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Building a More Resilient ICT Supply Chain: Lessons Learned During the COVID-19 Pandemic
From the Executive Summary: "The impacts of the COVID-19 [coronavirus disease 2019] pandemic on the Information Technology and Communication (ICT) sector's supply chains are still unfolding. To understand how IT [information technology] companies have been impacted, and to identify lessons learned about supply chain vulnerabilities and the potential ways to address them going forward, the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Supply Chain Risk Management (SCRM) Task Force, a partnership between the IT and Communications Sector Coordinating Councils and the Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) formed a study group (collectively, 'the Study Group'). The goal of the Study Group was to uncover the impacts of COVID-19 on the ICT supply chains and make practical recommendations that can support policy and operational decisions to strengthen and build additional resilience into ICT supply chains in the future. These recommendations can support policy and operational decisions intended to strengthen supply chains going forward. The study also provides a high-level visual mapping of how goods and services flow through the generalized ICT supply chain, from the raw materials stage through to sale to the consumer."
United States. Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency
2020-11
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Guidance on the Essential Critical Infrastructure Workforce: Ensuring Community and National Resilience in COVID-19 Response [March 28, 2020]
From the Document: "As the Nation comes together to slow the spread of COVID-19, on March 16th the President issued updated Coronavirus Guidance for America that highlighted the importance of the critical infrastructure workforce. The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) executes the Secretary of Homeland Security's authorities to secure critical infrastructure. Consistent with these authorities, CISA has developed, in collaboration with other federal agencies, State and local governments, and the private sector, an 'Essential Critical Infrastructure Workforce' advisory list. This list is intended to help State, local, tribal and territorial officials as they work to protect their communities, while ensuring continuity of functions critical to public health and safety, as well as economic and national security. Decisions informed by this list should also take into consideration additional public health considerations based on the specific COVID-19 [coronavirus disease]-related concerns of particular jurisdictions."
United States. Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency
Krebs, Christopher
2020-03-28
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Guidance on the Essential Critical Infrastructure Workforce: Ensuring Community and National Resilience in COVID-19 Response [March 19, 2020]
From the Document: "The attached list identifies workers who conduct a range of operations and services that are essential to continued critical infrastructure viability, including staffing operations centers, maintaining and repairing critical infrastructure, operating call centers, working construction, and performing management functions, among others. The industries they support represent, but are not necessarily limited to, medical and healthcare, telecommunications, information technology systems, defense, food and agriculture, transportation and logistics, energy, water and wastewater, law enforcement, and public works. We recognize that State, local, tribal, and territorial governments are ultimately in charge of implementing and executing response activities in communities under their jurisdiction, while the Federal Government is in a supporting role. As State and local communities consider COVID-19 [coronavirus disease]-related restrictions, CISA [Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency] is offering this list to assist prioritizing activities related to continuity of operations and incident response, including the appropriate movement of critical infrastructure workers within and between jurisdictions. Accordingly, this list is advisory in nature. It is not, nor should it be considered to be, a federal directive or standard in and of itself."
United States. Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency
Krebs, Christopher
2020-03-19
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Guidance on the Essential Critical Infrastructure Workforce: Ensuring Community and National Resilience in COVID-19 Response [March 23, 2020]
From the Document: "The attached list identifies workers who conduct a range of operations and services that are essential to continued critical infrastructure viability, including staffing operations centers, maintaining and repairing critical infrastructure, operating call centers, working construction, and performing management functions, among others. The industries they support represent, but are not necessarily limited to, medical and healthcare, telecommunications, information technology systems, defense, food and agriculture, transportation and logistics, energy, water and wastewater, law enforcement, and public works."
