# pos

id: cord-300037-gtfx5cp4
pos: NNP
token:
  https://www.china-briefing.com/news/china-extends-lunar-new-year-holiday-february-2-shanghai-february

lemma:
  https://www.china-briefing.com/news/china-extends-lunar-new-year-holiday-february-2-shanghai-february


id: cord-300037-gtfx5cp4
pos: NN
token:
  https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/community/large-events/mass-gatherings-ready-for-covid-19.html

lemma:
  https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/community/large-events/mass-gatherings-ready-for-covid-19.html


id: cord-300037-gtfx5cp4
pos: NNP
token:
  https://appropriations.house.gov/sites/democrats.appropriations.house.gov/files/Families%20First%20summary.pdf

lemma:
  https://appropriations.house.gov/sites/democrats.appropriations.house.gov/files/Families%20First%20summary.pdf


# ent

id: cord-034270-0fcac9aw
type: ORG
entity:
  Change Geneva International Organization for Migration World Health Organization 60th Assembly Resolution


id: cord-034270-0fcac9aw
type: ORG
entity:
  Thailand Nonthaburi Thailand Health Insurance System Research Office Health Systems Research Institute


id: cord-021165-3gopftv1
type: ORG
entity:
  the Ministry of Health Welfare National Health Insurance Service Health Insurance Review Assessment Service


id: cord-017315-3mxkfvvu
type: GGP
entity:
  sustentável e pequenos projetos Entre o projetismo a ideologia e as dinâmicas sociais Development of an urban health impact assessment methodology Indicating the health equity impacts of urban policies Local health systems in 21st century Who cares An exploratory study on health system governance in Amsterdam Joined up government A


id: cord-017315-3mxkfvvu
type: WORK_OF_ART
entity:
  Phase IV of the WHO European Healthy Cities Network Copenhagen World Health Organisation Regional Office for Europe Assets for health and development Developing


id: cord-001199-9khx93c0
type: CELL_LINE
entity:
  China China NBoSo 1992 China statistical yearbook 1992 China statistical yearbook 1995 China statistical yearbook China Historical Population Data


id: cord-001199-9khx93c0
type: ORG
entity:
  Final Distributions of Infections in Households Estimating Household and Community Transmission Parameters


id: cord-290033-oaqqh21e
type: ORG
entity:
  Key Messages for Social Mobilization and Community Engagement in Intense Transmission Areas Comparison


id: cord-018026-n5gk1xhb
type: CELL_LINE
entity:
  Canada OECD Health and Innovation Survey The Consequences of Modernity Liquid Life Health and Modernity Leading for Innovation Organizing for Results Social Determinants of Health Health and Consumer Protection Directorate 2005 The Contribution of Health


id: cord-018026-n5gk1xhb
type: WORK_OF_ART
entity:
  Die Gesundheitsgesellschaft Securing Good Health for the Whole Population HM Treasury www hm treasury


id: cord-135406-ztgrxucb
type: WORK_OF_ART
entity:
  Synthetic Difference in Differences Matching and Regression to the Mean in Difference in Differences Analysis Health Policy Data Science Lab Difference in Differences Evaluating Methods to Estimate the Effect of State Laws on Firearm Deaths


id: cord-343822-k00ng5nl
type: GGP
entity:
  Covid 19 verschijnselen 2020 14 Overledenen Centraal Bureau voor de Statistiek 2020 15 Graphs and maps the Netherlands Infectieziekten


id: cord-347449-mey7e8gd
type: ORG
entity:
  Human Environment Interactions Environment and Development Economics for Joint Conservation Health Policy


id: cord-129175-zkwxc9xy
type: LAW
entity:
  Low cost Measurement of Face Mask Efficacy for Filtering Expelled Droplets During Speech Estimating the Effects of Non


id: cord-129175-zkwxc9xy
type: ORG
entity:
  Study A Modelling Framework to Assess the Likely Effectiveness of Facemasks in Combination with Lock


id: cord-129175-zkwxc9xy
type: CHEMICAL
entity:
  N N identity matrix 1 is a N 1 vector of ones w j trav t and w j trav t respectively denote the j th row vector and column vector of W trav t Consistent


id: cord-345662-vm5btiue
type: GGP
entity:
  Soc Sci DOI 10 1016 j erss 2020 101784 sha 2cfad9dd67889ed702326cbf98d2e3575c0051a8 doc_id 345662 cord_uid vm5btiue Existing socio technical systems tend


id: cord-335330-d8qevnl5
type: ORG
entity:
  Georgia Institute of Technology Stony Brook University the University of Adelaide Chinese Academy of Sciences Peking University


id: cord-117445-zu2mns82
type: ORG
entity:
  Science Health Agricultural and Veterinary Sciences Biological Sciences Chemical Sciences Earth Sciences Engineering Environmental Sciences Information


id: cord-117445-zu2mns82
type: ORG
entity:
  Health Sciences Physical Sciences Psychology and Cognitive Sciences Technology Economy Labour Commerce Management Tourism and Services Economics Society Others Built Environment and Design Education History and Archaeology Language Communication and Culture Law


id: cord-280652-wwtpkinj
type: EVENT
entity:
  The New World of Crises and Crisis Management Implications for Policymaking and Research Unattributable


id: cord-353827-o3vm1vdh
type: ORG
entity:
  American Community Survey n d the National Center for Charitable Statistics National Center for Charitable Statistics n


id: cord-030909-6if3qquj
type: DNA
entity:
  ECLAC Santiago 38 p Encinas F Truffello R Urquiza A Valdés M 2020 Covid 19 pobreza energética y contaminación


id: cord-030909-6if3qquj
type: PROTEIN
entity:
  European ETS 32 Sachs et al 2020 The Sustainable Development Goals and Covid 19 Sustainable Development Report 2020 Cambridge Cambridge University Press 33 1 education gender


id: cord-030909-6if3qquj
type: GGP
entity:
  Investigación e Información Periodística https ciper chile cl 2020 05 15 covid 19pobre za energ etica y conta


# url

id: cord-300037-gtfx5cp4
domain: www.china-briefing.com
url:
  http://www.china-briefing.com/news/china-extends-lunar-new-year-holiday-february-2-shanghai-february


id: cord-300037-gtfx5cp4
domain: www.cdc.gov
url:
  http://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/community/large-events/mass-gatherings-ready-for-covid-19.html


id: cord-300037-gtfx5cp4
domain: appropriations.house.gov
url:
  http://appropriations.house.gov/sites/democrats.appropriations.house.gov/files/Families%20First%20summary.pdf


# bib

id: cord-001199-9khx93c0
title: Effect of the One-Child Policy on Influenza Transmission in China: A Stochastic Transmission Model
author: Liu, Fengchen
date: 2014-02-06
url: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3916292/
doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0084961
abstract:
  BACKGROUND: China's one-child-per-couple policy, introduced in 1979, led to profound demographic changes for nearly a quarter of the world's population. Several decades later, the consequences include decreased fertility rates, population aging, decreased household sizes, changes in family structure, and imbalanced sex ratios. The epidemiology of communicable diseases may have been affected by these changes since the transmission dynamics of infectious diseases depend on demographic characteristics of the population. Of particular interest is influenza because China and Southeast Asia lie at the center of a global transmission network of influenza. Moreover, changes in household structure may affect influenza transmission. Is it possible that the pronounced demographic changes that have occurred in China have affected influenza transmission? METHODS AND FINDINGS: To address this question, we developed a continuous-time, stochastic, individual-based simulation model for influenza transmission. With this model, we simulated 30 years of influenza transmission and compared influenza transmission rates in populations with and without the one-child policy control. We found that the average annual attack rate is reduced by 6.08% (SD 2.21%) in the presence of the one-child policy compared to a population in which no demographic changes occurred. There was no discernible difference in the secondary attack rate, −0.15% (SD 1.85%), between the populations with and without a one-child policy. We also forecasted influenza transmission over a ten-year time period in a population with a two-child policy under a hypothesis that a two-child-per-couple policy will be carried out in 2015, and found a negligible difference in the average annual attack rate compared to the population with the one-child policy. CONCLUSIONS: This study found that the average annual attack rate is slightly lowered in a population with a one-child policy, which may have resulted from a decrease in household size and the proportion of children in the population.


