Query: Resilience and fear of COVID-19

title: Reflections on Resilience during the COVID 19 Pandemic: Six Lessons from Working in Resource Denied Settings
abstract: The 2019 novel coronavirus disease (COVID 19) pandemic highlights the experience of communities in the global South that have grappled with vulnerability and scarcity for decades. In the global North, many frontline workers are now being similarly forced to provide and ration care in unprecedented ways, with minimal guidance. We outline six reflections gained as Western practitioners working in resource denied settings which inform our current experience with COVID 19. The reflections include the following: managing trauma, remaining flexible in dynamic situations, and embracing discomfort to think bigger about context specific solutions to collectively build back our systems. Through this contextualized reflection on resilience, we hope to motivate strength and solidarity for providers, patients, and health systems, while proposing critical questions for our response moving forward.

title: Shifting from survival to supporting resilience in children and families in the COVID 19 pandemic: Lessons for informing U.S. mental health priorities.
abstract: This commentary contextualizes potential mental health outcomes for children during and after the COVID 19 pandemic within the risk and resilience literature. Individual, familial, and community level factors that may increase risk for mental health challenges for children as well as factors associated with positive adaptation in the face of adversity are considered. We highlight the value of considering children's resilience within a systemic perspective by considering family centered approaches including both short term and long term evidence informed mental health practices.

title: Assessing resilience of healthcare infrastructure exposed to COVID 19: emerging risks, resilience indicators, interdependencies and international standards
abstract: In the moment of preparation of this paper, the world is still globally in grip of the Corona (COVID 19) crisis, and the need to understand the broader overall framework of the crisis increases. As in similar cases in the past, also with this one, the main interest is on the "first response" Fully appreciating the efforts of those risking their lives facing pandemics, this paper tries to identify the main elements of the larger, possibly global, framework, supported by international standards, needed to deal with new (emerging) risks resulting from threats like Corona and assess the resilience of systems affected. The paper proposes that future solutions should include a number of new elements, related to both risk and resilience. That should include broadening the scope of attention, currently focused onto preparation and response phases, to the phases of "understanding risks" including emerging risks, and transformation and adaptation. The paper suggests to use resilience indicators in this process. The proposed approach has been applied in different cases involving critical infrastructures in Europe (energy supply, water supply, transportation, etc. exposed to various threats) including the health system in Austria. The detailed, indicator based, resilience analysis included mapping resilience, resilience stress testing, visualization, etc. showing, already before the COVID 19, the resilience (stress testing) limits of the infrastructures. A simpler (57 indicator based) analysis has, then been done for 11 countries (including Austria) The paper links these results with the options available in the area of policies, standards, guidelines and tools (such as the RiskRadar) with focus on interdependencies and global standards especially the new ISO 31,050, linking emerging risks and resilience.

title: African Resources and the Promise of Resilience against COVID 19
abstract: African Resources and the Promise of Resilience against COVID 19.

title: Trends and applications of resilience analytics in supply chain modeling: systematic literature review in the context of the COVID 19 pandemic
abstract: The increasingly global context in which businesses operate supports innovation, but also increases uncertainty around supply chain disruptions. The COVID 19 pandemic clearly shows the lack of resilience in supply chains and the impact that disruptions may have on a global network scale as individual supply chain connections and nodes fail. This cascading failure underscores the need for the network analysis and advanced resilience analytics we find lacking in the existing supply chain literature. This paper reviews supply chain resilience literature that focuses on resilience modeling and quantification and connects the supply chain to other networks, including transportation and command and control. We observe a fast increase in the number of relevant papers (only 47 relevant papers were published in 2007 2016, while 94 were found in 2017 2019) We observe that specific disruption scenarios are used to develop and test supply chain resilience models, while uncertainty associated with threats including consideration of "unknown unknowns" remains rare. Publications that utilize more advanced models often focus just on supply chain networks and exclude associated system components such as transportation and command and control (C2) networks, which creates a gap in the research that needs to be bridged. The common goal of supply chain modeling is to optimize efficiency and reduce costs, but trade offs of efficiency and leanness with flexibility and resilience may not be fully addressed. We conclude that a comprehensive approach to network resilience quantification encompassing the supply chain in the context of other social and physical networks is needed to address the emerging challenges in the field. The connection to systemic threats, such as disease pandemics, is specifically discussed.

title: "When the going gets tough, the tough get Creative" Israeli Jewish religious leaders find religiously innovative ways to preserve community members' sense of belonging and resilience during the COVID 19 pandemic.
abstract: This commentary describes the religiously innovative adaptations made to customary rituals by Jewish religious leaders to address issues of belonging and resilience during the 2019 novel coronavirus (COVID 19) pandemic quarantine. These adaptations included allowing religious prayer through a "balcony" minyan, conducting an online chavruta using video conferencing, and broadcasting the Passover ceremony. The approach shown here could contribute to future evidence based research, conducted among different faiths, about the roles of both religious leadership and information and communications technology (ICT) in preserving one's sense of belonging and resilience in times of crisis.

