At the Lake of the Ozarks, vaccines are shunned, masks are mocked and the long-term consequences take a back seat to the time at hand.

‘What’s Covid?’ Why People at America’s Hardest-Partying Lake Are Not About to Get Vaccinated

10.3389/fpsyg.2021.666977

This study aimed to determine whether the observed tendency to remember more positive than negative past events (positivity phenomena) also appears when recalling hypothetical events about the future. In this study, young, middle-aged, and older adults were presented with 28 statements about the future associated with the COVID-19 pandemic, half positive and half negative. In addition, half of these statements were endowed with personal implications while the other half had a more social connotations. Participants rated their agreement/disagreement with each statement and, after a distraction task, they recalled as many statements as possible. There was no difference in the agreement ratings between the three age groups, but the participants agreed with positive statements more than with negative ones and they identified more with statements of social content than of personal content. The younger and older individuals recalled more statements than the middle-aged people. More importantly, older participants recalled more positive than negative statements (positivity effect), and showed a greater tendency to turn negative statements into more positive or neutral ones (positivity bias). These findings showed that the positivity effect occurs in even such complex and situations as the present pandemic, especially in older adults. The results are discussed by reference to the notion of commission errors and false memories resulting from the activation of cognitive biases.

Prospective Memory and Positivity Bias in the COVID-19 Health Crisis: The Effects of Aging

10.3389/fpsyg.2021.684195

The fear of contagion during the COVID-19 pandemic has been indicated as a relevant cause of psychological pathologies occurring in this period. Food represents a compensating experience, distracting from the experiences of uncertainty, fear and despair, causing alterations in eating habits and behaviors. The study aims at evaluating the relations between fear of a pandemic, mood states and eating disorders in Italian college students, taking into account gender differences. During the lockdown for the pandemic, a sample of 469 college students equally distributed by gender, was recruited online using a questionnaire including the FCV-19S for the assessment of fear of COVID-19, the profile of mood states (POMS) for the evaluation of different emotional states, the eating disorder inventory-2 (EDI-2) and the binge eating scale (BES) to evaluate the presence of the levels of eating disorders. As expected, all emotive states measured by POMS (tension, depression, anger, tiredness, confusion) resulted significantly correlated with the fear of COVID-19. Women were more exposed to fear of COVID-19 showing greater tension, fatigue, depression and confusion, and a significantly higher total mood disturbance score than males. Regarding the EDI-2 and BES variables, tension and anxiety resulted significantly correlated also with bulimic behavior, while depression with interoceptive awareness, impulsivity, and binge eating behaviors, without gender differences. In conclusion, the negative impact of the fear of COVID-19 on the emotional profile and eating behavior suggests the need to implement strategies against psychological distress during the pandemic emergency, and to design psycho-educational interventions aimed at modifying the lifestyle for preventing risks of mental disorders fostering health-oriented behaviors.

Relations Between Mood States and Eating Behavior During COVID-19 Pandemic in a Sample of Italian College Students

10.3389/fpsyg.2021.687928

The COVID-19 pandemic not only threatens people’s physical health, but also affects their mental health in the long term. Although people had returned to work and school, they are closely monitoring the development of the epidemic and taking preventive measures. This study attempted to examine the relationship between media exposure, sense of coherence (SOC) and mental health, and the moderating effect of media exposure in college students after returning to school. In the present study, we conducted a cross sectional survey on 424 college students returning to school around May 2020. Self-report questionnaires were used to assess media exposure scale, SOC, depression, anxiety and stress. Correlation and moderation analysis was conducted. The results showed that (1) negative epidemic information exposure, rather than positive epidemic information exposure, was significantly associated with depression, anxiety, and stress. (2) SOC was also associated with depression, anxiety, and stress. (3) The effect of SOC on depression was modified by negative epidemic information exposure. With the increase of negative epidemic information exposure, the predictive effect of SOC on depression is increasing gradually. These findings demonstrated that negative epidemic information exposure was associated with an increased psychological distress in the sample. A high SOC played a certain protective role in the adaptation of college students in the post-epidemic period. It is important to find more ways to increase the colleges’ SOC level and avoid negative information exposure.

Sense of Coherence and Mental Health in College Students After Returning to School During COVID-19: The Moderating Role of Media Exposure

10.1136/bmj.n1893

The US, the UK, and the Netherlands face throwing away tens of thousands of covid-19 vaccine doses that are due to expire.

Covid-19: Countries dump vaccines as demand slumps and sharing proves difficult

The San Francisco Bar Owner Alliance, which includes more than 500 San Francisco bars, announced Monday a new policy requiring proof of COVID-19 vaccination or a 72-hour negative COVID test for entry into their establishments. 