United States. Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency
Krebs, Christopher
2020-03-23
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Advisory: APT29 Targets COVID-19 Vaccine Development
From the Introduction: "The United Kingdom's National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) and Canada's Communications Security Establishment (CSE) assess that APT29 (also known as 'the Dukes' or 'Cozy Bear') is a cyber espionage group, almost certainly part of the Russian intelligence services. The United States' National Security Agency (NSA) agrees with this attribution and the details provided in this report. The United States' Department of Homeland Security's Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (DHS CISA) endorses the technical detail and mitigation advice provided in this advisory. The group uses a variety of tools and techniques to predominantly target governmental, diplomatic, think-tank, healthcare and energy targets for intelligence gain. Throughout 2020, APT29 has targeted various organisations involved in COVID-19 [coronavirus disease 2019] vaccine development in Canada, the United States and the United Kingdom, highly likely with the intention of stealing information and intellectual property relating to the development and testing of COVID-19 vaccines. APT29 is using custom malware known as 'WellMess' and 'WellMail' to target a number of organisations globally. This includes those organisations involved with COVID-19 vaccine development. WellMess and WellMail have not previously been publicly associated to APT29."
United Kingdom. National Cyber Security Centre; Communications Security Establishment (Canada); United States. Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency . . .
2020-07-16
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Emergency Services Sector Continuity Planning Suite: Human Resources Worksheet
From the Introduction: "The following worksheet is derived from the 'Continuity Capability Evaluation for the Emergency Services Sector' (CCE) to assist Emergency Services Sector organizations in evaluating and filling gaps in their continuity capability. [...] Human resources are policies, plans, and procedures that address personnel needs during an emergency, such as guidance regarding pay, leave, work scheduling, benefits, telework, hiring, authorities, and flexibilities. Personnel are vital to the continuity capability of all organizations. Continuity coordinators at all organizations should be senior accountable officials responsible for working with the organization head to ensure the effectiveness and survivability of the organization's continuity capability. Continuity managers manage the day-to-day continuity programs. During an emergency, organizations will activate emergency response group (ERG) members to perform their assigned duties. The ERG is composed of individuals who are assigned responsibility to relocate to an alternate site, as required, to perform the organization's essential functions or other tasks related to continuity operations. Personnel stationed at the devolution site who are identified to conduct essential functions during activation of devolution plans are classified as the devolution emergency response group (DERG). Organizations should have means and processes in place for employees to contact their organization in a timely and routine manner during emergencies."
United States. Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency
2018
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Advisory Memorandum on Ensuring Essential Critical Infrastructure Workers Ability to Work During the COVID-19 Response
From the Document: "The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) executes the Secretary of Homeland Security's authorities to secure critical infrastructure. Consistent with these authorities, CISA has developed, in collaboration with other federal agencies, State and local governments, and the private sector, an 'Essential Critical Infrastructure Workforce' advisory list. This list is intended to help State, local, tribal, territorial officials and organizations endeavor to protect their workers and communities as they continue to reopen in a phased approach, coupled with the need to ensure continuity of functions critical to public health and safety, as well as economic and national security. Decisions informed by this list should also take into consideration worker safety, workplace settings, as well as additional public health considerations based on the specific COVID-19-related concerns of particular jurisdictions."
United States. Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency
Wales, Brandon
2020-12-16
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Guidelines for 911 Centers: Pandemic Planning
From the Document: "Maintaining operational and resilient emergency communications is imperative during pandemic response for both public health and safety, as well as community well-being. A critical component of emergency communications are 911 centers--to include emergency communication centers (ECC), public safety answering points (PSAP), public safety communication centers (PSCC), emergency operations centers (EOC), and other public service command centers. A pandemic presents an immediate threat to the ability of these centers to operate effectively. The following guidance is intended to support public safety partners across all levels of government when engaging in the development of pandemic plans that promulgate policies, procedures, governance, resource planning, and contingency considerations."
United States. Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency
2020?
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Guidelines for 911 Centers: Pandemic Operating Procedures
From the Document: "Maintaining operational and resilient emergency communications is imperative during pandemic response for both public health and safety and community well-being. A critical component of emergency communications are 911 centers--to include emergency communication centers (ECC), public safety answering points (PSAP), public safety communication centers (PSCC), emergency operations centers (EOC), and other public safety command centers. A pandemic presents a real and immediate threat to the ability of these centers to operate effectively. In response, CISA [Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency] has developed a series of guidance documents for all levels of government to use when addressing a pandemic and its potential impact to emergency communication centers. The following guidance is intended to support public safety partners across all levels of government when developing their policies and procedures to organize, train, and care for personnel while operating through a pandemic."
