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Persons with SARS-CoV2 can be contagious with few or no symptoms. They can infect others in private, during education or work without knowing it. Few so-called super-propagators can thus initiate clusters of infections and chains of transmission. Isolation of new cases and quarantine of their contacts (forward contact tracing) often does not uncover such situations. Adding detailed backward investigations of events and places with elevated risk of transmission can increase the identification of potentially infected persons. These can then be quarantined, and chains of transmission be interrupted. We describe the principles and challenges of cluster investigation, epidemiological methods and IT tools that we deve loped at the Centre for contact tracing, Vaud. Knowledge of this method is useful in general clinical practice during a pandemic.

Objective: As alcohol is often consumed for social purposes, we aimed to explore how restrictions during the first Danish COVID-19 lockdown affected the alcohol use among adolescents aged 15–20. Method: In May 2020, 11,596 15- to 20-year-olds from two subpopulations answered a survey regarding their alcohol use and social life, as well as changes to these, during the Danish lockdown. Using survey data from all participants, we performed a multinomial logistic regression to assess the association between determinants of alcohol use and perceived change in alcohol use during the Danish lockdown. We used longitudinal data from one subpopulation ( n=1869) to perform negative binomial regressions exploring changes in frequency of alcohol use from 2019 to 2020. Results: Of all participants, 59% drank less, 75% had fewer in-person social interactions and 56% met more frequently online during lockdown. Girls were more likely than boys to have a perceived decrease in alcohol use during lockdown (odds ratio (OR)=1.41; 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.27–1.56). A perceived decrease in in-person social interaction during lockdown was associated with less drinking (OR=2.27; 95% CI 1.98–2.61), while a perceived increase in in-person social interaction during lockdown was associated with more drinking (OR=1.42; 95% CI 1.11–1.82) compared to unchanged drinking behaviour and social interaction. Conclusions: Adolescents in Denmark drank less during the Danish lockdown than before. Findings indicate that there is a close relationship between in-person social interactions and frequency of drinking. Drinking episodes when meeting online were rare and were not unambiguously associated with changes in drinking during lockdown.

The approach of this chapter is polemical in nature, reflecting the very fluid situation that lies ahead for orchestras post COVID-19. The chapter has three main academic research objectives. First, to put the current debate in context, it looks at the key challenges that orchestras have faced since the turn of the last century and in what way COVID-19 posed new problems that impacted orchestral music. The second objective is to outline some special short-term measures introduced to mitigate the impact of COVID-19, namely: (i) the income-support measures needed to sustain orchestras; and (ii) the extent to which orchestras could come together and practice, and in fact perform, even if only in front of no or very limited live audiences. The third objective is to discuss what possibly lies ahead for live orchestral music, post-COVID-19, and in a rapidly changing world regarding technological advances in the production and consumption of orchestral music. To inform this discussion, some broad trends in the ‘consumption’ of orchestral music over time, particularly in terms of numbers attending live concerts and revenues from streamed concerts, are examined.

AbstractSince the beginning of the coronavirus disease (COVID)-19 pandemic, the need for effective treatments for COVID-19 led to the idea of “repurposing” drugs for antiviral treatment. Several antipsychotics and antidepressants have been tested for in vitro activity against the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2. Chlorpromazine, other phenothiazine antipsychotics, and the antidepressant fluoxetine were found to be rather potent in these studies. However, whether effective plasma concentrations can be obtained with clinically accepted doses of these drugs is not clear. Data of COVID-19 patients are not yet available but several clinical studies are currently underway.The specific serotonin reuptake inhibitor fluvoxamine is a potent Sigma-1 receptor agonist and reduces inflammation in animal models of cytokine-stress. Accordingly, fluvoxamine treatment was superior to placebo in reducing impaired respiratory function and other symptoms of inflammation in COVID-19 patients in a placebo-controlled clinical study and another open clinical trial. The beneficial effects of fluvoxamine on the course of COVID-19 were recently confirmed in a large placebo-controlled double-blind trial with several hundred patients.Inflammation represents a major risk factor for many psychiatric disorders which explains the high susceptibilitiy of COVID-19 patients for psychiatric diseases. Many antidepressants and antipsychotics possess anti-inflammatory properties independent of sigma-1 activity which might be important to reduce psychiatric symptoms of COVID-19 patients and to improve respiratory dysfunction and other consequences of inflammation. This might explain the rather unspecific benefit which has been reported for several cohorts of COVID-19 patients treated with different psychotropic drugs.

This paper analyzes single and two-wave COVID-19 outbreaks using two novel hybrid models, which combine machine learning and statistical methods with Richards growth models, to simulate and forecast the spread of the infection. For this purpose, historical cumulative numbers of confirmed cases for three countries, including Iran, Italy, and Mexico, are used. The analysis of the Richards models shows that its single-stage form can model the cumulative number of infections in countries with a single wave of outbreak (Italy and Mexico) accurately while its performance deteriorates for countries with two-wave outbreaks (Iran), which clarifies the requirement of multi-stage Richards models. The results of multi-stage Richards models reveal that the prevention of the second wave could reduce the outbreak size in Iran by approximately 400,000 cases, and the pandemic could be controlled almost 7 months earlier. Although the cumulative size of outbreak is estimated accurately using multi-stage Richards models, the results show that these models cannot forecast the daily number of cases, which are important for health systems’ planning. Therefore, two novel hybrid models, including autoregressive integrated moving average (ARIMA)-Richards and nonlinear autoregressive neural network (NAR)-Richards, are proposed. The accuracy of these models in forecasting the number of daily cases for 14 days ahead is calculated using the test data set shows that forecast error ranges from 8 to 25%. A comparison between these hybrid models also shows that the machine learning-based models have superior performance compared with statistical-based ones and on average are 20% more accurate.