title: Building resilience against biological hazards and pandemics: COVID 19 and its implications for the Sendai Framework
abstract: 2020 has become the year of coping with COVID 19. This year was to be the "super year" for sustainability, a year of strengthening global actions to accelerate the transformations required for achieving the 2030 agenda. We argue that 2020 can and must be a year of both. Thus we call for more utilisation of the health emergency disaster risk management (Health EDRM) framework to complement current responses to COVID 19 and the patent risk of similar phenomena in the future. To make our case, we examine current responses to COVID 19 and their implications for the SFDRR. We argue that current mechanisms and strategies for disaster resilience, as outlined in the SFDRR, can enhance responses to epidemics or global pandemics such as COVID 19. In this regard, we make several general and DRR specific recommendations. These recommendations concern knowledge and science provision in understanding disaster and health related emergency risks, the extension of disaster risk governance to manage both disaster risks and potential health emergencies, particularly for humanitarian coordination aspects; and the strengthening of community level preparedness and response.

title: COVID 19: fear, explanation, action, unity and ingenuity and World Hand Hygiene Day
abstract: At the time of writing (31 March 2020) the COVID 19 emergency is beginning to take hold and many of you have been working flat out for the past six weeks in preparation for this. It is difficult to write an editorial that will have relevance in two months when, if the epidemiological modellers are correct in their forecast, we will hopefully be on our way out of the other side of the UK epidemic. All those working in the health service will have been giving their absolute best at considerable cost to themselves and their families, but many lives will also have been lost. In the March Editorial I wrote about Strong's psychology of epidemics (1990) in which he describes three phenomena or "epidemics" that accompany the emergence of novel infections: fear, explanation and the need for action. Since the pandemic spread of HIV starting in the 1980s, the UK has been relatively untouched by novel infections. Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) in 2003 resulted in four confirmed cases and Middle Eastern Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) in 2012 in five confirmed cases and the UK did not experience the epidemics that Strong described. However, COVID 19 is a different matter. The daily press conferences in the middle weeks of March saw a slow and stealthy number of measures being put in place that impacted our daily lives and resulted in behaviour changes associated with self preservation and taking the last opportunities to be "normal" The need for strict social distancing, self isolation, the suspension of normal everyday activity and liberties, and the constant media and social media focus on the lack of testing, personal protective equipment, ventilators and intensive care beds is frightening. The increasing number of new cases and deaths in the UK coupled with similar coverage from around the world is sobering and individual stories of people fighting for their lives and dying without the comfort of loved ones is heart breaking: the epidemic of fear is well and truly with us. We have also seen the epidemic of explanation take hold of the nation. As a society we don't deal well with uncertainty or the messages coming from experts that we are learning about COVID 19 as we go along. Experts differ in their opinions about what may and may not work in the UK, and the suggestion that what has been done in other countries may not work here for a range of complicated cultural and scientific reasons is perplexing. The language of epidemiologists, that we are trying to "flatten the curve" and not conducting an experiment in herd immunity is also quite alien. I find mathematical modelling a difficult science to understand, although I can grasp the principle that a model is only as good as the data you put into it, but that too is difficult for the public to understand. Forecasts are not facts or even pretty good predictions when you are learning as you go along, but they are helpful in helping you to consider what might happen given a specific set of parameters. Our admiration for the government advisers across the UK, who have supported and advised central and devolved governments is immense. They have been calm and consistent in their advice against a changing epidemiological landscape and an often fractious media audience. Understanding and communicating risk is similarly fraught with missteps. Rowlands et al. (2015) indicate that 43% of people aged between 16 and 65 years find health information too complex, and when the information also requires maths skills this rises to 61% There are 34.1 million adults in England aged 16 65 years, so this means that between 15 and 21 million people of working age across the country may not be able to understand and use the information they need to look after their health. Much of the information being provided about COVID 19 is available from internet sources and supposes that everyone has access and is able to negotiate web sites. However, we know that computer and internet literacy skills are lower among older adults when compared with the general population resulting in a "grey" digital divide, with many older people missing out on the benefits that computers and the COVID 19: fear, explanation, action, unity and ingenuity and World Hand Hygiene Day

title: How Fear Appeal Approaches in COVID 19 Health Communication May Be Harming the Global Community
abstract: As health professionals develop health communication for coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID 19) we implore that these communication approaches do not include fear appeals. Fear appeals, also known as scare tactics, have been widely used to promote recommended preventive behaviors. We contend that unintended negative outcomes can result from fear appeals that intensify the already complex pandemic and efforts to contain it. We encourage public health professionals to reevaluate their desire to use fear appeals in COVID 19 health communication and recommend that evidence based health communication be utilized to address the needs of a specific community, help people understand what they are being asked to do, explain step by step how to complete preventative behaviors, and consider external factors needed to support the uptake of behaviors. To aid health professionals in redirecting away from the use of fear appeals, we offer a phased approach to creating health communication messages during the COVID 19 crisis.

title: Hopelessness, helplessness and resilience: The importance of safeguarding our trainees' mental wellbeing during the COVID 19 pandemic
abstract: Highlights The COVID 19 pandemic may put the mental wellbeing of trainees at risk. Hopelessness, helplessness and burnout are important to be aware of. We need to foster an open culture of trust and support. We need to promote resilience in colleagues/trainees where possible.