United States. Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency
2020?
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Guidelines for Executives: 911 Center Pandemic Recommendations
From the Document: "Maintaining operational and resilient emergency communications is imperative during pandemic response for both public health and safety, as well as community well-being. A critical component in delivering government services during any emergency, communications centers include public safety facilities at which 911 or other emergency communications lines are answered, calls are processed, and first responders are dispatched and managed."
United States. Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency
2020?
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Guidelines for 911 Centers: Cleaning and Disinfecting During a Pandemic
From the Document: "Maintaining operational and resilient 911 centers--to include emergency communication centers (ECC), public safety answering points (PSAP), public safety communication centers (PSCC), emergency operations centers (EOC), and other public safety command centers--is imperative during pandemic response for both public health and safety, as well as community well-being. A pandemic, such as coronavirus (COVID-19), presents a real and immediate threat to the ability of these critical centers to continue operations effectively. In response, CISA [Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency] has developed a series of recommendations for all levels of government to use when addressing a pandemic and its potential impact on 911 centers."
United States. Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency
2020
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CISA Insights: 'Provide Medical Care' is in Critical Condition: Analysis and Stakeholder Decision Support to Minimize Further Harm
From the Document: "As the COVID-19 [coronavirus disease 2019] pandemic reaches another phase, with increased and protracted strains on the nation's critical infrastructure and related National Critical Functions such as 'Provide Medical Care,' CISA [U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency] is undertaking a renewed push for cyber preparedness and resilience, as well as decision support for stakeholders within critical infrastructure sectors. Over time, we find these original insights increasingly valuable, and in service of timely decision support, we offer them to you in their original form. As British statistician George E. P. Box noted, 'All models are wrong, but some are useful.' We hope that these models and insights are useful to you and stimulate additional discussion and exploration for mutual benefit."
United States. Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency
2021-09
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CBO Presentation: CBO's Budget and Economic Analysis During the Pandemic [November 3, 2021]
From the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) presentation to the Council for Affordable Health Coverage webpage: "Phillip Swagel, Director of the Congressional Budget Office, outlined the agency's budget and economic analysis during the 2020-2021 coronavirus pandemic and described some of the challenges involved in analyzing current economic policy. His remarks focused on CBO's analysis of health policy, the macroeconomic effects of the legislative response to the pandemic, and labor market issues arising from the response and recovery. He also discussed the long-term effects of the recovery on economic growth, jobs, wages, productivity, and climate change."
United States. Congressional Budget Office
Swagel, Phillip
2021-11-03
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Mémorandum De Recommandation Pour l'Identification Des Travailleurs Essentiels Des Infrastructures Critiques Dans Le Cadre De La Riposte Au COVID-19
"Alors que la nation entière se mobilise pour ralentir la propagation du COVID-19, le président a rendu publique le 16 mars une nouvelle version des Coronavirus Guidelines for America, des lignes directrices soulignant l'importance des travailleurs des infrastructures critiques. La Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) exerce les pouvoirs du secrétaire du département de la Sécurité intérieure des États-Unis (Homeland Security) pour protéger les infrastructures critiques. De ce fait, la CISA a dressé une liste de recommandation des « travailleurs essentiels des infrastructures critiques » en collaboration avec d'autres agences fédérales, avec des organismes publics étatiques et locaux, et avec le secteur privé. Cette liste est censée aider les responsables des États, des municipalités, des tribus et des territoires dans le cadre de leur travail de protection de leurs communautés tout en assurant la continuité des fonctions essentielles pour la santé et la sécurité publiques, ainsi que pour la sécurité économique et nationale. Les décisions prises à l'aide de cette liste doivent également tenir compte de facteurs supplémentaires liés à la santé publique et dépendant des enjeux du COVID-19 dans chaque collectivité concernée."
