Digital Commons Network^™

Safeguarding The Pandemic Agreement From Disinformation, Alexandra Finch, Kevin A. Klock, Lawrence O. Gostin, Sam F. Halabi, Sarah A. Wetter

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Complicating the negotiation of a global pandemic treaty has been a sustained disinformation campaign worldwide to undermine the agreement by making and amplifying spurious assertions about what it intends to accomplish and how it will do so. Central to the disinformation campaign are erroneous claims about national sovereignty and forcible takings of pandemic countermeasures. Further, legitimate and unfounded unease concern weakened intellectual property (IP) and speech rights. Having followed the negotiations and provided technical assistance to the World Health Organization's (WHO's) leadership, we set the record straight in several key areas.

Invasiveness Of Black-Fungal (Mucormycosis) Disease Among Patients Suffering From Covid-19: Review, Zainab Sahib Abuhanen Quraish

Muthanna Medical Journal

A collection of moldy filamentous belonging to the orders Zygomycetes additionally Mucorales produce the infection known as mucormycosis. A frequent name for mucormycosis is "black fungus disease." This infection primarily affects diabetics and people with impaired immune systems. Inhaling mold containing industrial oxygen increases the risk of mucormycosis while COVID-19 infection lowers patients' immunity. The main goal of this review is to supply a thorough synopsis of COVID-19, recognize the essential fungal agent, and illustrate the Invasiveness and morbid manifestation as complications of COVID-19. During 2023, a thorough literature search was conducted using keywords like "Mucormycosis", "Blackfungus," "Mucorales," and "Zygomycetes," …

Learning Disrupted: The Effects Of The Covid-19 Pandemic On The Student Teacher/Supervising Practitioner Relationship, Bethany Tremblay-Price

Educational Studies Dissertations

In March 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted the lives of educators across Massachusetts when schools closed their doors to in-person learning for the school year. Online teaching and learning became the norm as teachers quickly adapted their lessons for virtual classrooms. Student teachers were among these educators, finding themselves quarantined for the final months of their teacher education programs. Literature suggests that the student teaching semester and the relationships formed within it are integral to teacher education. How would these relationships fare through this interruption to the field experience? This qualitative case study examined the relationships between student teachers and …

When The Fear Sinks In: The Politics Of Paranoia In The Wake Of Covid-19, Samantha G. Minear

Senior Theses

This project begins in January 2021 – a period henceforth known as ‘post-pandemic’ – following the release of the first COVID-19 vaccines in Europe (AstraZeneca) and the United States (Pfizer). While the pandemic is still ongoing as of December 2023, the release of vaccines heralded a new era more reminiscent of a time before March 2020: less (or no) mask mandates, a reduced emphasis on social distancing, and a positive shift in social opinion towards prophylactic vaccination. During my time as an American studying international politics, I have observed a positive correlation between time passed since January 2021 and the …

Sustained Ifn Signaling Is Associated With Delayed Development Of Sars-Cov-2-Specific Immunity, Elsa Brunet-Ratnasingham, Sacha Sacha, Haley E. Randolph, Marjorie Labrecque, Justin Bélair, Raphaël Lima-Barbosa, Amélie Pagliuzza, Lorie Marchitto, Michael Hultström, Julia Niessl, Rose Cloutier, Alina M. Flores, Nathalie Brassard, Mehdi Benlarbi, Jérémie Prévost, Shilei Ding, Sai Priya Anand, Gérémy Sannier, Amanda Marks, Dick Wågsäter, Eric Bareke, Hugo Zeberg, Miklos Lipcsey, Robert Frithiof, Anders Larsson, Sirui Zhou, Tomoko Nakanishi, David Morrison, Dani Vezina, Catherine Bourassa, Gabrielle Gendron-Lepage, Halima Medjahed, Floriane Point, Jonathan Richard, Catherine Larochelle, Alexandre Prat, Janet L. Cunningham, Nathalie Arbour, Madeleine Durand, J. Brent Richards, Kevin Moon, Nicolas Chomont, Andrés Finzi, Martine Tétreault, Luis Barreiro, Guy Wolf, Daniel E. Kaufmann