id: cord-006100-zvb7bxix
author: Connolly, John
date: 2015-06-01
url: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7098008/
doi: 10.1108/dpm-09-2014-0196
title:
  The “wicked problems” of governing UK health security disaster prevention: The case of pandemic influenza

abstract:
  PURPOSE: The purpose of this paper is to examine the governance and policy-making challenges in the context of “wicked problems” based on the case of pandemic influenza. DESIGN/METHODOLOGY/APPROACH: The case study research is based on an analysis of official documentation and interviews with policy elites at multiple levels of UK governance. FINDINGS: Results of this study show that policy actors regard risk communication, the dynamics of international public policy and UK territorial governance as the main governance challenges in the management of influenza at a macro-level. The paper also serves to identify that although contingencies management for epidemiological issues require technical and scientific considerations to feature in governance arrangements, equally there are key “wicked problems” in the context public policy that pervade the health security sector. PRACTICAL IMPLICATIONS: The study indicates the need to build in resources at a national level to plan for policy coordination challenges in areas that might at first be seen as devoid of political machinations (such as technical areas of public policy that might be underpinned by epidemiological processes). The identification of the major governance challenges that emerge from the pandemic influenza case study is a springboard for a research agenda in relation to the analysis of the parallels and paradoxes of governance challenges for health security across EU member states. ORIGINALITY/VALUE: This paper provides a novel interrogation of the pandemic influenza case study in the context of UK governance and public policy by providing a strategic policy lens from perspective of elites.


id: cord-017315-3mxkfvvu
title: From Urban Projects to Healthy City Policies
author: de Leeuw, Evelyne
date: 2016-09-08
url: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7121840/
doi: 10.1007/978-1-4939-6694-3_17
abstract:
  A definition of projectitis (also known as ‘projectism’) is proposed to describe a key barrier to full deployment of a Healthy City vision and values. This chapter argues that to put health high on local social and political agendas necessarily means to transcend project-based work, and move into lasting programme and policy development. The conditions for such approaches are favourable in Healthy Cities, as a number of glocal (global and local) developments invest and sustain longer term perspectives. These conditions include emphases on policy diffusion, social justice, a better understanding of complex systems, and global commitments to the development and implementation of Health in All Policies. These efforts, in turn, are grounded in renewed and tangible support from Universal Health Coverage and Primary Health Care, asset-based community health development, and better insights into what drives (health) equity and economic development. In describing these elements of policy development for value-based Healthy Cities the chapter also gives a firm argument for a broad range of stakeholders to engage successfully in longer term policy change.


id: cord-018026-n5gk1xhb
title: Policy Innovations for Health
author: Kickbusch, Ilona
date: 2008-09-26
url: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7122768/
doi: 10.1007/978-0-387-79876-9_1
abstract:
  We are at a turning point in health policy. It has become increasingly clear that changes in the existing health care system will not be sufficient to maintain and improve our health at this historical juncture. Both our extensive knowledge on what creates health as well as the exponentially rising rates of chronic disease obesity, and mental health problems indicate that we need to shift course and apply a radically new mind-set to health and health policy. This is what we mean by policy innovations for health. The boundaries of what we call the “health system” are becoming increasingly fluid and health has become integral to how we live our everyday life. Health itself has become a major economic and social driving force in society. This shifts the pressure for policy innovation from a focus on the existing health system to a reorganization of how we approach health in 21st century societies. The dynamics of the health society challenge the way we conceptualize and locate health in the policy arena and the mechanisms through which we conduct health policy. They also redefine who should be involved in the policy process. This concern is beginning to be addressed within government through Health in All Policy approaches and beyond government through new partnerships for health. Most importantly, the role of citizen and patient is being redefined – a development that will probably lead to the most significant of the policy innovations for health in the 21st century.


id: cord-021165-3gopftv1
author: Park, Kisoo
date: 2015-10-02
url: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7149112/
doi: 10.1007/s40483-015-0024-y
title:
  Institutional rules for framing healthcare policy issues in national, financial, and specialized newspapers

abstract:
  By considering the role of institutional rules for news making, this study examines news frames embedded in 1162 stories from national, financial, and specialized newspapers with respect to four healthcare policy issues: “the decrease in pharmaceutical prices,” “the comprehensive medical payment system,” “swine flu,” and “humidifier-related lung disease.” Conflict, economy, crisis, and policy execution are dominant frames in stories about the policy issues, and these four frames are also major frames used by the newspapers. This phenomenon is understood as “concentration of healthcare frames.” We conducted in-depth interviews with 19 news reporters to identify institutional rules that might influence the formation of news frames. In-depth interviews revealed that similar types of frames resulted from institutional rules (e.g., journalist’s autonomy, news value, newspaper’s mission statement, and characteristics of readers). The findings suggest that health journalists follow institutional rules that govern the creation of news frames. To provide diverse perspectives on healthcare policy issues, newspapers need to reconsider their institutional rules.


id: cord-025506-yoav2b35
title: PolicyCLOUD: Analytics as a Service Facilitating Efficient Data-Driven Public Policy Management
author: Kyriazis, Dimosthenis
date: 2020-05-06
url: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7256368/
doi: 10.1007/978-3-030-49161-1_13
abstract:
  While several application domains are exploiting the added-value of analytics over various datasets to obtain actionable insights and drive decision making, the public policy management domain has not yet taken advantage of the full potential of the aforementioned analytics and data models. Diverse and heterogeneous datasets are being generated from various sources, which could be utilized across the complete policies lifecycle (i.e. modelling, creation, evaluation and optimization) to realize efficient policy management. To this end, in this paper we present an overall architecture of a cloud-based environment that facilitates data retrieval and analytics, as well as policy modelling, creation and optimization. The environment enables data collection from heterogeneous sources, linking and aggregation, complemented with data cleaning and interoperability techniques in order to make the data ready for use. An innovative approach for analytics as a service is introduced and linked with a policy development toolkit, which is an integrated web-based environment to fulfil the requirements of the public policy ecosystem stakeholders.


id: cord-029672-y2ii6r3u
title: From the editor: COVID-19 and international business policy
author: Van Assche, Ari
date: 2020-07-24
url: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7378301/
doi: 10.1057/s42214-020-00065-7
abstract:
  We introduce a special collection of papers on COVID-19 and international business policy that looks at the global policy challenge from different perspectives. The combination of confinement and protectionist measures including export bans, import tariffs and border closures that were introduced in response to the COVID-19 pandemic affect MNEs by increasing trade costs and amplifying the costs of communicating tacit knowledge. In this editorial, we draw specific attention to how these policies impact the heart of MNEs’ activities – the knowledge-intensive intangibles. Physical distancing limits the face-to-face meetings that undergird the production of intangibles in large urban hotspots. At the same time, travel restrictions constrain MNEs’ abilities to connect to and source knowledge from their foreign partners. Virtual conferencing has helped MNEs to cope with these challenges but it remains an imperfect substitute. A protracted public health crisis that would require limiting social interactions in the medium term might push MNEs to reconfigure their knowledge management strategies both locally and globally.


