Teaching Physical Education and Sports during Covid-19: A Community Case

Teaching skills depend to a large extent on their “didactization” characterized, in the case of physical and sports education, erected in law and compulsory at school, by a body practice often favoring contacts in extramural. In the context of the Covid-19 pandemic marked by the cessation then the resumption of classes, physical distancing injunctions and the use of detergent products, masks, etc. it seems logical to question the positions of the actors, the feasibility of the Physical Education and Sports (P.E.S.) and the controversies generated by community particularly in the colleges of the Pikine-Guédiawaye Academy Inspectorate and apprehended thanks to mixed methods. In fact, we used participant observation, semi-structured interviews with administrative, pedagogical and community actors and the questionnaire survey addressed to a sample of 115 students drawn according to the quota technique. The objective was to understand the contradictions of the actors concerned. They were manifested by the practice of physical and sports activities at the beach instead of the forbidden Physical Education and Sports (P.E.S.) like all other school subjects, by the exclusion and then the reintegration of the subject with controversies relating to interests different from the administrative and PEPS, by the difficult acceptance of health measures and physical distancing variously manifested, by the question of the adaptation of P.E.S. to the realities of the numbers and spaces leading to lessons at several speeds, by the demotivation of middle school students who no longer experience hedonism in the field and finally by the diversity of the objectives of the authorities who want to save the year, teachers defending their discipline, students deprived of their agitation moments and parents skeptical and fearful of these moments who can expose their children to the disease.

Regional tendencies of research collaboration of social sciences in China:Analysis based on papers of economic journals

Purpose:This study intends to evaluate the regional tendencies of research collaboration of social sciences in China,and shows the pattern of China’s inter-regional research collaboration(IRRC).Design/methodology/approach:By using 10 years’ data of 150 economic journals in CNKI database,this paper used the Salton index as the indicator to measure the collaborative intensity of 31 regions in China.Findings:First,regional tendencies of research collaboration in social sciences do exist in China.Second,there is a positive correlation between collaborative tendency and regional scientific productivity.Every region would like to cooperate with high productive regions,and high productive regions tend to have collaborations within the region itself.Third,geographical proximity is an important factor affecting China’s IRRC.Research limitations:There are many other important external conditions which may affect research collaboration,but not all of them have been taken into account in this research.Practical implications:The proposed method can be also applied to detect cooperation preference of different authors,scientific research institutions and countries.And the study will help us understand the importance of distance in scholarly cooperation.Originality/value:Previous researches proved that regional research collaborations exist in natural sciences in China,while this research showed that the same phenomenon also appears in social sciences in China.

Assessing the Effect of Global Travel and Contact Restrictions on Mitigating the COVID-19 Pandemic

Travel restrictions and physical distancing have been implemented across the world to mitigate the coronavirus disease 2019(COVID-19)pandemic,but studies are needed to understand their effectiveness across regions and time.Based on the population mobility metrics derived from mobile phone geolocation data across 135 countries or territories during the first wave of the pandemic in 2020,we built a metapopulation epidemiological model to measure the effect of travel and contact restrictions on containing COVID-19 outbreaks across regions.We found that if these interventions had not been deployed,the cumulative number of cases could have shown a 97-fold(interquartile range 79–116)increase,as of May 31,2020.However,their effectiveness depended upon the timing,duration,and intensity of the interventions,with variations in case severity seen across populations,regions,and seasons.Additionally,before effective vaccines are widely available and herd immunity is achieved,our results emphasize that a certain degree of physical distancing at the relaxation of the intervention stage will likely be needed to avoid rapid resurgences and subsequent lockdowns.

Role of social distancing in tackling COVID-19 during the first wave of pandemic in Nordic region:Evidence from daily deaths,infections and needed hospital resources

Objectives:To measure the effect of social distancing on reducing daily deaths,infections and hospital resources needed for coronavirus disease 2019(COVID-19)patients during the first wave of the pandemic in Nordic countries.Methods:The observations of social distancing,daily deaths,infections along with the needed hospital resources for COVID-19 patient hospitalizations including the numbers of all hospital beds,beds needed in ICUs and infection wards,nursing staffs needed in ICUs and infection wards were collected from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation(IHME)by the University of Washington.The observations of social distancing were based on the reduction in human contact relative to background levels for each location quantified by cell phone mobility data collected from IHME.The weighted data per 100,000 population gathered in a 40-day period of the first wave of the pandemic in Denmark,Finland,Iceland,Norway and Sweden.Statistical technique of panel data analysis is used to measure the associations between social distancing and COVID-19 indicators in long-run.Results:Results of dynamic long-run models confirm that a 1%rise in social distancing by reducing human contacts may decline daily deaths,daily infections,all hospital beds needed,beds/nurses needed in ICUs and beds/nurses needed in infection wards due COVID-19 pandemic by 1.13%,15.26%,1.10%,1.17%and 1.89%,respectively.Moreover,results of error correction models verify that if the equilibriums between these series are disrupted by a sudden change in social distancing,the lengths of restoring back to equilibrium are 67,62,40,22 and 49 days for daily deaths,daily infections,all hospital beds needed,nurses/beds needed in ICUs and nurses/beds needed in infection wards,respectively.Conclusion:Proper social distancing was a successful policy for tackling COVID-19 with falling mortality and infection rates as well as the needed hospital resources for patient hospitalizations in Nordic countries.The results alert governments of the need for continuously implementing social distancing policies while using vaccines to prevent national lockdowns and reduce the burden of patient hospitalizations.