Mathematics and Statistics Faculty Presentations

Plasma RNAemia, delayed antibody responses and inflammation predict COVID-19 outcomes, but the mechanisms underlying these immunovirological patterns are poorly understood. We profile 782 longitudinal plasma samples from 318 hospitalized patients with COVID-19. Integrated analysis using k-means reveals four patient clusters in a discovery cohort: mechanically ventilated critically-ill cases are subdivided into good prognosis and high-fatality clusters (reproduced in a validation cohort), while non-critical survivors segregate into high and low early antibody responders. Only the high-fatality cluster is enriched for transcriptomic signatures associated with COVID-19 severity, and each cluster has distinct RBD-specific antibody elicitation kinetics. Both critical and non-critical clusters with …

Lemons To Lemonade: Educational Modifications During The Covid-19 Pandemic And Their Utility Moving Forward, Ellis S. Logan, Brandon Atkins, Anne M. Price

The Journal of Public and Professional Sociology

The COVID-19 pandemic necessitated changes across social institutions, including education. This case study outlines specific innovations using five cases of pedagogical developments made by social science faculty members at a public university, and their utility for undergraduate students in a post-pandemic world. These innovations relate specifically to office hour scheduling, class assignment reminders, building informal class support groups, experiential learning, and virtual paper submission and evaluation. For each case, we outline the implementation procedure, evaluate its effectiveness, and discuss the benefits. We argue that these methods, forged during “challenging times”, will help improve students’ experiences and success during their time …

The Experience Of University Academics With Emergency Remote Teaching During The Covid-19 Pandemic Of 2020: A Phenomenological Study, Judith M. Peterson

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The purpose of this transcendental phenomenological study was to explore the experiences of academics at the university level with emergency remote teaching during the 2020-2021 COVID-19 pandemic. The theory guiding this study was Milheim, K. L. (2012) application of Maslow, A. H. (1943) hierarchy of needs. The central research question was: How did academics at the university level experience transitioning their course and teaching online during emergency remote teaching during the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020-2021? Eleven lecture academics were selected from six universities from the University of Wisconsin System who transitioned their residence courses to online during the pandemic. I …

Impact Of Leadership Decisions On Police Officer Well-Being: A Covid-19 Response, Jason N. Spencer

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The purpose of this qualitative dissertation research project is to determine the impact that law enforcement leaders, their leadership styles, and decision-making processes have on the well-being of police officers. This study sought to understand this impact by focusing on the perspectives of frontline police officers, detectives, and first-line supervisors from various law enforcement organizations in the Central Virginia Region and within the context of leadership decisions made in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Using the constructivist grounded theory approach to research design, 12 participants responded to an initial qualitative questionnaire, followed by a semi-structured interview to gain the rich, …

Change For The Better? An Examination Of How Technology-Based Instruction During Covid-19 Changed Teaching Methods In Band, An'cheyl Davis

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

Despite having access to such technologies, most music educators were not using online worksheets, playing exercises, or video questionnaires during daily instruction prior to the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. For example, in the band world, the only daily use of technology may have been the metronome, as most band directors focus on playing exercises and literature during class. Band classes are “hands-on” and performance-based. With the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, band directors had to transition from traditional teaching to teaching band online quickly. To combat the rapid spread of the coronavirus, schools in all fifty states and all U.S. …

Perceived Stress From Covid-19 On High School Students With Previous Trauma In A Rural County In The Southeastern United States, Kari Anne Russell

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The COVID-19 pandemic created historical trauma that will be felt for years to come. As the world begins sifting through the impacts, adolescents with previous trauma could be among the greatest sufferers. Rooted in trauma theory, this study aimed to examine the effects on high school students with previous trauma in a rural county in the southeastern United States. Variables such as previous mental health or counseling services, gender, socioeconomic status, race or ethnicity, and number of generations living in the home were all examined for those students having four or more ACEs. Through a quantitative design and with passive …

