ◽  
Established Church

This chapter explores the ideas at the heart of Puritanism, examining Tobie Matthew’s early radicalism. Using the controversies over vestments in 1564–6 and the visit of Elizabeth I to the University of Oxford in 1566, the chapter shows that the idea of ‘edification’ became a central principle of Puritanism. This chapter explores the spiritual demands of edifying reform and shows how it drove English Puritans into conflict with the monarch and the Established Church. It demonstrates that Matthew’s Puritanism was rooted in the experience of Marian exiles, and that he drew on their Calvinism and their resistance texts to justify his potentially seditious view of godly magistracy and rebellion.

Strenæ Natalitiæ

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
William Gibson
Keyword(s):  
Cross Section ◽  
University Of Oxford ◽  
Vice Chancellor ◽  
The University

This chapter looks at Strenæ Natalitiæ, a volume of poems produced by the University of Oxford to celebrate the events of the birth of the Prince of Wales in 1688. The University of Oxford's Strenæ Natalitiæ was a volume of over a hundred poems, with an obligatory introductory poem contributed by vice-chancellor Gilbert Ironside. The contibutors to Strenæ Natalitiæ were not simply a cross-section of the university's membership and poetic talent, but also of its politics. In some respects, youthful naivety might have been a cause of some of the authors' willingness to embrace the birth of James Edward, despite the anxiety felt by some of their fellow authors. Some of the verse was simple, and naïve in tone. Other verses were marked by a more mystical and prophetic tone. Ultimately, the verses in Strenæ Natalitiæ were predictable in their expressions of congratulation and celebration, though some also contained carefully muted expressions of equivocation.

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