Impact of Lockdown

The psychosocial impact of domestic violence with reference to the outbreak of COVID19 and the subsequent lockdown has increased anxiety and fear among women in India. A growing body of researches that has emerged during recent years across the world reveals that domestic violence is detrimental to women's health including their very survival. Similarly, past studies on impact of public health problems on women indicate that unequal gender relations and lack of control of women over their own bodies and lives make them more vulnerable to contracting the infection. This paper is based on a qualitative analysis of print, electronic and social media data, experiences of earlier researches and observations. It examines and highlights rise in cases of domestic violence faced by Indian women during the lockdown period from a social norm lens, its psychosocial impact on them and discusses possible measures to address these challenges. The findings of the study reveal that the pandemic and the lockdown have impacted Indian society significantly-socially, economically and health wise. In case of women, their domestic and household chores related responsibilities have increased substantially. The country has witnessed spike in reporting of the cases of domestic violence during the lockdown period indicating women's increased vulnerabilities at such critical time. The paper argues that this situation of women in India is due to the presence of myriad of beliefs, customs and prevailing social norms that are based on strong patriarchal mind set. The response of the State in terms of setting up of a special helpline number is not adequate as large number of women in India do not have awareness, accessibility, availability and affordability of means like personal mobile phone or landline telephone connections to contact these special helpline numbers. And even if they have it, they lack enough courage, inclination to do anything about it due to socialization and existing social norms. The existing services of the state to help women in need are functioning with limited resources and diverted attention to the pandemic. During the pandemic situation and lockdown the Government, State authorities and civil society organizations are more focused on relief work like economcic loss, availability of medical facilities and other basic necessities. Thus, addressing the issue of domestic violence has taken a backseat during the pandemic. The paper suggests consideration of domestic violence as a social disaster and inclusion of it in emergency services and disaster management programs of the state and civil society organisations.

The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic has emerged as a serious public health threat and has had a tremendous impact on all spheres of the environment. The air quality across the world improved because of COVID-19 lockdowns. Since the outbreak of COVID-19, large numbers of studies have been carried out on the impact of lockdowns on air quality around the world, but no studies have been carried out on the systematic review on the impact of lockdowns on air quality. This study aims to systematically assess the bibliographic review on the impact of lockdowns on air quality around the globe. A total of 237 studies were identified after rigorous review, and 144 studies met the criteria for the review. The literature was surveyed from Scopus, Google Scholar, PubMed, Web of Science, and the Google search engine. The results reveal that (i) most of the studies were carried out on Asia (about 65%), followed by Europe (18%), North America (6%), South America (5%), and Africa (3%); (ii) in the case of countries, the highest number of studies was performed on India (29%), followed by China (23%), the U.S. (5%), the UK (4%), and Italy; (iii) more than 60% of the studies included NO2 for study, followed by PM2.5 (about 50%), PM10, SO2, and CO; (iv) most of the studies were published by Science of the Total Environment (29%), followed by Aerosol and Air Quality Research (23%), Air Quality, Atmosphere & Health (9%), and Environmental Pollution (5%); (v) the studies reveal that there were significant improvements in air quality during lockdowns in comparison with previous time periods. Thus, this diversified study conducted on the impact of lockdowns on air quality will surely assist in identifying any gaps, as it outlines the insights of the current scientific research.

The Covid-19 pandemic, its duration, and its intensity are harbingers of demographic change. In the context of social demography, it is crucial to explore the social challenge emerging from the coronavirus disease. The main purpose of this study is (i) to explore the determinants that affected the population in Greece in terms of social isolation, during the lockdown period and (ii) to examine possible differences in the assessment of the social isolation factors depending on whether individuals live in urban or rural areas or regions with relative geographical isolation. Field research was conducted with 4,216 questionnaires during the first wave of COVID-19 (March to 11 April 2020). Multivariate analysis methods were applied to detect the main factors that impacted the feeling of social isolation, and non-parametric tests were performed to detect possible differences between population groups. Despite the resistance shown to the spread of the disease, the Greek population totally complied with the measures of social distancing and thus was socially and psychologically affected. The results indicate that psychosomatic disorders, employment situations, changes in sleep habits, socialization on the internet, demographic status, health concerns, and trust in government and the media response determine the Greeks' social isolation feeling. Pandemic and confinement measures have consequences for individuals and social groups and may prejudice social cohesion at multiple levels. By understanding how the pandemic affected the societies, interventions, and public policies may be implemented to ensure both social cohesion and populations' wellbeing, by addressing the social isolation feeling.