id: cord-029887-bnxczi9t
title: Hayek on complexity, uncertainty and pandemic response
author: Pennington, Mark
date: 2020-07-29
url: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7391024/
doi: 10.1007/s11138-020-00522-9
abstract:
  This paper draws on Hayek’s distinction between simple and complex phenomena to understand the nature of the challenge facing policymakers in responding to the new coronavirus pandemic. It shows that while government action is justifiable there may be few systemic mechanisms that enable policymakers to distinguish better from worse policy responses, or to make such distinctions in sufficient time. It then argues that this may be a more general characteristic of large-scale public policy making procedures and illustrates the importance of returning to a market-based political economy at the earliest convenience.


id: cord-030909-6if3qquj
title: Perspectives on the Economics of the Environment in the Shadow of Coronavirus
author: nan
date: 2020-08-27
txt: ./txt/cord-030909-6if3qquj.txt
cache: ./cache/cord-030909-6if3qquj.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
url: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7450147/
doi: 10.1007/s10640-020-00493-2
abstract: nan
summary:
  Based on these points, it becomes clear that a green recovery plan with resources directed towards achieving the combined objective of both providing the necessary economic stimuli for recovery and also promoting the transition to a low-carbon economy and adaptation to climate change along with investment in natural capital and increase in comprehensive savings could be a feasible and efficient plan. The current global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions trajectory indicates that the world is likely to experience catastrophic consequences due to climate change, unless swift action is taken towards funding green solutions and the defunding of fossil fuel activities ( Given the ambition of the European Union to become a net zero-carbon economy by 2050 and the numerous calls to avoid the bailout and stimulus packages towards fossil fuel companies , we examine whether the features of the European Central Bank''s (ECB) €1350 billion Pandemic Emergency Purchase Programme (PEPP) encourages the resilience of the incumbent fossil fuel sector, or whether it promotes the growth of the emerging low-carbon energy sector during the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond.


id: cord-033219-uwzgbpeo
title: COVID‐19 policies in Germany and their social, political, and psychological consequences
author: Naumann, Elias
date: 2020-09-28
url: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7537296/
doi: 10.1002/epa2.1091
abstract:
  Many policy analyses on COVID‐19 have been focusing on what kind of policies are implemented to contain the spread of COVID‐19. What seems equally important to explore are the social and political consequences of the confinement policies. Does the public support strict confinement policies? What are the social, political, and psychological consequences of the confinement policies? The question of how legitimate a policy is among the public is at the core of democratic theory. Its relevance also stems from the expected consequences of public support on behavior: The more someone supports a policy, the more someone is likely to follow the policy even if the policy is not strictly enforced. In this paper, we will focus on Germany, briefly summarize the main policies during the first 6 weeks of confinement and then explore political attitudes, risk perceptions, and the social consequences of the lockdown.


id: cord-034270-0fcac9aw
author: Srisai, Patinya
date: 2020-10-20
url: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7585867/
doi: 10.2147/rmhp.s268006
title:
  Perspectives of Migrants and Employers on the National Insurance Policy (Health Insurance Card Scheme) for Migrants: A Case Study in Ranong, Thailand

abstract:
  BACKGROUND AND PURPOSES: Thailand has implemented a nationwide insurance policy for migrants, namely the Health Insurance Card Scheme (HICS), for a long time. However, numerous implementation challenges remain and migrant perspectives on the policy are rarely known. The aim of this study was to examine migrant service users’ perspectives and their consequent response towards the HICS. METHODS: A qualitative case-study approach was employed. In-depth interviews with ten local migrants and four employers were conducted in one of the most densely migrant-populated provinces in Thailand. Document review was used as a means for data triangulation. Inductive thematic analysis was exercised on interview data. RESULTS: The findings revealed that most migrants were not aware of the benefit, they are entitled to receive from the HICS due to unclear communication and inadequate announcements about the policy. The registration costs needed for legalising migrants’ precarious status were a major concern. Adequate support from employers was a key determining factor that encouraged migrants to participate in the registration process and purchase the insurance card. Some employers sought assistance from private intermediaries or brokers to facilitate the registration process for migrants. CONCLUSION: Proper communication and promotion regarding the benefits of the HICS and local authorities taking action to expedite the registration process for migrants are recommended. The policy should also establish a mechanism to receive feedback from migrants. This will help resolve implementation challenges and lead to further improvement of the policy.


id: cord-117445-zu2mns82
title: Quantifying Policy Responses to a Global Emergency: Insights from the COVID-19 Pandemic
author: Gao, Jian
date: 2020-06-24
txt: ./txt/cord-117445-zu2mns82.txt
cache: ./cache/cord-117445-zu2mns82.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
url: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2006.13853v1.pdf
doi: nan
summary:
  We also adopt alternative data sources for the COVID-19 tracking data, as provided by the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (Fig. S5D) , alter the measures of a country''s effectiveness in containing the pandemic by calculating total confirmed cases instead of deaths (Fig. S5A) , examine per-capita death rates for each country (Fig. S5B) , and restrict the analysis to countries with a minimum number of COVID-19 policy documents (Fig. S6 ). Regressions considering the effects of COVID policy attention on total deaths for countries that published at least 25 policy documents in the prior 30 days. Regressions considering the effects of COVID policy attention on total deaths for countries that published at least 25 policy documents in the prior 30 days. Regressions considering the effects of COVID policy attention on total deaths for countries that published a minimum number of COVID policy documents in the prior 30 days.

abstract:
  Public policy must confront emergencies that evolve in real time and in uncertain directions, yet little is known about the nature of policy response. Here we take the coronavirus pandemic as a global and extraordinarily consequential case, and study the global policy response by analyzing a novel dataset recording policy documents published by government agencies, think tanks, and intergovernmental organizations (IGOs) across 114 countries (37,725 policy documents from Jan 2nd through May 26th 2020). Our analyses reveal four primary findings. (1) Global policy attention to COVID-19 follows a remarkably similar trajectory as the total confirmed cases of COVID-19, yet with evolving policy focus from public health to broader social issues. (2) The COVID-19 policy frontier disproportionately draws on the latest, peer-reviewed, and high-impact scientific insights. Moreover, policy documents that cite science appear especially impactful within the policy domain. (3) The global policy frontier is primarily interconnected through IGOs, such as the WHO, which produce policy documents that are central to the COVID19 policy network and draw especially strongly on scientific literature. Removing IGOs' contributions fundamentally alters the global policy landscape, with the policy citation network among government agencies increasingly fragmented into many isolated clusters. (4) Countries exhibit highly heterogeneous policy attention to COVID-19. Most strikingly, a country's early policy attention to COVID-19 shows a surprising degree of predictability for the country's subsequent deaths. Overall, these results uncover fundamental patterns of policy interactions and, given the consequential nature of emergent threats and the paucity of quantitative approaches to understand them, open up novel dimensions for assessing and effectively coordinating global and local responses to COVID-19 and beyond.