United States. Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency
Krebs, Christopher C., 1977-
2020-05-19
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Memorándum de carácter consultivo sobre la identificación de trabajadores esenciales de infraestructura crítica durante la respuesta al COVID-19
"A medida que el país se une para frenar la propagación del COVID-19, el 16 de marzo el Presidente emitió una actualización de los Lineamientos para afrontar la pandemia de coronavirus en los Estados Unidos, que destacan la importancia de la fuerza laboral de infraestructura crítica. La Agencia de Ciberseguridad y Protección de Infraestructura (CISA) ejecuta las potestades del Secretario de Seguridad Nacional para asegurar la infraestructura crítica. En consonancia con esas potestades, CISA ha desarrollado -- en colaboración con otras agencias federales, gobiernos estatales y locales, y el sector privado -- una lista recomendada de 'Fuerza Laboral Esencial de Infraestructura Crítica'. Esta lista ha sido diseñada para ayudar a los funcionarios estatales, locales, tribales y territoriales a medida que trabajan en la elaboración de planes para proteger a sus comunidades y asegurar la continuidad de las funciones críticas para la salud y la seguridad públicas, al igual que para la economía y seguridad del país. Las decisiones que se tomen basadas en esta lista también deberían tomar en cuenta otras consideraciones de salud pública, según las preocupaciones específicas relacionadas con el COVID-19 de jurisdicciones particulares."
United States. Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency
Krebs, Christopher C., 1977-
2020-05-19
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Critical Infrastructure Operations Centers and Control Rooms - A Guide for Pandemic Response
From the Document: "This Guide provides considerations and mitigation measures for operations centers and control rooms across the 16 critical infrastructure sectors required to operate in a pandemic environment. Operations centers and control rooms often operate 24/7, depend on unique equipment, and require specially trained staff who are difficult to replace. As a result, specialized equipment and long lead times required to train personnel mean there is a higher risk to sustaining reliable operations. Fortunately, operations centers and control rooms are generally isolated and physically secure, and may be more conducive to the sequestration of on-site staff if needed. This guide provides a set of special considerations for maintaining these critical operations."
United States. Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency
2020-04
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CISA Insights: Risk Management for Novel Coronavirus (COVID-19)
From the Document: "This product is for executives to help them think through physical, supply chain, and cybersecurity issues that may arise from the spread of Novel Coronavirus, or COVID-19. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), COVID-19 has been detected in locations around the world, including multiple areas throughout the U.S."
United States. Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency
2020-03-18
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CISA Insights: COVID-19 Disinformation Activity
From the Document: "'False and misleading information related to the coronavirus (COVID-19) are a significant challenge. This CISA [Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency] Insight provides an overview of coronavirus disinformation and steps that can be taken to reduce the risk of sharing inaccurate information with your friends and family.'"
United States. Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency
2020-05
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Origins of SARS-CoV-2: A Critical Review
From the Summary: "Since the first reports of a novel severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS)-like coronavirus in December 2019 in Wuhan, China, there has been intense interest in understanding how severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) emerged in the human population. Recent debate has coalesced around two competing ideas: a 'laboratory escape' scenario and zoonotic emergence. Here, we critically review the current scientific evidence that may help clarify the origin of SARS-CoV-2."
Elsevier; Cell Press
Holmes, Edward C.; Goldstein, Stephen A.; Rasmussen, Angela L. . . .
2021-09-16
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MMWR: Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, November 5, 2021
The Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR) Series is prepared by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). [It] is the agency's primary vehicle for scientific publication of timely, reliable, authoritative, accurate, objective, and useful public health information and recommendations. This issue of MMWR contains the following: "Progress Toward Global Eradication of Dracunculiasis, January 2020-June 2021"; "National Surveillance for Acute Flaccid Myelitis -- United States, 2018-2020"; "Laboratory-Confirmed COVID-19 [coronavirus disease 2019] Among Adults Hospitalized with COVID-19-Like Illness with Infection-Induced or mRNA [messenger ribonucleic acid] Vaccine-Induced SARS-CoV-2 [severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2] Immunity -- Nine States, January-September 2021"; "The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices' Interim Recommendations for Additional Primary and Booster Doses of COVID-19 Vaccines -- United States, 2021"; "Effectiveness of 2-Dose Vaccination with mRNA COVID-19 Vaccines Against COVID-19-Associated Hospitalizations Among Immunocompromised Adults -- Nine States, January-September 2021"; and "'QuickStats': Infant Mortality Rates for Metropolitan and Nonmetropolitan Counties, by Single Race and Hispanic Origin -- National Vital Statistics System, United States, 2019.'" Notifiable Diseases and Mortality Tables from this issue can be accessed at the following link [http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/index2021.html]
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (U.S.)