https://www.letture.org/la-vita-al-tempo-della-peste-misure-restrittive-quarantena-crisi-economica-maria-paola-zanoboni
Dall’antichità ai primi decenni del XVIII secolo le epidemie di peste coinvolsero ovunque tutti i possibili aspetti della vita economica, politica e sociale, con analogie impressionanti : dalla psicosi collettiva, alla caccia ai potenziali untori, alla negazione delle prime avvisaglie del contagio per timore degli effetti economici che avrebbero innescato; alle devastanti conseguenze sul commercio e sull’economia (in primis la “crisi del ‘300”), dovute alle misure restrittive; ai tentativi dei governi di sanare il deficit con prestiti, emissione di titoli del debito pubblico, nuove tasse, e di soccorrere con sussidi i disoccupati; agli assalti ai forni per paura della quarantena. E’ sconcertante come, nonostante i progressi nelle discipline mediche, gli strumenti di prevenzione disponibili ai nostri giorni siano gli stessi elaborati nel ‘300, a partire dal Nord della Penisola (Gian Galeazzo Visconti ne fu uno dei principali ideatori), recepiti tardi dal resto dell’Europa (tardissimo dal’Inghilterra, che li mise in pratica solo alla fine del ‘500, su consiglio dei medici padovani presenti a Londra), e adottati con successo fino al 1720, quando l’ultimo cordone sanitario (a Marsiglia) debellò quasi del tutto il morbo dal Vecchio Continente. Il ricorso a forme di vera e propria “dittatura sanitaria” fu dal ‘300 al ‘700 il metodo comunemente adottato per cercare di far rispettare le misure restrittive. Divieto di accesso e di uscita dalle città colpite, stretta sorveglianza sui movimenti di merci e persone, cordoni sanitari, isolamento, quarantena e “quarantena generale” (ovvero lockdown con modalità identiche a quelle attuali); divieto di assembramento e di ritrovo, chiusura di attività commerciali, taverne, scuole, luoghi di pubblico intrattenimento; cancellazione delle manifestazioni di ogni tipo, comprese le fiere e i mercati; divieto di partecipare a cerimonie religiose, processioni, funerali; “bollette e fedi di sanità” (=passaporti che consentivano la circolazione di persone e merci attestando la provenienza da luoghi non contagiati): questi i provvedimenti sanitari messi in atto a partire dalla metà del ‘300 per prevenire e limitare il contagio.

: The COVID-19 emergency and the consequent social distancing requirements have caused major disruptions in daily food-related practices at the household level. In this paper, we evaluate the transformations that occurred in the daily nutritional choices and behaviors of a convenience sample (n = 2288) of Italian residents during the first nation-wide lockdown (March–May 2020) to assess the impact on the health and socio-environmental sustainability of their diets. Results por-tray a scenario of wide-spread change, especially in relation to the quantity of daily food con-sumed, the composition of diets and the time and commitment devoted to home-cooking, with young individuals emerging as the most impacted generational cohort. Through the construction of an indicator for healthy–sustainable transition (HST index), we demonstrate that such changes unfold on a gradient, revealing that while for many respondents lockdown nutrition implied overeating and weight gain, a substantial segment of the population conversely improved the healthiness and sustainability of their daily nutritional patterns. In this sense, improvements are associated with young age, socio-economic status, frequency and enjoyment of cook-ing-from-scratch and, more generally, an attentive attitude towards the quality, provenance and materiality of food that, in turn, the COVID-19 crisis appears to have re-kindled. We conclude by highlighting five areas of institutional intervention (i.e., young people, time, tools, food supply at work, and local food chains) on which to focus in order to ensure the current crisis does not rep-resent a missed opportunity for creating the necessary conditions for sustainable food production and consumption to take hold as the ‘new’ normal in the post-pandemic era.

