Public Perceptions of Local Parks and Recreation as an Essential Community Service During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Local residents are the primary stakeholder for municipal parks and recreation who have the potential to influence funding and policy through their participation, voting, and advocacy. Research has suggested that individuals are more likely to support parks and recreation and view them as essential when they perceive they provide benefits that address their own as well as broader community needs. This panel study investigated Pennsylvania residents and the extent they considered parks and recreation an essential community service during the COVID-19 pandemic. It further assessed the rationale for why parks and recreation were considered either essential or non-essential during this time period. A majority of respondents (54%) felt local parks and recreation were an essential service in their community during the pandemic based primarily on their perceived contributions to physical health, mental health and wellbeing, and the safe provision of recreation opportunities. Conversely, parks and recreation were considered non-essential when they had been closed, when individuals were unsure of what services were actually provided during the pandemic, or they were perceived as unsafe or unsanitary given the presence of COVID-19. Findings provide evidence of the contributions provided by local parks and recreation during the COVID-19 pandemic and suggest influenceable factors associated with perceptions of whether parks and recreation are an essential community service.

Urban mobility and the impacts caused by Covid-19

This pandemic portrayed the country's social and economic inequality in terms of health services, work and social distancing. It was found that the spread of Covid-19 on a global scale is favored by the circulation of infected people and/or objects; changing the circulation in many land and air borders that needed to have restricted and/or closed accesses, including, the reduction and even the suspension of travels inside and outside countries, whose displacements are by road, rail, river and sea. In view of this, the search for measures to face the pandemic within the various socio-economic contexts, such as in this case of urban mobility, for example, the occupancy limit of 50% of seats in intercity transport and the mandatory use of masks. Urban mobility permeates as a social right and essential service, which needs to continue to function with due health care. It is necessary to maintain social distance and take due care. For the country to remain in this confrontation, it is necessary to guarantee democratic access to the city, together with measures to protect social actors from contamination by the New Coronavirus.

On A Single Server Queue with Two-Stage First Essential Service Followed by One of the Two Types of Additional Optional Service and Optional Deterministic Server Vacations

We study the steady state behavior of a batch arrival single server queue in which the first service consisting of two stages with general service times G1 and G2 is compulsory. After completion of the two stages of the first essential service, a customer has the option of choosing one of the two types of additional service with respective general service times G1 and G2 . Just after completing both stages of first essential service with or without one of the two types of additional optional service, the server has the choice of taking an optional deterministic vacation of fixed (constant) length of time. We obtain steady state probability generating functions for the queue size for various states of the system at a random epoch of time in explicit and closed forms. The steady state results of some interesting special cases have been derived from the main results.

“It’s Pure Chaos Every Day”: COVID-19 and the work of Canadian federal institutional parole officers

As the Canadian federal correctional system grappled with the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, institutional parole officers, who play a central role in prisoners’ case management team, remained essential service providers. Working in uncertain circumstances, these correctional workers navigated new and rapidly changing protocols and risks, while attempting to continue to provide support to those on their caseloads. Based on semi-structured interviews with 96 institutional parole officers, conducted after Canada’s “first wave” of COVID-19 infections, we analyze three ways in which their work was impacted by the pandemic: shifting workloads, routines, and responsibilities; increased workloads due to decarceration (i.e., efforts to reduce the number of incarcerated individuals); and the navigation of new forms of risk and uncertainty. This study advances the understanding of stress and risk in probation and parole work and presents recommendations to ameliorate the occupational stresses experienced by correctional workers during and beyond COVID-19.

Small non-essential service companies in Brazil in times of pandemic

This study aimed to investigate the consequences of the (in)existence of emergency reserve for small non-essential service business in the city of Paranaguá, PR./Brazil. The survey was submitted to the managers of companies with more than 03 (three) years in the market, taking into account 02 (two) categories of analysis: emergency financial reserve and impacts of the Covid 19 pandemic. For data analysis, Bardin content analysis technique was used. The study revealed that during the pandemic period, companies had to adapt their way of working because of the crisis. In addition, the importance of using controls and financial indicators to better manage the business and the use of the emergency financial reserve as a survival strategy was highlighted.

Adult Day Services as an Essential Service and Support

Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, the significant challenges and gaps related to the care of older people in the U.S. were made distressingly apparent. This summary presentation will consider the effects of COVID-19 and associated shutdowns on older persons who use ADS programs, their family caregivers, and programs/staff themselves. Among recommendations to consider are the classification of adult day services and similar community-based long-term care providers as essential (and clarifying their difference from senior centers). In addition, considering new financing approaches and utilizing ADS or similar community-based programs as incubators of evidence-based innovation are options to consider to better align ADS with optimal dementia care.

‘Norwegian-Somalis are best suited to inform Norwegian-Somalis’

The strategic contingency plans on all levels in Norway include references to possible needs for translating and adapting information flow into other languages. However, the situation at the grassroot level shows that these measures have not been considered an essential service. Valuable time passed during the first wave of COVID-19 until different public actors figured out their responsibilities and before the information was translated, adapted, and given, via appropriate media, to the beneficiaries. This article analyses actors and actions in eight online articles published by the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation, NRK, focusing on crisis communication, and linguistic diversity in Norway during the initial period of the COVID-19 pandemic (March–June 2020). The analysis shows that the pandemic becomes a magnifying glass on the society uncovering social challenges like lack of trust in the authorities, stigmatization, and social inequality.

Surviving a Pandemic: The Adaptability and Sustainability of Nonprofit Organizations through COVID-19

Like many other organizations in Canada and globally, nonprofit organizations have not been insulated from the negative effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. It has affected Canadian nonprofit organizations in numerous ways. This ranges from the effects of COVID-19 on the health of workers and clients to its effect on revenue. As predominantly essential service providers, nonprofit organizations have to find ways to continue operations during the COVID-19 pandemic to ensure that no one is left to fall through the cracks in an uncertain economy. RÉSUMÉ Comme bien d’autres organismes au Canada et dans le monde, les organismes sans but lucratif (OSBL) n’ont pas été épargnés par la pandémie du COVID-19. En effet, pour les OSBL canadiens, celle-ci a eu des incidences dans divers secteurs, allant de la santé des clients et employés jusqu’au revenu. Les OSBL, comme ils sont à toutes fins pratiques des fournisseurs de services essentiels, doivent trouver le moyen de continuer à fonctionner pendant la pandémie afin de s’assurer que personne ne soit oublié dans un contexte économique incertain.