SF bar alliance announces policy requiring proof of vaccination

10.1038/s41598-021-94630-6

Many western countries used shielding (extended self-isolation) of people presumed to be at high-risk from COVID-19 to protect them and reduce healthcare demand. To investigate the effectiveness of this strategy, we linked family practitioner, prescribing, laboratory, hospital and death records and compared COVID-19 outcomes among shielded and non-shielded individuals in the West of Scotland. Of the 1.3 million population, 27,747 (2.03%) were advised to shield, and 353,085 (26.85%) were classified a priori as moderate risk. COVID-19 testing was more common in the shielded (7.01%) and moderate risk (2.03%) groups, than low risk (0.73%). Referent to low-risk, the shielded group had higher confirmed infections (RR 8.45, 95% 7.44–9.59), case-fatality (RR 5.62, 95% CI 4.47–7.07) and population mortality (RR 57.56, 95% 44.06–75.19). The moderate-risk had intermediate confirmed infections (RR 4.11, 95% CI 3.82–4.42) and population mortality (RR 25.41, 95% CI 20.36–31.71) but, due to their higher prevalence, made the largest contribution to deaths (PAF 75.30%). Age ≥ 70 years accounted for 49.55% of deaths. In conclusion, in spite of the shielding strategy, high risk individuals were at increased risk of death. Furthermore, to be effective as a population strategy, shielding criteria would have needed to be widely expanded to include other criteria, such as the elderly.

Comparison of COVID-19 outcomes among shielded and non-shielded populations

A festival in the Netherlands has shocked officials after 1,000 coronavirus infections were linked to the event despite requiring a “test for entry.”The Verknipt outdoor festival, which took place in Utrecht in early July, was attended by 20,000 people over two days.Everyone who attended had to show a QR code that demonstrated that they were vaccinated, had recently had a Covid infection or had a negative Covid test.

Music festival in the Netherlands leads to over 1,000 Covid infections

Despite rising ‘breakthrough infections’ most cases remain mild and are in line with expectations

Why are fully vaccinated people testing positive for Covid?

10.31234/osf.io/ge8s3

Under the lockdown of COVID-19 infection, a dramatic decline in social contacts, a radical change in daily life routine, economic problems, a real threat to one's own life, and the death of loved ones have led to depression in many people of all ages. In the arsenal of methods used by psychologist consultants when conducting telephone and online consultations, it is recommended to use the method of behavioral activation. Behavioral activation is a structured, short-term psychosocial approach that aims to alleviate depression and prevent future relapse by focusing directly on behavioral change. The article includes a discussion of the characteristics of the behavioral activation method.

Behavioral activation method for depression therapy

The trajectory of the pandemic might look more like a range of hills rather than a single mountain

Has England reached a peak in Covid infections?

Variants and new hotspots show what the virus’s long tail will be like

A Covid-Weary World Is Facing a Distressing Reality Check

10.31234/osf.io/2m9nu

As a result of the spreading of the coronavirus (COVID-19), we witnessed an increase in purchases of certain products, such as toilet paper, disinfectants, or groceries. In the present study, we examined the individual and socio-psychological determinants of stockpiling behavior to determine what factors lead some people to stockpile essential products. For this purpose, we defined an explanatory model based on the Health Belief Model (HBM) and extended it by social norms as predictors of behavior. The final sample included 841 German respondents (male= 197, female = 624, mean age = 36.62, SD = 12.29). Perceived barriers turned out to be the strongest predictor of stockpiling. Participants also reported increased stockpiling the more they felt threatened by infection and especially the more severe they perceived it to be. Finally, our results suggest a significant impact of social cues, showing that descriptive normative beliefs are associated with stockpiling behavior.

Predictors of stockpiling behavior during the COVID-19 pandemic in Germany

10.31234/osf.io/r64hf

Correlations between parenting practices and child development outcomes are as established as anything in human behavior. Their causes remain controversial. Parenting practices are confounded with culture, socio-economic status, and genetics. As a general rule, randomized controlled experiments are impractical if not impossible. We use the COVID-19 pandemic school reopenings as a natural experiment to address this gap. A number of studies showed that the advent of the pandemic affected families negatively affected families. Prior work tied increased child recreational screen time and decreased parent mental health specifically to school and daycare closures (rather than work-at-home policies, unemployment, fluctuating COVID rates, etc.). However, losses are different from gains, and just because losing childcare hurts families does not mean increasing childcare will help them. We use the fact that schools reopened at different times and to different degrees across the country, showing that return to in-person schooling decreased child recreational screen time and improved parent mental health. Again, we rule out potential confounds like work-from-home policies, COVID rates, and unemployment. The results indicate that addressing childcare gaps may be critical to improving child and family well-being.

Just give them childcare: The COVID-19 pandemic as a natural experiment in parenting practices

Confirmed infections have dropped 21.5% week on week – though recorded deaths are still on the rise

What is behind the latest fall in cases of Covid across the UK?

Ireland and Italy among those joining France in requiring vaccine passes to enter bars and restaurants

Covid: more EU states to restrict venue access for unvaccinated people

Doctors say most patients now arriving in intensive care are unvaccinated, and deeply regret their decision

‘I advise everyone to get it’: UK Covid patients tell of regrets over refusing jab

Science is the only method we have of understanding the world, making predictions, and rationally adapting our own behaviour

‘Trust the science’ is the mantra of the Covid crisis – but what about human fallibility?

