Browsing by Subject "COVID-19 pandemic"

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    Open Access
    Did COVID-19-Related Alcohol Sales Restrictions Reduce Alcohol Consumption? Findings from a National Online Survey in South Africa
    (2022-02-19) Theron, Marieke; Swart, Rina; Londani, Mukhethwa; Parry, Charles; Petersen Williams, Petal; Harker, Nadine
    Background: South Africa has a high prevalence of heavy episodic drinking (HED). Due to the high levels of alcohol misuse and violence, public hospital intensive care units were often overrun during the COVID-19 pandemic. This research investigated alcohol intake behaviour change during differing levels of lockdown restrictions, which included bans on alcohol sales. Methods: A self-reported Facebook survey ran from July to November 2020. The questions included socio-demographics, income, alcohol intake, purchasing behaviour, and reasoning. Chi-square tests/Fisher’s exact test for categorical data, Student’s t-test for normal continuous data, and the Mann–Whitney U test for non-normal data were applied. Multiple logistic regression was run for HED versus moderate drinkers. Results: A total of 798 participants took part in the survey, of which 68.4% were female. Nearly 50% of participants fell into the HED category and the majority bought alcohol illegally during restrictions. HED respondents who drank more alcohol than usual during restrictions reported that they felt stressed, needed to relax, and were bored. Conclusions: Policies intended to increase the pricing of alcohol may have the potential to reduce alcohol intake. Reducing stress and anxiety may be key to curtailing HED during emergency situations.
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    Responding to the Initial Challenge of the COVID-19 Pandemic: Analysis of International Responses and Impact in School and Higher Education
    (Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute, 2022-02-07) Stracke, Christian M.; Burgos, Daniel; Santos-Hermosa, Gema; Bozkurt, Aras; Sharma, Ramesh Chander; Swiatek Cassafieres, Cécile; dos Santos, Andreia Inamorato; Mason, Jon; Ossiannilsson, Ebba; Shon, Jin Gon; Wan, Marian; Obiageli Agbu, Jane-Frances; Farrow, Robert; Karakaya, Özlem; Nerantzi, Chrissi; Ramírez-Montoya, María Soledad; Conole, Grainne; Cox, Glenda; Truong, Vi
    This paper presents and analyses solutions where open education and open science were utilised to reduce the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on education. The COVID-19 outbreak and associated lockdowns created huge challenges in school and higher education, demanding sudden responses which aimed to sustain pedagogical quality. Responses have varied from conservative to radically innovative. Universally, the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted and shocked societies worldwide, and education systems were on the front line. The lockdowns largely stopped face-to-face and formal education in almost all countries, and in most cases, distance learning soon became the ‘new normal’. A central challenge concerned sustaining educational visions and ideals in such circumstances. To better understand the state of the art in the educational landscape, we collected case studies from 13 countries during the first year of the pandemic starting on 11 March 2020 (when the World Health Organization declared a pandemic). This paper presents summaries of the full country reports that were collected and describe lessons learned. Our overall aim was to identify good practices and recommendations from the collected case studies that can be taken forward in the future. We categorised the responses on the three generic educational levels (macro, meso and micro) and identified seven key aspects and trends that are valid for all or most countries: (1) formal education at a distance for first time; (2) similar approaches for formal education; (3) missing infrastructure and sharing open educational resources; (4) diverse teaching and learning methods and practices; (5) open education and access to open educational resources; (6) urgent need for professional development and training for teachers and (7) assessing and monitoring learning environments, teachers and students. Finally, we identified key recommendations on how open education and open science can benefit formal education in schools and universities in the future, namely, improved awareness of open educational practices, provision of ICT infrastructure, embracing and sustaining the practice of open access publications and OERs, capacity building for stakeholders and finally encouraging research and development in the area of open education and open science. We found significant evidence for the proposition that open education and open science can support both traditional face-to-face and distance learning.
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    Open Access
    The costing of COVID-19 intensive care units at a tertiary hospital in Cape Town, South Africa
    (2024) Hood, Kirsten; Joubert, Ivan; Cunnama, Lucy; Peters, Shrikant
    Background: The expansion of Groote Schuur Hospital's (GSH) Intensive Care Unit (ICU) capacity to accommodate an unprecedented number of patients during the COVID-19 pandemic was an expensive undertaking. There are currently no published formal retrospective analyses of the financial costs of running and expanding COVID-ICUs in South Africa. Objectives: To conduct a cost analysis of the COVID-ICU service at a tertiary state hospital in Cape Town, South Africa. This analysis included the cost of COVID-ICU admissions relating to the first four COVID waves. Aims were to estimate total costs, in-patient day costs, and cost drivers for COVID-ICU. Methods: A retrospective cost analysis (quantitative observational study) using a mixed methods costing approach, was conducted across the COVID-ICUs at GSH. The data used included two consecutive hospital financial years, between April 2020 and March 2022. Costs were calculated monthly and then combined to achieve a total cost over the two-year period. COVID-ICU in-patient days were used as the primary allocation factor. Cost inputs included recurrent costs such as human resources, diagnostics, pharmaceuticals, oxygen, enteral feeds, blood products, consumables, and overheads, as well as capital costs including equipment, and building space. Results: The study period covered the four COVID waves that affected GSH ICU units between April 2020 and March 2022. This period included 10 497 COVID-ICU in-patient days resulting from a total of 776 COVID-ICU admissions. The total calculated spending across the two financial years was R262 482 904, resulting in a cost per in-patient day of R25 006, and a utilisation of 4,4% of the total hospital budget during the same period. The median length of stay was nine days, resulting in a median cost per admission of R225 050. The top five cost drivers were human resources (60%), consumables (9%), pharmaceuticals (8%), oxygen (5%), and overheads (5%). Conclusion: This is a retrospective costing study of the COVID-ICUs at a tertiary hospital in Cape Town, throughout the entire portion of the pandemic that required ICU admissions in South Africa. This analysis provides useful financial insights, a potential economic model for ICU budgeting, and creates a platform for future economic analyses and policy planning regarding level-of-care decisions for general ICU admissions or for similar future pandemics within the South African and LMIC hospital setting.