scholarly journals Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the life of Bissau-Guinean religious (Quranic) schoolboys during a state of emergency: a qualitative study

2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. e001303
Author(s):  
Hamadou Boiro ◽  
Jónína Einarsdóttir ◽  
Geir Gunnlaugsson

BackgroundCOVID-19 is mainly a disease of adults but can affect vulnerable children indirectly through social containment measures. The study aimed to explore the impact of the pandemic on the lives of Quranic schoolboys, almudos, who beg on behalf of their teachers, chernos, in Guinea-Bissau.MethodsData were collected in July 2020 during a state of emergency. Data rest on semistructured interviews with 14 almudos and observations. The almudos, aged 12–16 years, were identified in the capital Bissau and the regional centre Gabú.ResultsFour interconnected themes were found. The first, hardship, was brought by the COVID-19 pandemic and caused by lockdown and police threats, resulting in a decrease in alms and hunger. The second, circumvention of calamity, included preventive measures the boys undertook and concerns with crowdedness impeding social distancing. Relations with others is the third theme. These had changed with sharply reduced contacts with neighbours and other providers of alms. The parents had more frequent telephone contact with their sons, and encouraged them to continue their studies. At the same time, the chernos and almudos passed more time together, and they dedicated more time than earlier to the studies and prayers. The fourth theme has to do with the boys’ concerns about their long-term aspirations—to complete their studies and become respected chernos, for which begging was seen as an integral part.ConclusionThe almudos suffered from decreased alms, resulting in hunger. COVID-19 was only an additional burden to the boys, who are used to facing challenges while begging to complete their religious education. According to the Convention on the Rights of the Child, children have a right to develop their capabilities in line with their future aspirations. Governments and child rights organisations need to address the specific needs of almudos in respectful collaboration with them, their parents, the chernos and their communities.

2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Asier Minondo

Purpose This paper aims to analyze the impact of COVID-19 on the trade of goods and services in Spain. Design/methodology/approach This paper uses monthly trade data at the product, region and firm level. Findings The COVID-19 crisis has led to the sharpest collapse in the Spanish trade of goods and services in recent decades. The containment measures adopted to arrest the spread of the virus have caused an especially intense fall of trade in services. The large share of transport equipment, capital goods, products that are consumed outdoors (i.e., outdoor goods) and tourism in Spanish exports has made the COVID-19 trade crisis more intense in Spain than in the rest of the European Union. Practical implications The nature of the collapse suggests that trade in goods can recover swiftly when the health crisis ends. However, COVID-19 may have a long-term negative impact on the trade of services that rely on the movement of people. Originality/value It contributes to understand how COVID-19 has affected the trade in goods and services in Spain.


2022 ◽  
pp. 185-202
Author(s):  
Ana Paula Lopes

As the COVID-19 pandemic has spread across the world, the existence of disruptions in demand and supply have become more severe, conducted by containment measures taken by countries and affecting different sectors around the world. Although businesses and workplaces are restarting activities in some countries, with containment measures gradually being lifted, overall consumer demand is expected to remain low, also determined by the loss of jobs and income. Therefore, the scale of the impact on supply chains exceeded anything most companies had anticipated. This study aims to understand how companies were affected and identify some lessons learned about their vulnerabilities and the possible ways to address them in the long term. On the other hand, it is intended to reveal some of the impacts of COVID-19 and make some practical suggestions that can help in political and operational decisions to strengthen and build additional resilience in supply chains in the future.


2015 ◽  
Vol 2015 ◽  
pp. 1-8 ◽  
Author(s):  
Benjamin Musser ◽  
Joanne Wilkinson ◽  
Thomas Gilbert ◽  
Barbara G. Bokhour

Background. Stroke survivors with aphasia experience difficulty associated with their communication disorder. While much has been written about aphasia’s impacts on partners/family, we lack data regarding the psychosocial adjustment of aphasic stroke survivors, with a paucity of data from the patients themselves. Methods. Qualitative study of lived experiences of individuals with poststroke aphasia. Each of the stroke survivors with aphasia completed 3-4 semistructured interviews. In most cases, patients’ partners jointly participated in interviews, which were transcribed and analyzed using techniques derived from grounded theory. Results. 12 patients were interviewed, with the total of 45 interviews over 18 months. Themes included poststroke changes in patients’ relationships and identities, which were altered across several domains including occupational identity, relationship and family roles, and social identity. While all these domains were impacted by aphasia, the impact varied over time. Conclusion. Despite the challenges of interviewing individuals with aphasia, we explored aphasia’s impacts on how individuals experience their identity and develop new identities months and years after stroke. This data has important implications for primary care of patients with aphasia, including the importance of the long-term primary care relationship in supporting psychosocial adjustment to life after aphasic stroke.