id: cord-125089-1lfmqzmc
title: Interacting Regional Policies in Containing a Disease
author: Chandrasekhar, Arun G.
date: 2020-08-24
url: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2008.10745v3.pdf
doi: nan
abstract:
  Regional quarantine policies, in which a portion of a population surrounding infections are locked down, are an important tool to contain disease. However, jurisdictional governments -- such as cities, counties, states, and countries -- act with minimal coordination across borders. We show that a regional quarantine policy's effectiveness depends upon whether (i) the network of interactions satisfies a balanced-growth condition, (ii) infections have a short delay in detection, and (iii) the government has control over and knowledge of the necessary parts of the network (no leakage of behaviors). As these conditions generally fail to be satisfied, especially when interactions cross borders, we show that substantial improvements are possible if governments are proactive: triggering quarantines in reaction to neighbors' infection rates, in some cases even before infections are detected internally. We also show that even a few lax governments -- those that wait for nontrivial internal infection rates before quarantining -- impose substantial costs on the whole system. Our results illustrate the importance of understanding contagion across policy borders and offer a starting point in designing proactive policies for decentralized jurisdictions.


id: cord-129175-zkwxc9xy
title: Preventing COVID-19 Fatalities: State versus Federal Policies
author: Renne, Jean-Paul
date: 2020-10-28
txt: ./txt/cord-129175-zkwxc9xy.txt
cache: ./cache/cord-129175-zkwxc9xy.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
url: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2010.15263v3.pdf
doi: nan
summary:
  Our study suggests that a large number of COVID-19 deaths could have been prevented if the federal government had imposed stay-at-home orders or mask mandates that followed the leads taken by the different states. Our counterfactuals suggest that between 96,000 and 183,000 virus deaths could have been prevented if the federal government had enacted a federal mask mandate sometime between March 17 and April 17, 2020, on top of the stay-at-home and travel ban policies adopted by the different states. 4 These results provide an important policy lesson for future waves of the pandemic by highlighting that early 3 By matching death counts only, we estimate that the effective reproduction numbers of the virus in the different states during the Spring of 2020 must have been up to two-times higher than prevailing estimates that are based on infection cases, which are likely under-measured due to the large number of undetected infections and asymptomatic individuals.

abstract:
  Are COVID-19 fatalities large when a federal government does not impose containment policies and instead allow states to implement their own policies? We answer this question by developing a stochastic extension of a SIRD epidemiological model for a country composed of multiple states. Our model allows for interstate mobility. We consider three policies: mask mandates, stay-at-home orders, and interstate travel bans. We fit our model to daily U.S. state-level COVID-19 death counts and exploit our estimates to produce various policy counterfactuals. While the restrictions imposed by some states inhibited a significant number of virus deaths, we find that more than two-thirds of U.S. COVID-19 deaths could have been prevented by late September 2020 had the federal government imposed federal mandates as early as some of the earliest states did. Our results highlight the need for early actions by a federal government for the successful containment of a pandemic.


id: cord-135406-ztgrxucb
title: A trial emulation approach for policy evaluations with group-level longitudinal data
author: Ben-Michael, Eli
date: 2020-11-11
url: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2011.05826v1.pdf
doi: nan
abstract:
  To limit the spread of the novel coronavirus, governments across the world implemented extraordinary physical distancing policies, such as stay-at-home orders, and numerous studies aim to estimate their effects. Many statistical and econometric methods, such as difference-in-differences, leverage repeated measurements and variation in timing to estimate policy effects, including in the COVID-19 context. While these methods are less common in epidemiology, epidemiologic researchers are well accustomed to handling similar complexities in studies of individual-level interventions."Target trial emulation"emphasizes the need to carefully design a non-experimental study in terms of inclusion and exclusion criteria, covariates, exposure definition, and outcome measurement -- and the timing of those variables. We argue that policy evaluations using group-level longitudinal ("panel") data need to take a similar careful approach to study design, which we refer to as"policy trial emulation."This is especially important when intervention timing varies across jurisdictions; the main idea is to construct target trials separately for each"treatment cohort"(states that implement the policy at the same time) and then aggregate. We present a stylized analysis of the impact of state-level stay-at-home orders on total coronavirus cases. We argue that estimates from panel methods -- with the right data and careful modeling and diagnostics -- can help add to our understanding of many policies, though doing so is often challenging.


id: cord-139947-nwnk220q
title: Monetary-fiscal interactions under price level targeting
author: Ascari, Guido
date: 2020-10-28
url: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2010.14979v1.pdf
doi: nan
abstract:
  The adoption of a"makeup"strategy is one of the proposals in the ongoing review of the Fed's monetary policy framework. Another suggestion, to avoid the zero lower bound, is a more active role for fiscal policy. We put together these ideas to study monetary-fiscal interactions under price level targeting. Under price level targeting and a fiscally-led regime, we find that following a deflationary demand shock: (i) the central bank increases (rather than decreases) the policy rate; (ii) the central bank, thus, avoids the zero lower bound; (iii) price level targeting is generally welfare improving if compared to inflation targeting.


id: cord-212098-hc81jwzn
title: Zero-Shot Terrain Generalization for Visual Locomotion Policies
author: Escontrela, Alejandro
date: 2020-11-11
url: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2011.05513v1.pdf
doi: nan
abstract:
  Legged robots have unparalleled mobility on unstructured terrains. However, it remains an open challenge to design locomotion controllers that can operate in a large variety of environments. In this paper, we address this challenge of automatically learning locomotion controllers that can generalize to a diverse collection of terrains often encountered in the real world. We frame this challenge as a multi-task reinforcement learning problem and define each task as a type of terrain that the robot needs to traverse. We propose an end-to-end learning approach that makes direct use of the raw exteroceptive inputs gathered from a simulated 3D LiDAR sensor, thus circumventing the need for ground-truth heightmaps or preprocessing of perception information. As a result, the learned controller demonstrates excellent zero-shot generalization capabilities and can navigate 13 different environments, including stairs, rugged land, cluttered offices, and indoor spaces with humans.


id: cord-255097-5nuhvs99
title: Muck, brass and smoke: Policy post-exceptionalism in the agri-food sector()
author: Attorp, Adrienne
date: 2020-08-30
url: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32904551/
doi: 10.1016/j.jrurstud.2020.08.050
abstract:
  Governance is well recognized as shifting boundaries of responsibilities for doing things among key partners. What is less clear is how exactly power relations are altered and where power is concentrated as new forms of governance emerge. In our article we use the concept of policy post-exceptionalism to critically assess ‘Going for Growth’, a strategic action plan that, until the recent past, underpinned the Northern Ireland agri-food industry. The agri-food sector has an important and prominent role in the Northern Ireland economy. The Going for Growth strategy illustrates how particular interests within the sector are supported by government, as demonstrated through the Renewable Heat Initiative and a scheme promoting anaerobic digestors. Using policy post-exceptionalism to scrutinize the strategy, our research shows what can go wrong when a transition to post-exceptionalism occurs. While Going for Growth purported to represent the wider interests that one might expect to find in a post-exceptionalist approach to agri-food governance, in fact the concentration of power with corporate actors left little space for the inclusion of wider interests. We conclude that this strategy represented a move towards tense post-exceptionalism, creating at least one political scandal, raising questions of legitimacy and transparency and fundamentally undermining political viability of wider government. It is an extreme case of what can happen when post-exceptionalist policymaking goes wrong.