2021-11-05
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Automated Crisis Content Categorization for COVID-19 Tweet Streams
From the Abstract: "Social media platforms, like Twitter, are increasingly used by billions of people internationally to share information. As such, these platforms contain vast volumes of real-time multimedia content about the world, which could be invaluable for a range of tasks such as incident tracking, damage estimation during disasters, insurance risk estimation, and more. By mining this real-time data, there are substantial economic benefits, as well as opportunities to save lives. Currently, the COVID-19 [coronavirus disease 2019] pandemic is attacking societies at an unprecedented speed and scale, forming an important use-case for social media analysis. However, the amount of information during such crisis events is vast and information normally exists in unstructured and multiple formats, making manual analysis very time consuming. Hence, in this paper, we examine how to extract valuable information from tweets related to COVID-19 automatically. For 12 geographical locations, we experiment with supervised approaches for labelling tweets into 7 crisis categories, as well as investigated automatic priority estimation, using both classical and deep learned approaches. Through evaluation using the TREC-IS [Text Retrieval Conference-Incident Streams] 2020 COVID-19 datasets, we demonstrated that effective automatic labelling for this task is possible with an average of 61% F1 performance across crisis categories, while also analysing key factors that affect model performance and model generalizability across locations."
Information Systems for Crisis Response and Management
Long, Zijun; McCreadie, Richard
2020-05
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Coronavirus Concerns Led More Than 1 in 10 Nonelderly Adults to Delay or Forgo Health Care in Spring 2021
From the Document: "Many adults have gone without needed health care during the COVID-19 [coronavirus disease 2019] pandemic over concerns about being exposed to the novel coronavirus in hospitals, doctor's and dentist's offices, and other health care settings. New data from the Urban Institute's April 2021 Health Reform Monitoring Survey show that 1 in 4 nonelderly adults (24.9 percent) reported delaying or forgoing care for this reason in the past 12 months (data not shown). And more than 1 in 10 (11.0 percent) reported having this experience in the past 30 days [...], showing that coronavirus concerns led some adults to continue delaying or forgoing care into this past spring. Unmet health care needs can adversely affect health and other daily activities and could potentially worsen chronic health conditions among adults who have them."
Urban Institute
Gonzalez, Dulce; Karpman, Michael; Haley, Jennifer M.
2021-08
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COVID-19 Pandemic and Its Impact on Socioeconomic Inequality in Psychological Distress in the UK: An Update
From the Introduction: "Understanding Society, the UK Household Longitudinal Study (UKHLS), has tracked its participants with web-based Covid-19 [coronavirus disease 2019] Surveys during the first two waves of the pandemic, between April 2020 and March 2021. This paper addresses socioeconomic inequality in mental health, measured by the General Health Questionnaire (GHQ), and extends the work of Davillas and Jones (2021) that presented results for the first wave of Covid in the UK between April and July 2020. The contribution of this short paper is to extend the span of the UKHLS Covid-19 Survey data to include all survey waves. This allows us to follow the progress of the UK population's mental wellbeing during the easing of the first national lockdown, the period of limited restrictions during the summer of 2020 and the second national lockdown up to March 2021. After the outbreak of Covid-19 there was a substantial deterioration in population mental wellbeing and the prevalence of mental problems increased (e.g., Banks and Xu, 2020). The experience of mental health problems is disproportionate across groups, by gender, age, race and socioeconomic status. Groups with disadvantaged backgrounds such as lower socioeconomic positions and pre-existing psychological distress were more likely to experience adversities including job loss and financial stress, and difficulties accessing basic requirements like food and medical care (Pierre et al., 2021)."