Crisis, at times, provides unpredictable solutions. An accidental crisis pushes people to take up immediate and desperate measures to resolve, and sometimes helps, at least accidentally, in discov- ering solutions to the long-standing problems that are disconcerting humanity. Limitations of past knowledge and the wisdom of present crises provide one of the effective solutions to the existing environmental crisis with which the world is grappling seriously since the past few decades. The effective solution that accidentally emerged due to the present global crisis of the COVID-19 pan- demic is the idea of a Global Lockdown Calendar.

late evening
a vase of red tulips
on the kitchen table

“This collection was born on Epiphany. For three days, snow has been lighting roofs and resting on branches. Ontario is in the middle of lockdown, and I have time to sit by my window. I am reminded of the kitchen windows in the farmhouse: if you couldn’t see the highway across the fields, then snow was drifting in from the lake; in the other direction, not being able to see the neighbour’s home at the near corner meant it was time to stay inside. One memory led to another.

I completed this collection on Pentecost. January 2021 Ontario is still in stay-at-home lockdown. The apple blossoms have come and gone, and the lilacs are in full bloom. May2021”

-  Kocher, Philomene, “new boards on the barn,” The Haiku Foundation Digital Library
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“Walking down the street where I had lived for nine years, something caught my attention: on my neighbour’s rosebush were rose hips, roses, and buds. It was late August, and I was amazed at seeing buds still. As a haiku poet, it is often when I am surprised that I am moved to write. It is also often true that this happens when I am walking, perhaps because I am closer to nature despite the sidewalks and traffic, and because I have slowed down. And so I wrote this poem: 

rose hips and roses and buds
on the same bush
August evening

I recorded my awareness of a particular moment. Reflecting on it later, I realized how much this image spoke also to my life circumstances. I was only months away from my fortieth birthday, and I pondered the parts of my life that were mature, that were blooming, and that were still in bud. After almost two decades exploring haiku, I am still astonished at how much story can be distilled into such small poems.  The potential of haiku to capture so much experience with so few words has always fascinated me.”

- Inviting connection through the gap in haiku PHILOMENE KOCHER Language and Literacy Volume 11, Number 1, Spring 2009

The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic has emerged as a serious public health threat and has had a tremendous impact on all spheres of the environment. The air quality across the world improved because of COVID-19 lockdowns. Since the outbreak of COVID-19, large numbers of studies have been carried out on the impact of lockdowns on air quality around the world, but no studies have been carried out on the systematic review on the impact of lockdowns on air quality. This study aims to systematically assess the bibliographic review on the impact of lockdowns on air quality around the globe. A total of 237 studies were identified after rigorous review, and 144 studies met the criteria for the review. The literature was surveyed from Scopus, Google Scholar, PubMed, Web of Science, and the Google search engine. The results reveal that (i) most of the studies were carried out on Asia (about 65%), followed by Europe (18%), North America (6%), South America (5%), and Africa (3%); (ii) in the ...

With the unexpected onset of COVID-19 while the world was trying to safeguard and address the socioeconomic impact of the pandemic, India was struggling with another unfortunate issue of reverse migration. In India, ninety per cent of the workers are employed in the unorganized sector. The outbreak of COVID-19 forced migrant workers to shift from urban areas to their native places. With the declaration of the lockdown, millions of these workers were left unemployed and with no savings. This article is an attempt to analyze the reverse migration issue that occurred because of COVID crisis and its impact on migrant laborers that also led to the loss of livelihood of these migrants. The article also emphasizes India's response to COVID-19, how did India respond to the situation prior to lockdown, and how did Central and State Government respond to challenges faced by the migrant laborers.