id: cord-258825-y1iu6hbc
title: Reframe policymaking dysfunction through bipartisan-inclusion leadership
author: Straka, John W.
date: 2020-04-29
url: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32351255/
doi: 10.1007/s11077-020-09383-2
abstract:
  Persistent policy failures have been examined in recent years with a focus on the role of political systems. We evaluate the growth of dysfunctional policymaking in the U.S. and propose a countering approach. Policy failures often reflect partisan policy stalemate, errors or unintended consequences, polarized extremism or imbalance, or partisan reversals with changes in power. Extremes in partisanship are not new historically, but growing policy failures due to negative partisanship have now severely damaged public trust. More “party blind” conditions in policy formulation may be able to renew a more productive social contract. We propose a disruptive presidential leadership approach of bipartisan inclusion to seek to reframe the partisan divides, counter negative partisanship and extremes, re-establish better policymaking interactions, and improve governance and policy outcomes. Dysfunctional policymaking has been attributed to Republicans and Democrats in a Prisoner’s Dilemma. Iterated Prisoner’s Dilemmas often lead to higher rates of cooperation, and similarly, historical policymaking included greater cooperation, but in recent decades the bipartisan norms of governance have substantially eroded. We describe three complementary explanations, which suggest that non-cooperative partisan policymaking has become self-reinforcing, and institutional changes to promote cooperation should focus on lowering the risk-adjusted cost–benefit ratio, making cooperation safer and more attractive for policymakers.


id: cord-263672-iuo7ukaz
title: What Policies Address Both the Coronavirus Crisis and the Climate Crisis?
author: Engström, Gustav
date: 2020-07-31
url: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32836841/
doi: 10.1007/s10640-020-00451-y
abstract:
  The coronavirus pandemic has led many countries to initiate unprecedented economic recovery packages. Policymakers tackling the coronavirus crisis have also been encouraged to prioritize policies which help mitigate a second, looming crisis: climate change. We identify and analyze policies that combat both the coronavirus crisis and the climate crisis. We analyze both the long-run climate impacts from coronavirus-related economic recovery policies, and the impacts of long-run climate policies on economic recovery and public health post-recession. We base our analysis on data on emissions, employment and corona-related layoffs across sectors, and on previous research. We show that, among climate policies, labor-intensive green infrastructure projects, planting trees, and in particular pricing carbon coupled with reduced labor taxation boost economic recovery. Among coronavirus policies, aiding services sectors (leisure services such as restaurants and culture, or professional services such as technology), education and the healthcare sector appear most promising, being labor intensive yet low-emission—if such sectoral aid is conditioned on being directed towards employment and on low-carbon supply chains. Large-scale green infrastructure projects and green R&D investment, while good for the climate, are unlikely to generate enough employment to effectively alleviate the coronavirus crisis. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (10.1007/s10640-020-00451-y) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.


id: cord-274268-0ucqp3uz
author: Chorus, Caspar
date: 2020-09-16
url: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32936815/
doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0238683
title:
  Diabolical dilemmas of COVID-19: An empirical study into Dutch society’s trade-offs between health impacts and other effects of the lockdown

abstract:
  We report and interpret preferences of a sample of the Dutch adult population for different strategies to end the so-called ‘intelligent lockdown’ which their government had put in place in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Using a discrete choice experiment, we invited participants to make a series of choices between policy scenarios aimed at relaxing the lockdown, which were specified not in terms of their nature (e.g. whether or not to allow schools to re-open) but in terms of their effects along seven dimensions. These included health-related effects, but also impacts on the economy, education, and personal income. From the observed choices, we were able to infer the implicit trade-offs made by the Dutch between these policy effects. For example, we find that the average citizen, in order to avoid one fatality directly or indirectly related to COVID-19, is willing to accept a lasting lag in the educational performance of 18 children, or a lasting (>3 years) and substantial (>15%) reduction in net income of 77 households. We explore heterogeneity across individuals in terms of these trade-offs by means of latent class analysis. Our results suggest that most citizens are willing to trade-off health-related and other effects of the lockdown, implying a consequentialist ethical perspective. Somewhat surprisingly, we find that the elderly, known to be at relatively high risk of being affected by the virus, are relatively reluctant to sacrifice economic pain and educational disadvantages for the younger generation, to avoid fatalities. We also identify a so-called taboo trade-off aversion amongst a substantial share of our sample, being an aversion to accept morally problematic policies that simultaneously imply higher fatality numbers and lower taxes. We explain various ways in which our results can be of value to policy makers in the context of the COVID-19 and future pandemics.


id: cord-274456-rzrfkkci
title: Monetary policy framework in India
author: Dua, Pami
date: 2020-06-23
url: https://doi.org/10.1007/s41775-020-00085-3
doi: 10.1007/s41775-020-00085-3
abstract:
  In 2016, the monetary policy framework moved towards flexible inflation targeting and a six member Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) was constituted for setting the policy rate. With this step towards modernization of the monetary policy process, India joined the set of countries that have adopted inflation targeting as their monetary policy framework. The Consumer Price Index (CPI combined) inflation target was set by the Government of India at 4% with ± 2% tolerance band for the period from August 5, 2016 to March 31, 2021. In this backdrop, the paper reviews the evolution of monetary policy frameworks in India since the mid-1980s. It also describes the monetary policy transmission process and its limitations in terms of lags and rigidities. It highlights the importance of unconventional monetary policy measures in supplementing conventional tools especially during the easing cycle. Further, it examines the voting pattern of the MPC in India and compares this with that of various developed and emerging economies. The synchronization of cuts in the policy rate by MPCs of various countries during the global slowdown in 2019 and the COVID-19 pandemic in the early 2020s is also analysed.


id: cord-280652-wwtpkinj
author: Atkinson, P.
date: 2020-10-07
url: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277953620306420?v=s5
doi: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2020.113423
title:
  Understanding the policy dynamics of COVID-19 in the UK: early findings from interviews with policy makers and health care professionals

abstract:
  The UK government response to COVID-19 has been heavily criticised. We report witnesses’ perceptions of what has shaped UK policies and how these policies have been received by healthcare workers. Such studies are usually affected by hindsight. Here we deploy a novel prospective approach to capture real-time information. We are historians, social scientists and biomedical researchers who study how societies cope with infectious disease. In February 2020 we began regular semi-structured calls with prominent members of policy communities, and health care professionals, to elicit their roles in, and reactions to, the pandemic response. We report witnesses’ perceptions that personal protective equipment (PPE) stocks were too small, early warnings have not led to sufficiently rapid policy decisions, and a lack of transparency is sapping public trust. Significant successes include research mobilisation. The early experiences and reactions of our witnesses suggest important issues for investigation, notably a perception of delay in decision making.


id: cord-284893-qi6dkcb3
title: Variant Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease and the Canadian blood system after the tainted blood tragedy
author: Wilson, Kumanan
date: 2006-10-02
url: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277953606004345
doi: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2006.08.023
abstract:
  The transfusion transmission of hepatitis C and HIV to thousands of Canadian blood recipients was one of this country's largest public health catastrophes. In response to this crisis, and in an effort to prevent such a tragedy from occurring again, the Canadian blood system has undergone substantial reform. Variant Creutzfeldt–Jakob (vCJD) disease was the first infectious threat faced by the blood system since undergoing reform. The response at the time to this risk provides insights into the Canadian blood system's new approach to infectious threats. Our analysis of the decision-making concerning vCJD identifies two dominant themes characterizing the new blood system's approach to safety: (1).. the adoption of a precautionary approach to new risks which involves taking action in advance of definitive evidence, and (2).. risk aversion amongst policy makers, which has contributed to the adoption of safety measures with comparatively high cost-effectiveness ratios. Overall the principles governing the new blood system have contributed to the system both providing protection against emerging infectious risks and regaining the confidence of the public and recipients. However, the current set of policy factors will likely contribute to increasingly risk-averse policy making that will contribute to continued increases in the cost of the blood system. The challenge the blood system now faces is to find the appropriate balance between maximizing safety and ensuring the system remains affordable.