IZA Institute of Labor Economics
Gao, Xiaoying; Davillas, Apostolos; Jones, Andrew M., 1960-
2021-10
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Improving Women's Mental Health During a Pandemic
From the Abstract: "In low-income settings, women are vulnerable to the psychological distress caused by the social and economic impact of large-scale shocks (e.g., pandemics, natural disasters, political). This paper evaluates a randomized over-the-phone counseling intervention aimed at mitigating the mental health impact of COVID-19 [coronavirus disease 2019] on a sample of 2,402 women across 357 villages in Bangladesh. We find that the provision of mental support to participating women improves their mental health ten months post-intervention, leading to reductions of 20.4% in the prevalence of moderate and severe stress and 32.8% in depression, relative to women in the control group. We also find positive impacts on economic outcomes: household food security and time invested in homeschooling of children, suggesting that improvement in mental health is an important step toward better economic well-being for these women. Finally, we also observe impacts on various other outcomes, including preventive health behavior associated with COVID-19 and vaccination take-up. Our results suggest that this type of low-cost intervention can be effective in providing rapid psychological support to vulnerable groups in times of crises."
IZA Institute of Labor Economics
Vlassopoulos, Michael; Siddique, Abu; Rahman, Tabassum . . .
2021-10
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COVID-19 Pandemic and School Closure: Learning Loss in Mathematics in Primary Education
From the Abstract: "Italy was the first Western country hit by Covid-19 [coronavirus disease 2019] in February 2020, responding with a tight lockdown and full school closure until the end of the school year. This paper estimates the effect of the pandemic and school closure on the math skills of primary school pupils in Italy. We compare the learning achievements of two cohorts of pupils, the pre-Covid and the Covid cohort. For both cohorts, we match scores on the national standardised assessment in grade 2 with scores on a standardised test delivered by the researchers at the end of grade 3. The pandemic had a large negative impact on the pupils' performance in mathematics (-0.19 standard deviations). Among children of low-educated parents, the learning loss was larger for the best-performing ones (up to -0.51 s.d.) and for girls (-0.29 s.d.)."
IZA Institute of Labor Economics
Contini, Dalit; Di Tommaso, M. L. (Maria Laura); Muratori, Caterina . . .
2021-10
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Remote Working and Mental Health During the First Wave of COVID-19 Pandemic
From the Abstract: "We use longitudinal data from the SHARE [Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe] survey to estimate the causal effect of remote working during the COVID-19 [coronavirus disease 2019] pandemic on mental health of senior Europeans. We face endogeneity concerns both for the probability of being employed during the pandemic and for the choice of different work arrangements conditional on employment. Our research design overcomes these issues by exploiting variation in the technical feasibility of remote working across occupations and in the legal restrictions to in-presence work across sectors. We estimate heterogeneous effects of remote working on mental health: we find negative effects for respondents with children at home and for those living in countries with low restrictions or low excess death rates due to the pandemic. On the other hand, the effect is positive for men and for respondents with no co-residing children."
IZA Institute of Labor Economics
Bertoni, Marco; Cavapozzi, Danilo; Pasini, Giacomo, 1976- . . .
2021-10
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Incident Streams 2020: TREC-IS in the Time of COVID-19
From the Document: "A core question in crisis informatics concerns how well datasets and models - and in fact whole processes - developed on one emergency event perform when applied to a new, unseen event. This question is especially critical for rare emergencies or short-duration, fast-onset events, where opportunities for data collection and annotation are limited. The COVID-19 [coronavirus disease 2019] pandemic represents such a crisis, leaving open questions about how well crisis-informatics systems developed for non-COVID events adapt to this new, global emergency. Emergency response officers are therefore less likely to trust or use these systems during a critical moment where social-distancing ordinances may drive social media data volumes to new highs, and public health is at significant risk. Likewise, researchers and system developers have limited evidence about what types of information actually transfer to this new crisis context and whether extant datasets on non-COVID crises should be discarded in favor of collecting wholly new COVID-specific data. This paper investigates these concerns through the lens of the 2020 editions of the TREC Incident Streams (TREC-IS) track, wherein we investigate applications of the TREC-IS information-type and priority taxonomies developed on non-COVID-19 crises to COVID-19 data and explicitly evaluate a collection of crisis-informatics systems in both non-COVID and COVID-19 contexts."