The COVID-19 pandemic, its duration, and its intensity are harbingers of demographic change. In the context of social demography, it is crucial to explore the social challenge emerging from the coronavirus disease. The main purpose of this study is (i) to explore the determinants that affected the population in Greece in terms of social isolation during the lockdown period and (ii) to examine possible differences in the assessment of the social isolation factors depending on whether individuals live in urban or rural areas or regions with relative geographical isolation. Field research was conducted with 4216 questionnaires during the first wave of COVID-19 (March to April 2020). Multivariate analysis methods were applied to detect the main factors that impacted the feeling of social isolation, and nonparametric tests were performed to detect possible differences between population groups. Despite the resistance shown to the spread of the disease, the Greek population totally compli...

COVID-19 is deepening pre-existing inequalities. Emerging research suggests that people with disabilities across the world have experienced various rights violations and been disproportionality affected by the health, economic and social impacts of the pandemic and responses to it. The aim of this research was to better understand how people with disabilities who are often excluded from research have experienced the evolving COVID-19 pandemic in Bangladesh and Nepal. In order to better understand how it has affected some of the most marginalised groups of people with disabilities, this study used in-depth qualitative research to focus on people with intellectual, psychosocial, deafblindness and other multiple impairments.

COVID-19 is deepening pre-existing inequalities. Emerging research suggests that people with disabilities across the world have experienced various rights violations and been disproportionality affected by the health, economic and social impacts of the pandemic and responses to it. The aim of this research was to better understand how people with disabilities who are often excluded from research have experienced the evolving COVID-19 pandemic in Bangladesh and Nepal. In order to better understand how it has affected some of the most marginalised groups of people with disabilities, this study used in-depth qualitative research to focus on people with intellectual, psychosocial, deafblindness and other multiple impairments.

"SKOLSTREIK FÖR KLIMATET" reads the sign that Greta Thurnberg used to begin her own school strike for climate. It subsequently sparked the worldwide protest movement Fridays For Future, which has substantially affected interdiscourse on the topic of climate in the area of tension between science, the everyday world and politics, and between the older and younger generations. Signs are key elements in this movement. In this paper, processes of the entextualisation and recontextualisation of signs in the Fridays For Future (FFF) movement will be discussed; the signs have recently evolved due to the massive social change caused by the Corona crisis between March and May 2020, which has led FFF-activists to move their activities to the digital world for a certain period of time. The paper analyses protest signs as a discourse phenomenon and as an established element in the action and communication framework of protesting. Within the socio-historical context of the Corona crisis, not only did some of the central key words and topoi of climate discourse - in particular, 'climate crisis' - undergo change, but so did some performative aspects of sign usage in the FFF movement. Certain forms of protest sign recontextualisation in both physical and digital contexts ultimately effect change in established protest practices.
Abstract (deutsch)
„SKOLSTREJK FÖR KLIMATET“ stand auf dem Schild, mit dem Greta Thunberg im August 2018 ihren Schulstreik für das Klima begann und damit die weltweite Protestbewegung Fridays For Future entfachte, die seither den Interdiskurs zum Thema Klima im Spannungsfeld zwischen Wissenschaft, Alltagswelt und Politik und zwischen jüngeren und älteren Generationen wesentlich prägte. Schilder sind zentrale Elemente dieser Bewegung. In diesem Beitrag werden Prozesse der Entextualisierung und Rekontextualisierung von Protestschildern im Rahmen der Fridays-for-Future-Bewegung (FFF) diskutiert, die sich durch die massiven sozialen Veränderungen im Zuge der Corona-Krise zwischen März und Mai 2020 entwickelten, als die Aktivitäten der FFF-Aktivist*innen für eine gewisse Zeit in den digitalen Raum verlegt wurden. Der Beitrag analysiert Protestschilder als diskursives Phänomen und etabliertes Element im Handlungs- und Kommunikationsrahmen Protest. Im sozio-historischen Kontext der Corona-Krise veränderten sich nicht nur einige der zentralen Schlüsselwörter und Topoi des Klima-Diskurses – Stichwort Klimakrise –, sondern auch performative Aspekte der Verwendung von Schildern der Fridays-For-Future-Bewegung. Verschiedene Formen der Rekontextualisierung der Protestschilder in physisch-räumlichen wie auch digitalen Kontexten bewirken letztlich auch Veränderungen in etablierten Praktiken des Protestgeschehens.