States’ Covid-19 Restrictions Were Associated With Increases In Drug Overdose Deaths In 2020, Douglas A. Wolf, Shannon M. Monnat, Jennifer Karas Montez, Emily E. Wiemers, Elyse Grossman

Center for Policy Research

Drug overdoses surged in the U.S. during the COVID-19 pandemic. Public health experts raised concerns in the pandemic’s early months about how the pandemic and the policies enacted to stem it might increase overdose risk. This brief summarizes the findings of a paper that used national data to identify how states’ COVID-19 policies affected drug overdose rates among U.S. adults ages 25-64 during the first year of the pandemic. Results show that counties located in states that adopted more aggressive in-person activity restrictions experienced larger increases in 2020 than counties located in states with fewer limitations. State economic support policies …

The Psychological Conditions Of Pregnant Women During The Covid-19 Outbreak In Lebanon, Ibrahim Kadamani, Ali Samaha, Maya Gebbawi, Najwa Yahfoufi, Hanadi Mohamad Nur Steitiyeh, Abbas Samaha

BAU Journal - Health and Wellbeing

In Lebanon, the psychological conditions of pregnant women during the COVID-19 pandemic have not been reported, which creates the need to conduct this study that aims to evaluate the psychological conditions of pregnant women during the COVID-19 pandemic. A cross-sectional design was adopted to reach the aim of this study. The study sample was reached through OBS/GYN clinics to be able to contact the pregnant women in the community, where a convenient sampling technique was followed. The total number of participants was 360 pregnant women: 101 (27.77%) first trimester, 140 (38.88%) second trimester, and 119 (33.33%) third trimester. There is …

Sentinel Surveillance Of Sars-Cov-2 Rates And Equity Impacts Using Labor And Delivery Patients In Phoenix, Arizona, Caitlyn J. Linehan, Trisalyn Nelson, Celeste V. Bailey, Esma Gel, Dean V. Coonrod, Cheryl K. Roth

Department of Supply Chain Management and Analytics: Faculty Publications

Proactive management of SARS-CoV-2 requires timely and complete population data to track the evolution of the virus and identify at risk populations. However, many cases are asymptomatic and are not easily discovered through traditional testing efforts. Sentinel surveillance can be used to estimate the prevalence of infections for geographical areas but requires identification of sentinels who are representative of the larger population. Our goal is to evaluate applicability of a population of labor and delivery patients for sentinel surveillance system for monitoring the prevalence of SARS-CoV-2 infection. We tested 5307 labor and delivery patients from two hospitals in Phoenix, Arizona, …

Chronic Inequities: Environmental & Structural Racism During Covid-19 And Hurricane Laura Disaster Recovery, Tomeka M. Robinson, Sabrina Singh

Critical Disaster Studies

The COVID-19 pandemic has amplified the realities of systemic health inequities within the United States. While the virus has severely impacted the entire country, people of color bear the brunt of this pandemic, from surges of COVID-19 cases in their communities to spikes in unemployment rates. Simultaneously, citizens are dealing with the impacts of natural disasters such as hurricanes along the Gulf Coast. The common denominator concerning these two stressors is that they can be exacerbated by institutional racism. This can be seen in the case of a small city in Southwest Louisiana, namely, Lake Charles, which has become a …

Unrestricted Versus Regulated Open Data Governance: A Bibliometric Comparison Of Sars-Cov-2 Nucleotide Sequence Databases, Nathanael Sheehan, Federico Botta, Sabina Leonelli

Copyright, Fair Use, Scholarly Communication, etc.