id: cord-285458-g6esbbrr
title: Adapting the EU Economic Governance to New Macroeconomic and Political Realities
author: Fargnoli, Raffaele
date: 2020-10-24
url: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33132413/
doi: 10.1007/s10272-020-0922-0
abstract:
  There was a widespread consensus on the need to modify fiscal rules in the EU even before the COVID-19 crisis. The aim of this article is to reflect on the reform of fiscal rules from a broader perspective, looking at three different dimensions: the political economy of fiscal rules in the current political and economic environment, the renewed debate about fiscal policy roles and objectives, as well as the current incomplete nature of the European Monetary Union and the prospects for its completion. The main contribution of this paper is to analyse EMU fiscal policy and the related governance modes from a broader perspective. Furthermore, the article briefly discusses ideas for a new model of fiscal and economc surveillance based on a cooperative governance system in order to better fit with with current macroeconomic and political realities.


id: cord-287546-0x294f8t
title: An optimal control theory approach to non-pharmaceutical interventions
author: Lin, Feng
date: 2010-02-19
txt: ./txt/cord-287546-0x294f8t.txt
cache: ./cache/cord-287546-0x294f8t.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
url: https://doi.org/10.1186/1471-2334-10-32
doi: 10.1186/1471-2334-10-32
summary:
  RESULTS: An optimal policy is derived for the control model using a linear NPI implementation cost. Additional studies investigate the effects of departures from the modeling assumptions, which include exponential terminal time and linear NPI implementation cost. Additional studies investigate the effects of departures from the modeling assumptions, which include exponential terminal time and linear NPI implementation cost. It measures the loss of productivity (persondays) due to implementing NPIs. To determine the value of c, the public health officials need to consider many factors, such as culture of the community, perceptions to death, consequences of pandemic and of Figure 1 expands the classic Susceptible-Infectious-Recovered (SIR) model to capture the mortality. Figure 3 shows the impact of optimal control on pandemic severity, peak, and total deaths, when NPIs are triggered at different initial states.

abstract:
  BACKGROUND: Non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPI) are the first line of defense against pandemic influenza. These interventions dampen virus spread by reducing contact between infected and susceptible persons. Because they curtail essential societal activities, they must be applied judiciously. Optimal control theory is an approach for modeling and balancing competing objectives such as epidemic spread and NPI cost. METHODS: We apply optimal control on an epidemiologic compartmental model to develop triggers for NPI implementation. The objective is to minimize expected person-days lost from influenza related deaths and NPI implementations for the model. We perform a multivariate sensitivity analysis based on Latin Hypercube Sampling to study the effects of input parameters on the optimal control policy. Additional studies investigated the effects of departures from the modeling assumptions, including exponential terminal time and linear NPI implementation cost. RESULTS: An optimal policy is derived for the control model using a linear NPI implementation cost. Linear cost leads to a "bang-bang" policy in which NPIs are applied at maximum strength when certain state criteria are met. Multivariate sensitivity analyses are presented which indicate that NPI cost, death rate, and recovery rate are influential in determining the policy structure. Further death rate, basic reproductive number and recovery rate are the most influential in determining the expected cumulative death. When applying the NPI policy, the cumulative deaths under exponential and gamma terminal times are close, which implies that the outcome of applying the "bang-bang" policy is insensitive to the exponential assumption. Quadratic cost leads to a multi-level policy in which NPIs are applied at varying strength levels, again based on certain state criteria. Results indicate that linear cost leads to more costly implementation resulting in fewer deaths. CONCLUSIONS: The application of optimal control theory can provide valuable insight to developing effective control strategies for pandemic. Our findings highlight the importance of establishing a sensitive and timely surveillance system for pandemic preparedness.


id: cord-290033-oaqqh21e
title: A disconnected policy network: The UK's response to the Sierra Leone Ebola epidemic
author: Georgalakis, James
date: 2020-02-13
url: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277953620300708
doi: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2020.112851
abstract:
  This paper investigates whether the inclusion of social scientists in the UK policy network that responded to the Ebola crisis in Sierra Leone (2013–16) was a transformational moment in the use of interdisciplinary research. In contrast to the existing literature, that relies heavily on qualitative accounts of the epidemic and ethnography, this study tests the dynamics of the connections between critical actors with quantitative network analysis. This novel approach explores how individuals are embedded in social relationships and how this may affect the production and use of evidence. The meso-level analysis, conducted between March and June 2019, is based on the traces of individuals' engagement found in secondary sources. Source material includes policy and strategy documents, committee papers, meeting minutes and personal correspondence. Social network analysis software, UCINet, was used to analyse the data and Netdraw for the visualisation of the network. Far from being one cohesive community of experts and government officials, the network of 134 people was weakly held together by a handful of super-connectors. Social scientists’ poor connections to the government embedded biomedical community may explain why they were most successful when they framed their expertise in terms of widely accepted concepts. The whole network was geographically and racially almost entirely isolated from those affected by or directly responding to the crisis in West Africa. Nonetheless, the case was made for interdisciplinarity and the value of social science in emergency preparedness and response. The challenge now is moving from the rhetoric to action on complex infectious disease outbreaks in ways that value all perspectives equally.


id: cord-300037-gtfx5cp4
title: The Effect of Large-Scale Anti-Contagion Policies on the Coronavirus (COVID-19) Pandemic
author: Hsiang, Solomon
date: 2020-03-27
txt: ./txt/cord-300037-gtfx5cp4.txt
cache: ./cache/cord-300037-gtfx5cp4.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
url: https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.03.22.20040642
doi: 10.1101/2020.03.22.20040642
summary:
  Here, we compile new data on 1,659 local, regional, and national anti-contagion policies recently deployed in the ongoing pandemic across localities in China, South Korea, Iran, Italy, France, and the United States (US). Our econometric approach accounts for di↵erences in the baseline growth rate of infections across locations due to di↵erences in demographics, socio-economic status, culture, or health systems across localities within a country; it accounts for systemic patterns in growth rates within countries unrelated to policy, such as the e↵ect of the work-week; it is robust to systematic under-surveillance; and it accounts for changes in procedures to diagnose positive cases (see Methods and Appendix Section 2). We estimate that since the beginning of our sample, on average, all anti-contagion policies combined have slowed the average daily growth rate of infections 0.166 per day (±0.015, p < 0.001) in China, 0.276 (±0.066, p < 0.001) in South Korea, 0.158 (±0.071, p < 0.05) in Italy, 0.292 (±0.037, p < 0.001) in Iran, 0.132 (±0.053, p < 0.05) in France and 0.044 (±0.059, p = 0.45) in the US.