The COVID-19 pandemic continues apace, with high- and lower-income settings struggling to contain outbreaks. The vaccine rollout is relatively speedy in some countries such as the UK. However, vaccine demand is much greater than supply. This, combined with the hoarding of surplus doses from high-income countries, means that the continent of Africa is left with very few doses to protect its countries' populations.

Ghana: Vaccine Hesitancy Has Risen in Ghana - a Closer Look At Who's Worried

All of our code is on github: https://github.com/leahkeating/MTBP_complex_contagion_on_clustered_networks… Any feedback or suggestions are more than welcome! (6/6)

The multi-type branching process model lends itself to a method of simulating cascades which is more computationally efficient than network-based methods with no finite-size effects. There is very strong agreement in the cascade size distribution for both methods. (5/6)

We show a way to analytically calculate the expected cascade size which agrees very strongly with simulations. (4/6)

Using this model we get some nice analytical results about the criticality of the system, we can identify parameter regions where we expect subcritical (and supercritical) diffusion. We compare this for networks with different clustering levels. (3/6)

We describe a model using multi-type branching processes (more commonly used to model populations in ecology) to track the propagation of clique motifs in a network under complex contagion dynamics. The motifs are characterised by the infection state of the nodes. (2/6)

This work with @DavidJPOS and @gleesonj is now on arXiv (http://arxiv.org/abs/2107.10134): "A multi-type branching process method for modelling complex contagion on clustered networks" Here is a quick overview of our paper: (1/6)

The crowdsourced reference site can teach the CDC how to communicate in an era of rumors and shifting information.

Institutional Authority Has Vanished. Wikipedia Points to the Answer.

CHICAGO, July 12 (Reuters) - Pfizer Inc's (PFE.N) push for health regulators to authorize a third dose of its COVID-19 shot is not yet backed by evidence, despite the fast-spreading Delta variant, vaccine experts said.

Analysis: Pfizer/BioNTech bid for booster doses premature, more data needed -experts

10.1038/d41586-021-01879-y

The systems of science must reward honesty about mistakes to speed progress.

I critiqued my past papers on social media — here’s what I learnt

3 cases - returning family in Victoria should be 13th July.

Australian Covid outbreaks since May 2021 - 9 outbreaks (1 USA, 1 alpha, 1 kappa, 6 delta)

A thread today about windows and ventilation, and some things you can do to make the most of your windows for comfort and infection risk 1/

That stuffy, sweltering, smothering feeling? It’s not just in your head. A carbon dioxide monitor shows why.

Why crowded meetings and conference rooms make you so, so tired

Nafeez Ahmed reports on an open letter published in April, which was coordinated by a Government advisor and signed by those behind the controversial ‘herd immunity’ declaration

Government’s Mass Infection PlanPushed by Great Barrington Declaration Lobbying Effort to End COVID Protections

Understanding seasonality can help us to work out when the pandemic is likely to be over

If Covid-19 is a seasonal virus, why is it spreading during the summer?

CCDH finds ‘disinformation dozen’ have combined following of 59 million people across multiple social media platforms

Majority of Covid misinformation came from 12 people, report finds

10.1038/d41586-021-01910-2

As vaccines start to protect older generations, might COVID become a disease of the young?

Coronapod: kids' role in the future of COVID

PM Bennett: Vaccine ‘significantly less’ effective against the Delta variant

More than 1,000 Israelis test positive for COVID

Vaccines work or they don’t…. If they do…. Opening up… let them do there job… If they don’t…. You have to return to normality at some stage… Otherwise then what… restrictions on who you see, what you do and where you go until when…. Forever.. It’s one or the other…

International experts say ‘unethical experiment’ could allow vaccine-resistant variants to develop

England’s Covid unlocking is threat to world, say 1,200 scientists

A Louisiana nurse who questioned the safety of vaccines has died of complications from COVID-19.

Anti-vaxx nurse dies from COVID-19 in Louisiana

A high level of antibodies is associated with a higher level of protection against future infections.

Covid-19: Hong Kong study shows BioNTech vaccines create 10 times more antibodies than Sinovac

Legal questions remain over whether campuses can require inoculations of vaccines under emergency use authorization and some students have filed lawsuits over it, including three at Cal State Chico. An @ACEducation memo says courts would probably uphold campus mandates.

But @calstate and @laccd will wait for full approval, as will many of the 580+ universities and colleges that have announced vaccine mandates.

JUST IN: @UofCalifornia will require COVID-19 vaccinations this fall to access campus, the largest public university to mandate the vaccines without full federal approval.

The University of California announced Thursday that COVID-19 vaccinations will be required before the fall term begins for all students, faculty and others, becoming the nation’s largest public university system to mandate the vaccines even though they don’t have full federal approval.

UC mandates COVID-19 vaccinations and will bar most students without them from campus

10.1038/d41586-021-01977-x

Researchers are alarmed at England's plan to lift COVID restrictions on 'freedom day' amidst soaring infections

Coronapod: does England's COVID strategy risk breeding deadly variants?