In this article we discuss the findings of contributions to the special issue titled Social policy responses to COVID-19. The articles add to the body of emerging evidence on how the pandemic has exacerbated the situation for some already vulnerable population groups, while also creating new sources of vulnerability affecting different groups. Despite both aggravated and new vulnerabilities, the articles demonstrate how governments have largely responded within the frameworks of their existing systems and institutions. Hence, overall, we do not see major shifts in policy direction. At the same time, some innovative responses or efforts to reach different groups are apparent, and it may just be too early to identify more fundamental shifts. IOs can play a key role in supporting such potential reforms. However, although IOs called for global solidarity at the start of the pandemic, many countries have ‘gone in on themselves’ and governments have largely strengthened the national focus of their policies. The potential for IOs to provide strong leadership in the long-term is still conceivable. The crisis is global and with all the different measures countries have put in place, there is a wealth of experience that could be collected and shared and IOs are well placed to do this. Responding to the pandemic will continue to require a global social policy perspective.

Forskning i, hvordan stressfaktorer i forbindelse med udfordringer og hindringer påvirker performance, er vokset stærkt frem i litteraturen om organisatorisk stress. Vores forståelse af de mekanismer, som kan forklare disse effekter, er dog stadig begrænset. Denne artikelbaserede afhandling, som tager afsæt i udfordrings-/hindrings stressmodellen og transaktionsteori omkring stress, behandler i tre forskningsartikler spørgsmålet om, hvordan stressfaktorer påvirker performance ved at undersøge underliggende kognitive mekanismer og faktorer, som er relateret til disse effekter. Den første artikel har fokus på, hvordan udfordrings- og hindringsvurdering bidrager til vores forståelse af sammenhængen mellem stressfaktorer og performance. Artiklen præsenterer en oversigt over empiriske resultater, og stiller de studier, som måler vurderinger og de studier, der ikke tager vurderinger med i betragtning op overfor hinanden. Den konkluderer, at måling af vurderinger giver et mere detaljeret billede af sammenhængene mellem stressfaktorer og performancerelaterede resultater. Den anden artikel beskriver et præregistreret eksperimentelt studie, som har undersøgt virkningen af stressfaktorens styrke (opgavesværhedsgrad) på udfordrings-/hindringsvurderinger og performance af en krævende kognitiv opgave. Studiet fandt en ikke-lineære effekt af opgavesværhedsgrad på udfordringsvurderinger, mens effekten på hindringsvurderinger var lineær. Samtidig bekræfter det hindringsvurderingens medierende rolle i sammenhængen mellem opgavesværhedsgrad og performance. Den tredje artikel beskriver to studier. Studie 1 er et præregistreret eksperiment, som udforsker, hvilken rolle tidligere erfaringer og feedback spiller i det dynamiske stressforløb. Artiklen fokuserer især på, hvordan opgaveperformance, vist som en sideløbende performance feedback (dvs. simultan præsentation af opadgående social sammenligning og objektiv feedback) medierer ændringer i udfordrings- og hindringsvurderinger. Studie 1 underbygger delvist dets hypoteser om indirekte effekter. Studie 2 bygger på Studie 1 og anvender derudover eye-tracking til at undersøge sammenhængene mellem udfordrings-/hindringsvurderinger og opmærksomhed på de to nævnte aspekter af sideløbende feedback for at kaste lys på hvilke opmærksomhedsprocesser, der ligger bag de effekter, der blev fundet i Studie 1. Studie 2 er i øjeblikket i gang med dataindsamling og er ikke afsluttet på grund af COVID-19-inducerede restriktioner på laboratoriet. Denne afhandlings overordnede resultater anbefaler en gentænkning af den nuværende forståelsesramme for udfordrings-/hindrings stressmodellen ved at åbne for en mere kompleks konceptualisering af sammenhængen mellem stressfaktorer og performance i organisationer. Research on the effects of challenge and hindrance stressors on performance is burgeoning in organizational stress literature. Nevertheless, our understanding of the mechanisms explaining these effects is still limited. Grounded in the challenge-hindrance stressor framework and the transactional theory of stress, this article-based dissertation addresses the question of how stressors produce their effects on performance by investigating the underlying cognitive mechanisms and factors associated with these effects in three research papers. Specifically, to understand how challenge and hindrance appraisals contribute to our understanding of the stressor-performance link, the first paper presents a review of the empirical findings that contrasts the studies that measure appraisals with those that do not consider appraisals. It finds that measurement of appraisals offers more refined picture of the relationships between the stressors and performance-related outcomes. The second paper conducts a pre-registered experimental study to investigate the effects of the magnitude of a stressor (task difficulty) on challenge and hindrance appraisals and performance in a demanding cognitive task. It finds the non-linear effects of task difficulty on challenge appraisals, while the effects on hindrance appraisals were linear. In addition, it provides support for the mediating role of the hindrance appraisals in the task difficulty-performance relationships. The third paper consists of two studies. Study 1 carries out a pre-registered experiment to explore the role of prior experience and feedback in the dynamic stress process. Specifically, it examines how task performance, provided as in-task concurrent feedback, i.e., simultaneous presentation of upward social comparison and objective feedback, mediates change in challenge and hindrance appraisals. Study 1 finds partial support for the hypothesized effects. Study 2 examines the underlying effects found in Study 1 and employs eye-tracking to explore the associations between challenge and hindrance appraisals and attentional focus on the two elements of the in-task concurrent feedback to shed light on attentional processes. Study 2 is currently in the process of data collection and is not completed due to COVID-19 induced restrictions on the laboratory. The overall results of this dissertation encourage rethinking the existing state of the challenge-hindrance stressor framework by inviting a more complex conceptualization of the stressor-performance association in organizations.