abstract:
  Governments around the world are responding to the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic with unprecedented policies designed to slow the growth rate of infections. Many actions, such as closing schools and restricting populations to their homes, impose large and visible costs on society. In contrast, the benefits of these policies, in the form of infections that did not occur, cannot be directly observed and are currently understood through process-based simulations. Here, we compile new data on 1,659 local, regional, and national anti-contagion policies recently deployed in the ongoing pandemic across localities in China, South Korea, Iran, Italy, France, and the United States (US). We then apply reduced-form econometric methods, commonly used to measure the effect of policies on economic growth, to empirically evaluate the effect that these anti-contagion policies have had on the growth rate of infections. In the absence of any policy actions, we estimate that early infections of COVID-19 exhibit exponential growth rates of roughly 42% per day. We find that anti-contagion policies collectively have had significant effects slowing this growth. Our results suggest that similar policies may have different impacts on different populations, but we obtain consistent evidence that the policy packages now deployed are achieving large, beneficial, and measurable health outcomes. We estimate that, to date, current policies have already prevented or delayed on the order of 62 million infections across these six countries. These findings may help inform whether or when these ongoing policies should be lifted or intensified, and they can support decision-making in the other 180+ countries where COVID-19 has been reported.


id: cord-303385-2jjg8qw6
title: Policy learning and Universal Health Coverage in low- and middle-income countries
author: Kiendrébéogo, Joël Arthur
date: 2020-07-21
url: https://doi.org/10.1186/s12961-020-00591-z
doi: 10.1186/s12961-020-00591-z
abstract:
  Learning is increasingly seen as an essential component to spur progress towards universal health coverage (UHC) in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). However, learning remains an elusive concept, with different understandings and uses that vary from one person or organisation to another. Specifically, it appears that ‘learning for UHC’ is dominated by the teacher mode — notably scientists and experts as ‘teachers’ conveying to local decision/policy-makers as ‘learners’ what to do. This article shows that, to meet countries’ needs, it is important to acknowledge that UHC learning situations are not restricted to the most visible epistemic learning approach practiced today. This article draws on an analytical framework proposed by Dunlop and Radaelli, whereby they identified four learning modes that can emerge according to the specific characteristics of the policy process: epistemic learning, learning in the shadow of hierarchy, learning through bargaining and reflexive learning. These learning modes look relevant to help widen the learning prospects that LMICs need to advance their UHC agenda. Actually, they open up new perspectives in a research field that, until now, has appeared scattered and relatively blurry.


id: cord-311521-4calrk5l
title: Modeling U.S. monetary policy during the global financial crisis and lessons for covid-19()
author: Bhar, Ramaprasad
date: 2020-08-30
url: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpolmod.2020.07.001
doi: 10.1016/j.jpolmod.2020.07.001
abstract:
  The paper formulates the modeling of unconventional monetary policy and critically evaluates its effectiveness to address the Global Financial Crisis. We begin with certain principles guiding general scientific modeling and focus on Milton Friedman's 1968 Presidential Address that delineates the strengths and limitations of monetary policy to pursue certain goals. The modeling of monetary policy with its novelty of quantitative easing to target unusually high unemployment is evaluated by a Markov switching econometric model using monthly data for the period 2002-2015. We conclude by relating the lessons learned from unconventional monetary policy during the Global Financial Crisis to the recent bold initiatives of the Fed to mitigate the economic and financial impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on U.S. households and businesses.


id: cord-329534-deoyowto
title: Role of modelling in COVID-19 policy development
author: McBryde, Emma S.
date: 2020-06-18
url: https://api.elsevier.com/content/article/pii/S1526054220300981
doi: 10.1016/j.prrv.2020.06.013
abstract:
  Models have played an important role in policy development to address the COVID-19 outbreak from its emergence in China to the current global pandemic. Early projections of international spread influenced travel restrictions and border closures. Model projections based on the virus’s infectiousness demonstrated its pandemic potential, which guided the global response to and prepared countries for increases in hospitalisations and deaths. Tracking the impact of distancing and movement policies and behaviour changes has been critical in evaluating these decisions. Models have provided insights into the epidemiological differences between higher and lower income countries, as well as vulnerable population groups within countries to help design fit-for-purpose policies. Economic evaluation and policies have combined epidemic models and traditional economic models to address the economic consequences of COVID-19, which have informed policy calls for easing restrictions. Social contact and mobility models have allowed evaluation of the pathways to safely relax mobility restrictions and distancing measures. Finally, models can consider future end-game scenarios, including how suppression can be achieved and the impact of different vaccination strategies.


id: cord-341616-ts98sfxx
title: Public Voice via Social Media: Role in Cooperative Governance during Public Health Emergency
author: Yang, Yang
date: 2020-09-18
txt: ./txt/cord-341616-ts98sfxx.txt
cache: ./cache/cord-341616-ts98sfxx.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
url: https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph17186840
doi: 10.3390/ijerph17186840
summary:
  This qualitive study uses China''s Health Code policy under COVID-19 to explore why the public performs voice behavior on social media and how this influences policy evolution and product innovation through cooperative governance. What is more, as a form of public participation in cooperative governance, public voice plays a significant role in promoting policy evolution and product innovation, and represents a useful form of cooperation with governments and enterprises to jointly maintain social stability under public health emergencies This study adopts a dynamic research perspective, and takes the dynamic evolution of health codes policy as an example, focusing on exploring how public voice promoted the improvement of products by enterprises and the implementation of policies by the government under a public health emergency. As shown in Figure 1 , the dynamic mechanism of public voice behavior to promote policy implementation and evolution in public health emergencies is as follows: First, under the guidance of the government, enterprises participate in the development of policy and design products to assist policy implementation with advanced technologies.

abstract:
  With the development of the Internet, social networking sites have empowered the public to directly express their views about social issues and hence contribute to social change. As a new type of voice behavior, public voice on social media has aroused wide concern among scholars. However, why public voice is expressed and how it influences social development and betterment in times of public health emergencies remains unstudied. A key point is whether governments can take effective countermeasures when faced with public health emergencies. In such situation, public voice is of great significance in the formulation and implementation of coping policies. This qualitive study uses China’s Health Code policy under COVID-19 to explore why the public performs voice behavior on social media and how this influences policy evolution and product innovation through cooperative governance. A stimulus-cognition-emotion-behavior model is established to explain public voice, indicating that it is influenced by cognitive processes and public emotions under policy stimulus. What is more, as a form of public participation in cooperative governance, public voice plays a significant role in promoting policy evolution and product innovation, and represents a useful form of cooperation with governments and enterprises to jointly maintain social stability under public health emergencies


id: cord-343822-k00ng5nl
title: The Dutch COVID-19 approach: Regional differences in a small country.: The Dutch COVID-19 approach.
author: Hoekman, Lieke Michaela
date: 2020-08-27
url: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32874861/
doi: 10.1016/j.hlpt.2020.08.008
abstract:
  OBJECTIVES: This paper describes the first months of the COVID-19 pandemic in the Netherlands, including policies to reduce the health-related and economic consequences. The Netherlands started with containment yet shifted to mitigation when a ‘mild’ lockdown was implemented. The initial focus was to obtain herd immunity while preventing Intensive Care Units from getting overwhelmed. METHODS: An in-depth analysis of available national and international COVID-19 data sources was conducted. Due to regional variation in COVID-19 hospitalization rates, this paper focuses on three distinct regions; the initial epicenter; the most northern provinces which – contrary to national policy – decided not to switch to mitigation; and the Bible Belt, as congregations of religious groups were initially excluded from the ban on group formation. RESULTS: On August 11(th), 6,159 COVID-19 deaths were reported with excess mortality rates about 70% higher. As a result of the pandemic, the economy took a severe hit and is predicted to reduce by 6.5% compared to prognosis. The hospitalization rates in the northern regions are over 70% lower as compared to the rest of the country (18 vs 66 per 100,000 inhabitants, respectively). Differences between the Bible Belt and the rest of the country were hardly detectable. CONCLUSION: the Dutch have shown a way to effectively slow down transmission while allowing more personal and economic freedom than most other countries. Furthermore, the regional differences suggest that containment with testing and tracing reduced the virus dissemination. The results should be interpreted with caution, due to the descriptive nature of this evaluation.