2021 ◽  
Vol 1 ◽  
pp. 57
Author(s):  
Diana Süsser ◽  
Andrzej Ceglarz ◽  
Vassilis Stavrakas ◽  
Johan Lilliestam

The coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has affected societies and economies around the world, and the scientific community is no exception. Whereas the importance of stakeholder engagement in research has grown quickly the consequences of the pandemic on this has so far not been empirically studied. In this paper, we investigate the effects of the COVID-19 crisis on European energy research, in particular the stakeholder work, during the first wave of the coronavirus in spring and summer 2020. We pose the research questions: (i) How much of a problem are the coronavirus containment measures for stakeholder engagement? (ii) How have researchers coped with the situation, and (iii) How do they evaluate alternative stakeholder activities implemented? We conducted an online survey among European energy research projects with stakeholder engagement between June and August 2020. We found that only one of six engagement activities could be implemented as planned, whereas almost half were cancelled or delayed. The most common coping strategies were changing involvement formats – mainly to webinars or online workshops – or postponement. Whereas respondents are largely satisfied with one-to-one and unidirectional online formats, such as webinars, online interviews, and online surveys, they see interactive group activities as less suitable for online engagement. Most respondents plan to continue using online formats to complement, but not to replace, physical meetings in future research. All long-term effects remain to be seen, but given the postponement of many stakeholder involvement activities, many projects may face problems at later stages of their realisation. These findings suggest that the pandemic may have catalysed a rapid introduction of specific online formats in academic stakeholder interaction processes.


Author(s):  
Sarah Ciotti ◽  
Shannon Moore ◽  
Maureen Connolly ◽  
Trent Newmeyer

The COVID-19 global pandemic highlights pre-existing inequities as well as the challenge of ensuring the protection of children’s human rights in countries like Canada that have ratified the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. SARS-CoV-2, referred to as the 2019 novel Coronavirus disease or COVID-19, presents a significant threat to public health. Although children are considered to be low risk of contracting, spreading, and serious complications of the disease, are considerably impacted by COVID-19 government-sanctioned distancing measures. COVID-19 is a persistent public health threat, thus, the long-term consequences are largely unknown. This qualitative research study, a content analysis of online Canadian media reports of COVID-19 and children, engaged transdisciplinary social justice methodology, social constructions of childhood at the intersection of race, socio-economic status, gender, and disability. The findings suggest COVID-19 reinforces the impact of social exclusion and economic disparity on equity-seeking young people and families in Canada.


Author(s):  
Najat Maalla M’jid

Abstract More than 1 billion children are exposed to violence every year. The devastating immediate and long-term impact of violence on the mental health of children is well established. Despite commitments made by the international community to end violence against children and support their mental health, there has been a serious lack of investment and capacity to provide quality, rights-based, culturally appropriate mental health care globally. The arrival of the COVID-19 pandemic has magnified these challenges. This article outlines how the risk of children experiencing violence has increased and how the pandemic has weakened the capacity of child protection and mental health services to respond. The article argues for child protection, mental health and other core services to be prioritized during and after the pandemic. A failure to do so will undermine the international community’s ability to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals by 2030 and to fulfil its obligations under the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.


2021 ◽  
Vol 2021 (April) ◽  
pp. 1-20
Author(s):  
Gillian Maudsley

Research about problem-based learning (PBL) tutoring in medicine has prioritized quantifying relationships between tutor characteristics or learning environment and tutoring behaviour or student outcomes. Longitudinal studies and qualitative research about how such tutors conceptualize their long-term experience are rare. The research question was thus: What educator outlooks do inaugural PBL tutors develop after substantial experience in a problem-based medical curriculum? At16 year-follow-up of interviews with an inaugural cohort of PBL tutors, semistructured interviews with the remaining ten explored their outlooks as educators now versus then. Two years later, an open-ended e-questionnaire (E-interview) reviewed their outlooks, particularly about the curriculum being replaced. Tutors viewed their role now through a more discerning, reflective, and constructivist ‘good educator’ lens. They articulated principles for facilitating active learning. When that curriculum was replaced, tutors were positive about its legacy but also lamented flawed educational governance for maintaining and renewing whole-system integrity. Educator development should prompt critical reflection about ‘the good educator’ identity, the related enthusiasms, discomforts, and uncertainties, and the impact of curriculum shifts.