Two distinct modes of data governance have emerged in accessing and reusing viral data pertaining to COVID-19: an unrestricted model, espoused by data repositories part of the International Nucleotide Sequence Database Collaboration and a regulated model promoted by the Global Initiative on Sharing All Influenza data. In this paper, we focus on publications mentioning either infrastructure in the period between January 2020 and January 2023, thus capturing a period of acute response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Through a variety of bibliometric and network science methods, we compare the extent to which either data infrastructure facilitated collaboration from different countries around …

Baseline Characteristics Of Sars-Cov-2 Vaccine Non-Responders In A Large Population-Based Sample, Ashraf Yaseen, Stacia M. Desantis, Rachit Sabharwal, Yashar Talebi, Michael D. Swartz, Shiming Zhang, Luis Leon Novelo, Cesar L. Pinzon-Gomez, Sarah E. Messiah, Melissa Valerio-Shewmaker, Harold W. Kohl, Jessica Ross, David Lakey, Jennifer A. Shuford, Stephen J. Pont, Eric Boerwinkle

School of Medicine Faculty Publications and Presentations

Introduction Studies indicate that individuals with chronic conditions and specific baseline characteristics may not mount a robust humoral antibody response to SARS-CoV-2 vaccines. In this paper, we used data from the Texas Coronavirus Antibody REsponse Survey (Texas CARES), a longitudinal state-wide seroprevalence program that has enrolled more than 90,000 participants, to evaluate the role of chronic diseases as the potential risk factors of non-response to SARS-CoV-2 vaccines in a large epidemiologic cohort. Methods A participant needed to complete an online survey and a blood draw to test for SARS-CoV-2 circulating plasma antibodies at four-time points spaced at least three months …

Parental Factors Associated With Covid-19 Vaccine Uptake For Children Over 5 Years Of Age In Texas, Paula M Cuccaro, Jihye Choi, Yordanos M Tiruneh, Journey Martinez, Jing Xie, Michelle Crum, Mark Owens, Jose-Miguel Yamal

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

The COVID-19 vaccine is safe and effective for children, yet parental hesitancy towards vaccinating children against the virus persists. We conducted a telephone-administered weighted survey in Texas to examine parents' sociodemographic factors and medical conditions associated with COVID-19 vaccination intention for parents with unvaccinated children ages 5-17 years. We collected responses from 19,502 participants, of which 4879 were parents of children ages 5-17 years. We conducted multiple logistic regression with Lasso-selected variables to identify factors associated with children's vaccination status and parents' intention to vaccinate their children. From the unweighted sample, less than half of the parents (46.8%) had at …

Charting The Covid Long Haul Experience - A Longitudinal Exploration Of Symptoms, Activity, And Clinical Adherence, Jessica Pater, Shaan Chopra, Jeanee Carroll, Juliette Zaccour, Fayika Farhat Nova, Tammy Toscos, Shion Guha Ms, Phd, Fenlei Chang Md, Phd

Health Services and Informatics Research

COVID Long Haul (CLH) is an emerging chronic illness with varied patient experiences. Our understanding of CLH is often limited to data from electronic health records (EHRs), such as diagnoses or problem lists, which do not capture the volatility and severity of symptoms or their impact. To better understand the unique presentation of CLH, we conducted a 3-month long cohort study with 14 CLH patients, collecting objective (EHR, daily Fitbit logs) and subjective (weekly surveys, interviews) data. Our findings reveal a complex presentation of symptoms, associated uncertainty, and the ensuing impact CLH has on patients’ personal and professional lives. We …

An Analysis Of The Logging Sector In East Texas: Current Status And Future Prospects, Pooja Chhetri

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The logging sector plays a critical role in the wood supply chain and in forest management. It connects forest resources with mills, who consequently use that wood to manufacture a multitude of products. A better understanding of the state of logging businesses among policymakers is crucial in sustaining this industry. Therefore, this study aimed to estimate the economic contribution (2021) and economic contribution trend (2012-2021) of the logging sector in East Texas using Impact Analysis for Planning (IMPLAN). Furthermore, this study determined the current status of this sector using online and mail surveys. IMPLAN results showed that the logging sector …

Measuring Student Perceptions On Online Vs. Traditional Learning, Peyton Vittitoe, Betsy Matthews

Honors Theses

During the time of the global pandemic, COVID-19, there was a rapid transition in learning environments for schools across the country. During this transition, online based education was viewed extremely poorly by students, educators and even parents. Both students and educators thrived on human interaction in the classroom because it had been familiar to them their entire lives. This familiarity with human interaction was a very important factor for schools when designing learning plans and creating learning objectives. When the pandemic was at its peak, it was unsafe for schools to continue the traditional face-to-face learning methods, so the government …