id: cord-345662-vm5btiue
author: Walwyn, David R.
date: 2020-10-03
txt: ./txt/cord-345662-vm5btiue.txt
cache: ./cache/cord-345662-vm5btiue.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
url: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2214629620303595
doi: 10.1016/j.erss.2020.101784
summary:
  Based on a study of South Africa''s budget processes, it is concluded that change will only occur when four separate pre-conditions converge, namely a rapidly growing environmental problem capable of leading to civil unrest, a supportive and recently developed policy framework, decreasing techno-economic costs for its solution, and strong political support from an effective ministry or minister. Although there are several publications on green financing within South Africa, such as its broader challenges and necessary design features [23] and the role that public financial intermediaries have already played in the country''s energy transition [24] , there have been no specific studies on how to mobilise and reorient government expenditure for sustainability transitions, and particularly the decarbonisation of its energy sector.

title:
  Turning points for sustainability transitions: Institutional destabilization, public finance and the techno-economic dynamics of decarbonization in South Africa

abstract:
  Existing socio-technical systems tend to be intransigent to change. Decarbonisation, on the other hand, is an imperative, leading to an obvious conflict between the need for, and highly effective resistance to, change. Moreover, the abandonment of fossil fuel-based technologies in favour of more sustainable alternatives will require substantial reallocation of government’s operational expenditure, particularly in countries like South Africa with high per capita greenhouse gas emissions and low per capita income. In this article, it is argued that reallocation will require more than niche experimentation and destabilisation of the present socio-technical regime. Based on a study of South Africa’s budget processes, it is concluded that change will only occur when four separate pre-conditions converge, namely a rapidly growing environmental problem capable of leading to civil unrest, a supportive and recently developed policy framework, decreasing techno-economic costs for its solution, and strong political support from an effective ministry or minister. Turning points for transition, although infrequent, can be reached through strategic attention to these pre-conditions. A modified Kingdon multiple streams approach, which introduces the additional dimension of techno-economic feasibility, is proposed as a useful framework for anticipating when and how to act in order to mobilise sufficient public resources for decarbonisation.


id: cord-347449-mey7e8gd
author: Albers, Heidi J.
date: 2020-07-09
url: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32836831/
doi: 10.1007/s10640-020-00449-6
title:
  Disease Risk from Human–Environment Interactions: Environment and Development Economics for Joint Conservation-Health Policy

abstract:
  Emergence of COVID-19 joins a collection of evidence that local and global health are influenced by human interactions with the natural environment. Frameworks that simultaneously model decisions to interact with natural systems and environmental mechanisms of zoonotic disease spread allow for identification of policy levers to mitigate disease risk and promote conservation. Here, we highlight opportunities to broaden existing conservation economics frameworks that represent human behavior to include disease transmission in order to inform conservation-disease risk policy. Using examples from wildlife markets and forest extraction, we call for environment, resource, and development economists to develop and analyze empirically-grounded models of people’s decisions about interacting with the environment, with particular attention to LMIC settings and ecological-epidemiological risk factors. Integrating the decisions that drive human–environment interactions with ecological and epidemiological research in an interdisciplinary approach to understanding pathogen transmission will inform policy needed to improve both conservation and disease spread outcomes.


id: cord-352984-mzv9t7ex
author: Jackson-Lee, Angela
date: 2016-09-29
url: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27682853/
doi: 10.1186/s12913-016-1772-0
title:
  Mandating influenza vaccinations for health care workers: analysing opportunities for policy change using Kingdon’s agenda setting framework

abstract:
  BACKGROUND: The consequences of annual influenza outbreaks are often underestimated by the general public. Influenza poses a serious public health threat around the world, particularly for the most vulnerable populations. Fortunately, vaccination can mitigate the negative effects of this common infectious disease. Although inoculating frontline health care workers (HCWs) helps minimize disease transmission, some HCWs continue to resist participating in voluntary immunization programs. A potential solution to this problem is government-mandated vaccination for HCWs; however, in practice, there are substantial barriers to the adoption of such policies. The purpose of this paper is to identify the likelihood of adopting a policy for mandatory immunization of HCWs in Ontario based on a historical review of barriers to the agenda setting process. METHODS: Documents from secondary data sources were analysed using Kingdon’s agenda setting framework of three converging streams leading to windows of opportunity for possible policy adoption. RESULTS: The problems, politics, and policies streams of Kingdon’s framework have converged and diverged repeatedly over an extended period (policy windows have opened and closed several times). In each instance, a technically feasible solution was available. However, despite the evidence supporting the value of HCW immunization, alignment of the three agenda setting streams occurred for very short periods of time, during which, opposition lobby groups reacted, making the proposed solution less politically acceptable. CONCLUSIONS: Prior to the adoption of any new policies, issues must reach a government’s decision agenda. Based on Kingdon’s agenda setting framework, this only occurs when there is alignment of the problems, politics, and policies streams. Understanding this process makes it easier to predict the likelihood of a policy being adopted, and ultimately implemented. Such learning may be applied to policy issues in other jurisdictions. In the case of mandatory influenza vaccinations for HCWs in Ontario, it seems highly unlikely that a new policy will be adopted until perception of the problem’s importance is sufficient to overcome the political opposition to implementing a solution and thus, create a window of opportunity that is open long enough to support change.


id: cord-353827-o3vm1vdh
title: Local adaptation policy responses to extreme weather events
author: Giordono, Leanne
date: 2020-08-18
url: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32836407/
doi: 10.1007/s11077-020-09401-3
abstract:
  At a global level, climate change is expected to result in more frequent and higher-intensity weather events, with impacts ranging from inconvenient to catastrophic. The potential for disasters to act as “focusing events” for policy change, including adaptation to climate change risk, is well known. Moreover, local action is an important element of climate change adaptation and related risk management efforts. As such, there is a good reason to expect local communities to mobilize in response to disaster events, both with immediate response and recovery-focused activities, as well as longer-term preparedness and adaptation-focused public policy changes. However, scholars also note that the experience of disaster does not always yield policy change; indeed, disasters can also result in policy inertia and failure, perhaps as often or more often than major policy change. This study poses two key research questions. First, we ask to what degree policy change occurs in communities impacted by an extreme weather event. Second, we seek to understand the conditions that lead to adaptation-oriented policy adoption in response to an extreme weather event. Our results suggest two main recipes for future-oriented policy adoption in the wake of an extreme weather event. For both recipes, a high-impact event is a necessary condition for future-oriented policy adoption. In the first recipe for change, policy adoption occurs in Democratic communities with highly focused media attention. The second, less expected recipe for change involves Republican communities that have experienced other uncommon weather events in the recent past. We use a comparative case approach with 15 cases and fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis methods. Our approach adds to the existing literature on policy change and local adaptation by selecting a mid-N range of cases where extreme weather events have the potential to act as focusing events, thereby sidestepping selection on the dependent variable. Our approach also takes advantage of a novel method for measuring attention, the latent Dirichlet allocation approach. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (10.1007/s11077-020-09401-3) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.


