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Horowitz Velazquez posted an update 1 month, 2 weeks ago
The COVID-19 outbreak has changed rapidly the business operation and travel behavior of global communities and calls for research on resilience. This study aims to identify the changing destination image of Thailand as a MICE destination during crises and examine the resilience of Thai MICE stakeholders. A mixed method of qualitative and quantitative design was employed using interviews, observations and questionnaire surveys. A longitudinal study of Thai MICE stakeholders during 14 years revealed that the Buddhist concepts of resilience and Thainess contribute to psychological resilience. Buddhism and Thainess cultivate the concept of crisis concierge. Surveys showed unchanged image of exhibition facilities during the political instability. Thailand’s incentive travel benefits from the availability of bleisure (a combination of business and leisure) attractions. Good value for money, Thai hospitality, bleisure attractions, and international standard venues are key resilient factors.Absent vaccines and pharmaceutical interventions, the only tool available to mitigate its demographic effects is some measure of physical distancing, to reduce contagion by breaking social and economic contacts. Policy makers must balance the positive health effects of strong distancing measures, such as lockdowns, against their economic costs, especially the burdens imposed on low income and food insecure households. The distancing measures deployed by South Africa impose large economic costs and have negative implications for the factor distribution of income. Labor with low education levels are much more strongly affected than labor with secondary or tertiary education. As a result, households with low levels of educational attainment and high dependence on labor income would experience an enormous real income shock that would clearly jeopardize the food security of these households. However, in South Africa, total incomes for low income households are significantly insulated by government transfer payments. From public health, income distribution and food security perspectives, the remarkably rapid and severe shocks imposed because of Covid-19 illustrate the value of having in place transfer policies that support vulnerable households in the event of ‘black swan’ type shocks.There are rising concerns over the impact of COVID-19 on the agricultural production, which may become a nonnegligible threat to the long-term food supply and food security. This paper discusses the impact of COVID-19 on agricultural production in China, followed by government responses to alleviate the negative effects. The results show that unreasonable restrictions would block the outflow channels of agricultural products, hinder necessary production inputs, destroy production cycles, and finally undermine production capacity. It is expected that China’s experiences could give warnings and suggestions to other countries that are experiencing serious outbreak to protect domestic agricultural production, especially developing countries.Rice plays a strategic role in food security in West Africa. However, the region increasingly relies on rice imports due to a growing and structural deficit, and domestic value chains face constraints in technology, finance and coordination. As a result, West Africa is very vulnerable to international and local trade disruptions, such as the ones currently inflicted by the COVID-19 pandemic. We build on evidence of the current state of domestic rice value chain upgrading in West Africa to anticipate the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on rice value chains’ resilience and their capacity to sustain food security in the region. Several policy options are proposed to help West African governments mitigate the impacts of the COVID-19 crisis on food security.•Research and science should not only inform food and environmental policy but should be adopted and mainstreamed into actions at all levels.•Food systems are faced with grander and interconnected challenges and constraints that bring about new research questions.•Research has a vital role in charting a positive and sustainable direction for global food security, nutrition, and health.•The status quo must be challenged to shape food systems transformation to deliver sustainable, healthier diets.• Global Food Security provides a platform where evidence is shared in an accessible manner for those who need to act on it.Chloroquine (CQ) phosphate has been suggested to be clinically effective in the treatment of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). To develop a physiologically-based pharmacokinetic (PBPK) model for predicting tissue distribution of CQ and apply it to optimize dosage regimens, a PBPK model, with parameterization of drug distribution extrapolated from animal data, was developed to predict human tissue distribution of CQ. The physiological characteristics of time-dependent accumulation was mimicked through an active transport mechanism. Several dosing regimens were proposed based on PBPK simulation combined with known clinical exposure-response relationships. The model was also validated by clinical data from Chinese patients with COVID-19. The novel PBPK model allows in-depth description of the pharmacokinetics of CQ in several key organs (lung, heart, liver, and kidney), and was applied to design dosing strategies in patients with acute COVID-19 (Day 1 750 mg BID, Days 2-5 500 mg BID, CQ phosphate), patients with moderate COVID-19 (Day 1 750 mg and 500 mg, Days 2-3 500 mg BID, Days 4-5 250 mg BID, CQ phosphate), and other vulnerable populations (e.g., renal and hepatic impairment and elderly patients, Days 1-5 250 mg BID, CQ phosphate). A PBPK model of CQ was successfully developed to optimize dosage regimens for patients with COVID-19.As coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic poses a substantial global public health threat, traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) was used in 91.50% of the COVID-19 cases in China, showing encouraging results in improving symptom management and reducing the deterioration, mortality, and recurrence rates. Tocilizumab A total of 166 modified herbal formulae consisting of 179 single herbal medicines were collected for treating COVID-19 in China. Glycyrrhizae Radix et Rhizome, Scutellariae Radix, and Armeniacae Semen Amarum are the most frequently utilized in clinics, most of which are antipyretic (47, 26.26%), expectorant and cough-suppressing (22, 12.29%), and dampness-resolving (21, 11.73%) from traditional descriptions. A total of 1212 chemical components containing β-sitosterol, stigmasterol, and quercetin were primarily selected. Additionally, using complex system entropy and unsupervised hierarchical clustering, 8 core herbal combinations and 10 new formulae emerged as potentially useful candidates for COVID-19. Finally, following scaffold analysis, self-organizing mapping (SOM) and cluster analysis, 12 clusters of molecules yielded 8 pharmacophore families of structures that were further screened as pharmacological targets in human metabolic pathways for inhibiting coronavirus.