Ten Rules Preventing COVID-19

The new Coronavirus disease or COVID-19 is a contagious viral/immunological systemic disorder with predominantly respiratory features caused by human infection with SARS-CoV-2, which is rapidly spreading from person-to-person all around the world as a pandemic. As long as there is no effective vaccine available to prevent this disease and no definitive treatment is provided to cure it, it is better to prevent this disease by following a series of principles, which are: home quarantine of asymptomatic to mild COVID-19 patients and hospitalization of severe cases, physical distancing, staying at home, handwashing, cleaning and disinfecting high-touch surfaces, face-mask using, cough and sneeze covering, healthy nutritious diet along with the routine life activities and daily exercise, video communication by phone/online with family, and finally practice to relieve stress/anxiety.

Widespread testing, case isolation and contact tracing may allow safe school reopening with continued moderate physical distancing: A modeling analysis of King County, WA data

Background:In late March 2020,a“Stay Home,Stay Healthy”order was issued in Washington State in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.On May 1,a 4-phase reopening plan began.We investigated whether adjunctive prevention strategies would allow less restrictive physical distancing to avoid second epidemic waves and secure safe school reopening.Methods:We developed a mathematical model,stratifying the population by age,infection status and treatment status to project SARS-CoV-2 transmission during and after the reopening period.The model was parameterized with demographic and contact data from King County,WA and calibrated to confirmed cases,deaths and epidemic peak timing.Adjunctive prevention interventions were simulated assuming different levels of pre-COVID physical interactions(pC_PI)restored.Results:The best model fit estimated~35%pC_PI under the lockdown which prevented~17,000 deaths by May 15.Gradually restoring 75%pC_PI for all age groups between May 15-July 15 would have resulted in~350 daily deaths by early September 2020.Maintaining<45%pC_PI was required with current testing practices to ensure low levels of daily infections and deaths.Increased testing,isolation of symptomatic infections,and contact tracing permitted 60%pC_PI without significant increases in daily deaths before November and allowed opening of schools with<15 daily deaths.Inpatient antiviral treatment was predicted to reduce deaths significantly without lowering cases or hospitalizations.Conclusions:We predict that widespread testing,contact tracing and case isolation would allow relaxation of physical distancing,as well as opening of schools,without a surge in local cases and deaths.

Modeling the impact of surveillance activities combined with physical distancing interventions on COVID-19 epidemics at a local level

Physical distancing and contact tracing are two key components in controlling the COVID-19 epidemics.Understanding their interaction at local level is important for policymakers.We propose a flexible modeling framework to assess the effect of combining contact tracing with different physical distancing strategies.Using scenario tree analyses,we compute the probability of COVID-19 detection using passive surveillance,with and without contact tracing,in metropolitan Barcelona.The estimates of detection probability and the frequency of daily social contacts are fitted into an age-structured susceptible-exposed-infectious-recovered compartmental model to simulate the epidemics considering different physical distancing scenarios over a period of 26 weeks.With the original Wuhan strain,the probability of detecting an infected individual without implementing physical distancing would have been 0.465,0.515,0.617,and 0.665 in designated age groups(0e14,15e49,50e64,and>65),respectively.As the physical distancing measures were reinforced and the disease circulation decreased,the interaction between the two interventions resulted in a reduction of the detection probabilities;however,despite this reduction,active contact tracing and isolation remained an effective supplement to physical distancing.If we relied solely on passive surveillance for diagnosing COVID-19,the model required a minimal 50%(95%credible interval,39e69%)reduction of daily social contacts to keep the infected population under 5%,as compared to the 36%(95%credible interval,22e56%)reduction with contact tracing systems.The simulation with the B.1.1.7 and B.1.167.2 strains shows similar results.Our simulations showed that a functioning contact tracing program would reduce the need for physical distancing and mitigate the COVID-19 epidemics.