This document describes the principles to consider when deliberating the implementation of mass vaccination campaigns for prevention of vaccine-preventable diseases and high impact diseases (VPD/HID), and when assessing risks and benefits of conducting outbreak-response vaccination campaigns to respond to VPD/HID outbreaks.
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Although infodemics are not a new phenomenon, the volume and rapid scale-up of facts, but also misinformation and disinformation, surrounding the COVID-19 outbreak are unprecedented.
Deeply concerned with the undermining consequences of the current infodemic to the COVID-19 response and acknowledging the great potential for improved risk communication through new tools, the WHO has called on key stakeholders and the global community to commit to undertaking the actions in this article.
Source: Call for Action: Managing the Infodemic
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The authors globally evaluate the effect of social media and online foreign disinformation campaigns on vaccination rates and attitudes towards vaccine safety.
The study found that the use of social media to organise offline action is highly predictive of the belief that vaccinations are unsafe, with such beliefs mounting as more organization occurs on social media. In addition, the prevalence of foreign disinformation is highly statistically and substantively significant in predicting a drop in mean vaccination coverage over time.
Source: Social Media and Vaccine Hesitancy
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Following the outbreak of COVID-19, the World Health Organization made a number of recommendations regarding the utilisation of healthcare services. In general, there has been a reduction in elective healthcare services including outpatient clinics, diagnostic services and elective surgery.
Inevitably these reductions for all but the most urgent clinical work will have a detrimental impact on patients, and alternative ways of working including the use of telemedicine may help to mitigate this. Similarly, electronic solutions may enable clinicians to maintain inter and intra-professional working in both clinical and academic settings. Implementation of electronic solutions to minimise direct patient contact will be new to many clinicians, and the sheer number of software solutions available and varying functionality may be overwhelming to anyone unfamiliar with ‘virtual communication’.
In this article, we will aim to summarise the variety of electronic communication platforms and tools available for clinicians and patients, detailing their utility, pros and cons, and some ‘tips and tricks’ from our experience through our work as an international research collaborative.
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The UN World Health Organization (WHO) on Tuesday, December 8, 2020, announced the start of a year-long global campaign to help people quit tobacco, with millions citing the threat of COVID-19 as a new incentive to give up the habit.
Source: New WHO Campaign to Help COVID-era Quitters Kick the Habit
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A recent report by researchers from Northeastern University and elsewhere found that the number of Americans heeding most recommendations has dropped steadily since April. (Mask-wearing, which has increased, was an exception.)
This article relates several instances of intended audiences practicing appropriate behavior when they believe others are doing the same thing, i.e., adhering to social norms. What one believes others are doing influences our actions, but so does what we imagine they view as acceptable.
Source: We Know How to Curb the Pandemic. How Do We Make People Listen?
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This page offers advice on going out of the home during the time of COVID-19.
The following guidelines are offered:
Source: Daily Activities and Going Out
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This article discusses five ways in which an individual or workplace can ensure that there is proper ventilation in order to lessen the chances of people becoming infected with COVID-19.
The five suggestions are:
Source: COVID-19: Five Ways to Avoid Catching the Virus Indoors
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This is a framework organized around four questions to address the ethical, conceptual, and methodological challenges that are affecting programmatic evaluation work during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The questions are:
Source: Adapting Evaluation Designs in Times of COVID-19 (Coronavirus): Four Questions to Guide Decisions
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One cultural response to the disruption and uncertainty during an infectious disease outbreak is the construction of what is sometimes called the “outbreak narrative”, a formulaic plot that serves to shape our collective understanding of a pandemic.
This narrative traces the emergence and spread of a novel pathogen and the scientific, social, and political responses to the outbreak. In doing so, the outbreak narrative emphasises the breakdown of boundaries, the sites of infection, the social interactions that are disrupted and enacted, and the efforts of science to contain the spread and find a cure. In our increasingly visual society, images are a vital component of the outbreak narrative and more broadly contribute to the visual culture of contagion.
Comics, as both a visual medium and cultural product, are important contributions to the visual culture of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Source: COVID-19, Comics, and the Visual Culture of Contagion
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