Audience Preferences For Extension Forestry Zoom Webinars, Kevin W. Zobrist, Brendan J. Whyte

Journal of Extension

The Washington State University Extension Forestry program switched to all online programming in 2020 in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Over 2,000 people participated in our webinars, providing an opportunity to survey a large audience about their webinar preferences. We found that people prefer webinars that are approximately an hour long and offered in the evening or late morning. Participants placed high importance on having a recording available, but they had mixed views on including video of the instructor speaking. Participants found online delivery to be successful and had a strong preference for online programming in the future.

A Survey Of Collegiate Voice Students With Asthma And Allergies And Their Perceived Impact On Singer Health And Performance Experiences – A Pilot Study, Nicole D. Jenkins

Dissertations, 2020-current

An increasing body of research evidence indicates that college students of all majors with asthma and/or allergies represent a vulnerable population due to their inability to experience a consistent and dependable quality of life compared with their healthy collegiate peers. Further, in terms of their impact specifically on collegiate singers, the intricate network of co-morbid conditions associated with asthma and allergies, including pain, wheezing, and discomfort combined with physical symptoms of stress, disturbed sleep, fatigue, diminished concentration, depression, and high-risk behaviors, cannot be underestimated. As such, this study aims to identify and analyze the health impediments caused by asthma and/or …

Thoughts, Conflicts, And Feelings Of Ela Teachers’ Experiences During The Covid-19 Pandemic, Matthew Osborn

Dissertations

The COVID-19 pandemic introduced many complications and challenges for educators. There is a need to document and describe teacher experiences during this time to determine common themes that may inform future educational practice. This study utilized narrative inquiry to examine the lived experiences of five secondary ELA teachers during the different phases of the COVID-19 pandemic. Three themes concerning how teachers perceived their students, work demands, and self were identified through several rounds of coding and thematic analysis. The findings and conclusions of this study contribute to developing a shared understanding of what happened in secondary education during the various …

Topical Platelet-Rich Plasma As A Possible Treatment For Olfactory Dysfunction-A Randomized Controlled Trial, Alexander Duffy, Bita Naimi, Emily Garvey, Stephanie Hunter, Ayan Kumar, Chase Kahn, Douglas Farquhar, Glen D'Souza, Nancy Rawson, Pamela Dalton, Elina Toskala, Mindy Rabinowitz, Marc Rosen, Gurston G. Nyquist, David Rosen

Department of Otolaryngology - Head and Neck Surgery Faculty Papers

BACKGROUND: Olfactory dysfunction (OD) affects many survivors of COVID-19. Prior studies have investigated the use of platelet-rich plasma (PRP) injections for OD. We describe the first randomized controlled trial investigating topical PRP for OD treatment and contribute to existing literature illustrating PRP as an emerging therapeutic.

METHODS: This is a single-blinded, randomized controlled trial conducted from July 2022 to December 2023. Adult patients with OD ≥6 months secondary to COVID-19 with Brief Smell Identification Test (BSIT) scores of ≤8/12 or SCENTinel odor intensity of ≤40/100 were included. Patients were randomized to three, monthly PRP or placebo-impregnated Surgifoam treatments into bilateral …

A Bioinformatic Analysis Of T-Cell Epitope Diversity In Sars-Cov-2 Variants: Association With Covid-19 Clinical Severity In The United States Population, Grace J. Kim, Jacob H. Elnaggar, Mallory Varnado, Amy K. Feehan, Darlene Tauzier, Rebecca Rose, Susanna L. Lamers, Maya Sevalia, Najah Nicholas, Elizabeth Gravois, Daniel Fort, Judy S. Crabtree, Lucio Miele