Information Systems for Crisis Response and Management
Buntain, Cody; McCreadie, Richard; Soborof, Ian
2021-05
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Towards Predicting COVID-19 Trends: Feature Engineering on Social Media Responses
From the Document: "On January 14, 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) reported the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) to be potentially transmitted by human contact. [...] The United States of America (U.S.A) was hit with its first COVID-19 cases on January 21, 2020, which was later confirmed on February 26, 2020 (Jorden et al., 2020). During this time, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) began to spread information about the COVID-19 virus through social media channels. [...] Quickly following this the U.S.A halted as the cases in New York began to rapidly increase starting in late February (Thompson et al., 2020). In return cities around the U.S.A seeing what happened in New York began to enforce social distancing mandates, the wearing of mask and the closure of non-essential businesses and activities such as churches, bars, beaches, etc. Although this pandemic became a common thread around the world, it wasn't the only commonality. The world had lockdowns, social distancing protocols, and mask mandates in common. With social distancing protocols in place, we noticed the use of social networking increase dramatically as users attempted to keep in contact. This made individuals within all generations increase their use of social media. Social media platforms such as Twitter had a 24% increase in daily users in relation to its previous year. Users new and old flocked to Twitter as they began to vocalize their concerns about the government's plan."
Information Systems for Crisis Response and Management
Evans Jr., Antone; Yang, Yingyuan; Lee, Sunshin
2021-05
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Levelling Up Health Care: Build the NHS Back Better
From the Foreword: "The Covid-19 [coronavirus disease 2019] pandemic has pushed every health-care system in the world to its limits. The NHS [National Health Service] is no exception. The acute short-term pressures it faces when combined with longer-term challenges like an ageing population are threatening to overwhelm the system. There is much talk of the NHS facing a 'winter crisis', but the truth is that we face a crisis that has been getting worse for years, not just over one season. [...] The care system's immediate and deeper challenges must be dealt with in tandem. A long-term plan is needed to address both. This paper sets out important recommendations on how this can be done. It argues that simply doing more of the same will get the same result: waiting times, for example, had been rising for years before the pandemic hit. The lesson from the 2000s is that only when far-reaching reforms were put in place - alongside the right level of resources - did services improve and waiting times fall. The paper rightly argues that by fully embracing the possibilities of technology, the care system can meet the challenges it faces. It is easy in the midst of day-to-day pressures to lose sight of the fact that the alignment between genomic science and data analytics is opening up the possibility of a system that is better able to prevent disease, personalise care and empower patients. The key job of the system's leaders is to have the courage to harness these technologies so that outcomes improve and inequalities narrow."
Tony Blair Institute for Global Change
Summers, Harry; Mant, Kitty; Ramli, Rania . . .
2021-10-22
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Boosting the UK's Covid Measures: How to Go Further, Faster and Protect the NHS
From the Overview: "In this paper, we offer a series of recommendations that, if actioned now, will ensure that murmurs of a fourth wave are curbed well before they end up overwhelming the NHS [National Health Service] this winter. We draw on the success of the initial vaccine rollout to set out a booster campaign that will further protect the elderly and most vulnerable from Covid [coronavirus disease]-related hospitalisation. This means going much faster in administering boosters, at least doubling the rate we have today - a target that can be achieved by bringing certain vaccine infrastructure from early 2021 back online. Protecting the most vulnerable must be our priority, and it is why we encourage a concerted effort to vaccinate pregnant women, a group that now makes up 20 per cent of female Covid-19 patients in intensive-care (ICU) wards. It also means we must do all we can to keep cases to a manageable number and prevent transmission. As the UK sees daily case rates up to 20 times higher than some of its European neighbours, we propose measures that are proven to reduce the risk of infection. This includes going further on vaccinating those aged 12 to 15 - now the main carriers of the virus - and urgently considering the approval of vaccines for younger children. Another transmission-reducing measure - the effective, low-cost solution of face coverings - should be a key pillar of the government's winter Covid strategy, with masks mandated in indoor public spaces and on public transport. Not only do face coverings provide protection against transmission, but they also have the helpful dual purpose of signifying that vigilance is still important: that while progress has been made, we are not out of the woods."
Tony Blair Institute for Global Change
Browne, James; Miller, Brianna; Wain, Ryan . . .
2021-10-21
