Main description:

This open access book discusses the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on various aspects of life on a global scale. It analyzes the challenges in the healthcare system during the second wave of COVID-19, such as overstressed human resources in tertiary facilities, lack of trained healthcare workers, and inadequate infrastructure at secondary-level facilities. The book shows that there has been more disruption in low- and middle-income countries than in high-income countries. It presents how the pandemic drove economies into recession and offers a roadmap to advance equality of access to and sustainability of resources. It studies the impact of prolonged lockdowns, which resulted in emotional and mental unrest. It provides a global perspective on the role of the media, including social media, during the pandemic. The authors discuss the unprecedented rise in suicides and the impact of the pandemic on vulnerable groups, such as asylum seekers and adolescents. In addition, contributing authors cover country experiences with COVID-19 in the UK, Taiwan, Ethiopia, Iran, India, and Brazil. The book's multidisciplinary approach makes it an interesting read for academics, policymakers, program implementers, and researchers in sociology, media studies, and medical experts.

Contents:

1. The changing face of COVID-19 globally.- 2. Addressing the urgency and magnitude of the COVID-19 pandemic in India by improving healthcare workforce resilience.- 3. COVID-19 in Mexico: How the systems approach can improve our response.- 4. Bridge over troubled waters: Women-led community response to maternal and child health services in India amidst COVID-19.- 5. COVID-19: An accelerant to a sustainable health system in Kenya.- 6. Impact of COVID-19 on sexual and reproductive health services.- 7. COVID-19 and the economy: Constructing roadmaps to an inclusive recovery.- 8. Crafting data-driven strategies to understand the amplification of disease spread due to socio- economic disparities.- 9. COVID-19 chronicles and long-term impacts.- 10. COVID-19 vaccination: A necessitated drive becoming an unsolved puzzle.- 11. Impact of COVID on adolescents, nodal teachers and front-line workers.- 12. The disparate impact of COVID-19 on higher education in India.- 13. Unmasking realities: Public health communication during India's COVID-19 pandemic.- 14. The impact of social media on the COVID-19 pandemic.- 15. Communications strategies for reaching vulnerable populations in the US for building trust, vaccine confidence, and digital connections.- 16. Down the rabbit hole: Media consumption, audiences perceptions and fears of the unknown, in the age of information and disinformation.- 17. Preventable losses: Threatening rise in suicides during the pandemic.- 18. COVID-19 and refugees: A case study of asylum seekers at the US-Mexico border.- 19. Stigma and discrimination mechanisms in a globalized pandemic: Proposing a COVID-19 related conceptual stigma framework.- 20. The Social, education, health and economic effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on Kenya's adolescents.