School of Graduate Studies Faculty Publications

Long-term immunity against severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) requires the identification of T-cell epitopes affecting host immunogenicity. In this computational study, we explored the CD8+ epitope diversity estimated in 27 of the most common HLA-A and HLA-B alleles, representing most of the United States population. Analysis of 16 SARS-CoV-2 variants [B.1, Alpha (B.1.1.7), five Delta (AY.100, AY.25, AY.3, AY.3.1, AY.44), and nine Omicron (BA.1, BA.1.1, BA.2, BA.4, BA.5, BQ.1, BQ.1.1, XBB.1, XBB.1.5)] in analyzed MHC class I alleles revealed that SARS-CoV-2 CD8+ epitope conservation was estimated at 87.6%–96.5% in spike (S), 92.5%–99.6% in membrane (M), and 94.6%–99% in …

Detection Of Sars-Cov-2 Nucleocapsid And Spike Antibodies In Serum Of Covid-19 Vaccinated And Infected Patients Utilizing Immunoblot Assay, Suzanna Horn

Honors Theses

In 2020, the world was introduced to COVID-19, a strain of Coronavirus that quickly caused a pandemic at the global scale. COVID-19 was reported to cause 5.94 million deaths between 2020-2021, and it continues to prevail amongst society in 2024. Many methods of preventing COVID-19 infection arose throughout this time period; however, mRNA vaccines against the SARS-CoV-2 spike (S) protein became the most effective way to protect the population from COVID-19’s destructive reign.

Although society has made significant scientific strides in Coronavirus testing and vaccination efforts, there are many improvements that must be made to better protect our society from …

Pandemic Pandemonium: The Interconnectedness Of Environmental And Public Health Through The Lens Of Covid-19, Hanna Giedraitis

Student Theses 2015-Present

In 2020, the world was launched into a global pandemic it was completely unprepared to fight. This pandemic began in the midst of tragic environmental disasters, including the largest wildfire recorded in California history. Once the global lockdown began, many long-standing environmental problems began to remedy themselves due to the sudden halt of human interaction. However, there were major environmental setbacks in the healthcare industry as increased medical waste and single-use items became a necessity. This thesis addresses how the pandemic impacted the environment through a lens of sustainability and public health, and how healthcare industries can be more prepared …

Hesitancy Towards Covid-19 Vaccine Among Students Of Medical And Allied Health Sciences In Pakistan: A Cross Sectional Study, Maham Zahid, Youhib U. Rehman, Asif Rehman, Khalid Rehman

Journal of Community Hospital Internal Medicine Perspectives

Objective: To measure COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy and its associated factors among medical and allied health sciences students of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Methodology: This cross-sectional survey was conducted online using Google survey platform in March 2021. Study population comprised of medical and allied health sciences students studying in medical/allied health sciences academic institutes in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. The web-based online link was provided to around 800 students to fill in the questionnaire via email, WhatsApp and/or social media network. Response rate was around 50%. The main outcome variable was vaccine hesitancy. Factors associated with vaccine hesitancy were explored by bivariate and multivariate regression …

Impact Of Covid-19 On Food Insecurity And Subsequent Consequences In Post-Secondary Students In The United States: A Systematic Review With Meta Analysis, Meshora Suthanthira, Valerie Cadet

Research Day

Introduction

Food insecurity is a prevalent problem in the United States that affects the livelihoods of many individuals and families. Food security is defined as “a situation that exists when all people, at all times, have physical and social and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food that meets their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy lifestyle.” (Committee on World Food Security (CFS), 2012). The purpose of this systematic review is to compare food insecurity and its effects on mental health, physical health, and academics, prior to the start of the pandemic and after stay-at-home …

Centerless? Making Sense Of Disruptions In The Graduate Writing Center, Shannon Mcclellan Brooks

The Writing Center Journal

This critical self-reflection is not a success story; rather, it is an effort of decolonial thinking that reckons with the idea, experience, and practice of centerlessness during pandemic-induced online transitions and operations in a graduate writing center (GWC). By tracing the contours of a series of interlocking disruptions the author and her graduate writing center community experienced during COVID-19, this article brings into sharp focus present colonial legacies inhibiting effective developments, moves, and adaptations to the GWC physical center space and praxis. Through retrospectively following pandemic-induced disruptions to her center, the author critically engages how epistemologies of coloniality and modernity …