Author(s):  
Hajar BADA ◽  
Mohamed LAHKIM ◽  
Ahmed BELMOUDEN ◽  
Nadia El Kadmiri

In order to respond to climate change, the Chinese government has committed to reduce the intensity of its national GHG emissions by 2020. In contrast to expectations, this year has seen an unexpected tragedy in the form of the corona virus epidemic. This virus, which belongs to the SARS-COV-2 family, has created a global turmoil and led to a record number of infections and deaths. In this situation, China took refuge as the first country to announce the appearance of the virus, resorted to quarantine in the absence of a vaccine against the virus, declared a state of emergency and then led to the shutdown of the Chinese economy. With the increase in the number of infections and deaths several study had analyzing the connection between economic growth and covid-19 or public health and covid-19, while this paper focuses on the impact of COVID-19 on air quality, specifically the concentration of GHGs in the air resulting from industrial activities by comparing GHGs emissions in 2020 and previous years on the one hand, on the other hand, by analyzing the difference between the annual number of deaths caused by pollution and those caused by the virus. This mini review highlights the effect of long-term exposure to pollutants and the high risk of infection by the virus, China is taken as a case study, which evaluates the impact of COVID-19 on the environment.


2020 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 106-120
Author(s):  
Iwona A. Bielska ◽  
Derek R. Manis ◽  
Connie Schumacher ◽  
Emily Moore ◽  
Kaitlin Lewis ◽  
...  

The first positive case of COVID-19 in Canada was reported on January 25, 2020, in the city of Toronto, Ontario. Over the following four months, the number of individuals diagnosed with COVID-19 in Ontario grew to 28,263 cases. A state of emergency was announced by the Premier of Ontario on March 17, 2020, and the provincial health care system prepared for a predicted surge of COVID-19 patients requiring hospitalization. The Chief Medical Officer of Health and the Minister of Health guided the changes in the system in response to the evolving needs and science related to COVID-19. The pandemic required a rapid, concerted, and coordinated effort from all sectors of the system to optimize and maximize the capacity of the health system. The response to the pandemic in Ontario was complex with some sectors experiencing multiple outbreaks of COVID-19 (i.e. long-term care homes and hospitals). Notably, numerous sectors shifted to virtual delivery of care. By the end of May 2020, it was announced that hospitals would gradually resume postponed or cancelled services. This paper explores the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on multiple health system sectors (i.e., public health, primary care, long-term care, emergency medical services, and hospitals) in Ontario from January to May 2020. Given the scope of the sectors contributing to the health system in Ontario, this analysis of a regional response to COVID-19 provides insight on how to improve responses and better prepare for future health emergencies.


2016 ◽  
Vol 35 (1) ◽  
pp. 33-43 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ann-Katrin Nordblom ◽  
Anders Broström ◽  
Bengt Fridlund

Purpose: To describe the impact of episodes of supraventricular tachycardia (SVT) on a person’s daily life from a holistic perspective. Method: A deductive descriptive design was used. Twenty semistructured interviews (12 women and 8 men) were conducted before planned ablation of SVT and were analyzed using qualitative content analysis. Results: Living with SVT had a complex impact on daily life. Initially, the patients described an inhibited existence due to demands to give up things that they had previously been doing, in case the unpredictable episodes of SVT would occur. The episodes caused fatigue and worry, which together created a barrier for living life to the full by making the person give up undertakings. The patients constantly needed to find short-term and long-term strategies to prevent new episodes from happening. Conclusion: Episodes of SVT entail a complex life situation as the person’s entire existence is affected in daily life. To understand the impact of SVT on daily life, nurses and other health care professionals need increased knowledge and understanding to be able to provide support through relevant information and take optimal care measures.


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