This paper applies a posthumanist lens, informed by the work of Hollett and Ehret and of Ingold, to consider children's playful affective entanglements with the human and the more-than-human during fluctuating periods of social distancing in the COVID-19 pandemic. Through this refracting theoretical lens, I (re)examine a selection of play and…

With the arrival of the COVID-19 pandemic, safety regulations, such as face mask wearing, have become ubiquitous. Due to such regulations, many children's interpersonal interactions occurring outside of the home now involve face coverings. The present study examined young children's ability to identify emotions in an adult model wearing a face…

What is power? What is knowledge? What is the link between power and knowledge? This paper interrogates the relationship between knowledge and power in the context of Guinea's epidemic crises and political events. It draws on observational data collected during the Ebola epidemic (2013-2016), the COVID-19 pandemic (2020-2022), and the ongoing…

The presence of face masks can significantly impact processes related to trait impressions from faces. In the present research, we focused on trait impressions from faces either wearing a mask or not by addressing how contextual factors may shape such inferences. In Study 1, we compared trait impressions from faces in a phase of the COVID-19…

This study focuses on how four U.S. History textbooks portrayed the COVID-19 pandemic as a recent historical event. The findings from the study suggest that the textbooks provided a disjointed narrative that did not fully explain aspects of the pandemic, such as why COVID-19 caused so much societal upheaval. The textbooks also often dodged…

Objective: This report identifies the profound effects that the COVID-19 pandemic and the resultant government lockdown have had on sexual health services delivery to a community of marginalised male sex workers in Nairobi, Kenya. Methods: Based on the experiences shared during ongoing virtual conversations with peer health workers, a case study…

The COVID-19 pandemic struck during a period of extreme polarization in American politics. Unsurprisingly, responses to it quickly became politicized despite increasingly clear findings from scientific and public health communities about the most effective approaches for limiting its spread. We ask how the politicization affected pandemic response…

Background: One would assume that infection outbreaks such as the COVID-19 pandemic have a deleterious effect upon the physical, mental, and/or social functioning of people with intellectual disabilities (ID). Methods: A systematic search of four databases produced 18 articles. General information pertaining to the topics under consideration,…

This paper examines the effect of fall 2020 school reopenings in Texas on county-level COVID-19 cases and fatalities. Previous evidence suggests that schools can be reopened safely if community spread is low and public health guidelines are followed. However, in Texas, reopenings often occurred alongside high community spread and at near capacity,…

In an effort to reduce viral transmission, many schools are planning to reduce class size if they have not reduced it already. Yet the effect of class size on transmission is unknown. To determine whether smaller classes reduce school absence, especially when community disease prevalence is high, we merge data from the Project STAR randomized…

Objective: To examine how in-person classroom instruction was related to risk of SARS-CoV-2 infection in undergraduate students. Participants: Indiana University undergraduate students (n = 69,606) enrolled in Fall 2020, when courses with in-person and remote instruction options were available. Methods: Students participated weekly in mandatory…

Objective: The COVID-19 pandemic has created unprecedented challenges for university administrators and health professionals to keep doors open and students safe. Optimistic bias and the Health Belief Model serve as foundations for understanding students' perceived susceptibility and severity for contracting the virus and their perceived benefits…

During the COVID-19 pandemic, face masks have been widely used in daily life. Previous studies have suggested that faces wearing typical masks that occlude the lower half of the face are perceived as more attractive than face without masks. However, relatively little work has been done on how transparent masks that reveal the lower half of the…

This article examines spatiality in selected children's books about COVID-19. Spatiality is an important lens because the coronavirus pandemic is a crisis related to distancing and mobility restrictions--spatial matters. Benedict Anderson's notion of imagined communities was adopted as a framework to how children's books present community…

This paper focuses on the ethical position of the mask within the contemporary moment of COVID-19 and against the Levinasian concept of face. Drawing from autoethnographic, theoretical, and political discourses, this paper attempts to create an historical and social exploration of Mike Pence's public eschewing of his mask in early 2020 as a means…