COVID-19 is deepening pre-existing inequalities. Emerging research suggests that people with disabilities across the world have experienced various rights violations and been disproportionality affected by the health, economic and social impacts of the pandemic and responses to it. The aim of this research was to better understand how people with disabilities who are often excluded from research have experienced the evolving COVID-19 pandemic in Bangladesh and Nepal. In order to better understand how it has affected some of the most marginalised groups of people with disabilities, this study used in-depth qualitative research to focus on people with intellectual, psychosocial, deafblindness and other multiple impairments.

COVID-19 is deepening pre-existing inequalities. Emerging research suggests that people with disabilities across the world have experienced various rights violations and been disproportionality affected by the health, economic and social impacts of the pandemic and responses to it. The aim of this research was to better understand how people with disabilities who are often excluded from research have experienced the evolving COVID-19 pandemic in Bangladesh and Nepal. In order to better understand how it has affected some of the most marginalised groups of people with disabilities, this study used in-depth qualitative research to focus on people with intellectual, psychosocial, deafblindness and other multiple impairments.

https://www.letture.org/la-vita-al-tempo-della-peste-misure-restrittive-quarantena-crisi-economica-maria-paola-zanoboni
Dall’antichità ai primi decenni del XVIII secolo  le epidemie di peste coinvolsero ovunque  tutti i possibili aspetti della vita economica, politica e sociale, con analogie impressionanti : dalla psicosi collettiva, alla caccia ai potenziali untori, alla negazione delle prime avvisaglie del contagio per timore degli effetti economici che avrebbero innescato; alle devastanti conseguenze sul commercio e sull’economia (in primis la “crisi del ‘300”), dovute alle misure restrittive; ai tentativi dei governi di sanare il deficit con prestiti, emissione di titoli del debito pubblico, nuove tasse, e di soccorrere con sussidi i disoccupati; agli assalti ai forni per paura della quarantena. E’ sconcertante come, nonostante i progressi nelle discipline mediche, gli strumenti di prevenzione disponibili ai nostri giorni siano gli stessi elaborati nel ‘300, a partire dal Nord della Penisola (Gian Galeazzo Visconti ne fu uno dei principali ideatori), recepiti tardi dal resto dell’Europa (tardissimo dal’Inghilterra, che li mise in pratica solo alla fine del ‘500, su consiglio dei medici padovani presenti a Londra), e adottati con successo fino al 1720, quando l’ultimo cordone sanitario (a Marsiglia) debellò quasi del tutto il morbo dal Vecchio Continente. Il ricorso a forme di vera e propria “dittatura sanitaria” fu dal ‘300 al ‘700 il metodo comunemente adottato per cercare di far rispettare le misure restrittive.
Divieto di accesso e di uscita dalle città colpite, stretta sorveglianza sui movimenti di merci e persone, cordoni sanitari, isolamento,  quarantena e “quarantena generale” (ovvero lockdown con modalità identiche a quelle attuali); divieto di assembramento e di ritrovo, chiusura di attività commerciali, taverne, scuole, luoghi di pubblico intrattenimento; cancellazione delle manifestazioni di ogni tipo, comprese le fiere e i mercati; divieto di partecipare a cerimonie religiose, processioni, funerali;  “bollette e fedi di sanità” (=passaporti che consentivano la circolazione di persone e merci attestando la provenienza da luoghi non contagiati): questi i provvedimenti sanitari messi in atto a partire dalla metà del ‘300 per prevenire e limitare il contagio.

COVID-19 is deepening pre-existing inequalities. Emerging research suggests that people with disabilities across the world have experienced various rights violations and been disproportionality affected by the health, economic and social impacts of the pandemic and responses to it. The aim of this research was to better understand how people with disabilities who are often excluded from research have experienced the evolving COVID-19 pandemic in Bangladesh and Nepal. In order to better understand how it has affected some of the most marginalised groups of people with disabilities, this study used in-depth qualitative research to focus on people with intellectual, psychosocial, deafblindness and other multiple impairments.