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The purpose of this paper is to intelligibly demonstrate the effectiveness of face mask wearing as a means to prevent COVID-19 transmission. Through understanding the benefits of wearing masks, it is hoped to facilitate the change of societal behavior and more people are willing to wear face mask.

The paper investigates the 50 states in the United States of America (U.S.) and Washington, D.C. that implemented the mask mandates before September 30, 2020, which are divided into four groups: (1) those implemented the statewide mask mandates before June 5, 2020 when World Health Organization (WHO) recommended mask wearing; (2) those implemented statewide mask mandates after June 5, 2020; (3) those implemented partial mandates affecting 30 percent or more of the state’s population; and (4) those implemented partial mandates affecting less than 30 percent. Simple descriptive statistics are analyzed.

For the 50 U.S. states and Washington, D.C., the higher the mask wearing rate, the lower the number of COVID-19 cases (correlation coefficient: −0.69 (p<0.001)). For the 23 states with mobility reduction of less than 15 percent, the higher the proportion of population required to wear masks, the lower the number of cases. This can be seen from the difference in the number of cases among the four groups by ANOVA (p = 0.013).

The positive effect of wearing masks is shown based on simple descriptive statistics for intuitive and intelligible understanding, which may lead people to comprehend the importance of wearing masks, and break through their custom, culture, and norms, and wear masks.

The purpose of this article was to investigate the relationship between symptoms related to air pollution, mask-wearing, mask choices and related factors.

A cross-sectional study among outpatient department (OPD) pollution clinic patients at Nopparat Rajathanee Hospital (PCNRH) during 2019 in Bangkok, Thailand.

The most common symptom after exposure to air pollution that affects treatment in the OPD is respiratory symptoms. A total of 45.7% (107/234) of the population wears a mask, 55.1% (59/107) of the population that wears a mask wears a surgical mask, and only 10.3% (11/107) of them wear an N95 mask. Mask-wearing and air quality index (AQI) onset were associated with the respiratory symptoms group, whereas wearing an N95 mask or surgical mask was found to be a protective factor for the occurrence of respiratory symptoms (adjusted OR = 0.065, 95% CI: 0.014–0.306, p = 0.001 and adjusted OR = 0.154, 95% CI: 0.058–0.404, p < 0.001, respectively). Therefore, the best practice in the face of air pollution, while the resolution needs a long period, is to wear a mask. In this study, the results showed that the best type of mask to prevent respiratory symptoms from air pollution is the N95, followed by the surgical mask; cloth masks are not recommended to use to protect against respiratory symptoms from air pollution.

Wearing an N95 and a surgical mask can help reduce respiratory symptoms. Hence, in addition to establishing hospital measures, cooperation from local and government agencies is necessary to effectively and jointly build a national health public policy framework.

1. This study provides evidence of a correlation between symptoms associated with air pollution and related factors, in-hospital visits in Bangkok, Thailand. 2. In this study, wearing an N95 mask and a surgical mask were found to be a protective factor for the occurrence of respiratory symptoms.

The novel coronavirus (COVID-19) has completely changed the landscape of the hospitality industry. The World Health Organization does not officially recommend wearing face masks in the workplace. Wearing face masks is controversial worldwide, however it has been widely adopted in Hong Kong society. Hospitality practitioners have worn face masks to work and serve customers for almost a year long, matching the duration of the COVID-19 pandemic. This paper proposes a conceptual model of face mask effects and also discusses and evaluates the effects of wearing face masks during the pandemic.

A convenience sampling method is employed to investigate hospitality operators using in-depth and focus group interviews with managers, front-line staff and customers.

The perspectives of both hospitality practitioners and customers are included in this study. The concepts of (1) invisible care, (2) sense of safety and (3) service trust have been introduced in this study. These provide valuable insights for the service industry when facing a large-scale health crisis, now and in the future.

This paper analyzes interview data collected from 35 respondents – 14 managers, 6 practitioners and 15 customers – in order to understand the critical effects of wearing face masks during the pandemic and the perspectives of both hospitality practitioners and customers.

For the hospitality industry, wearing face mask in service has already become a “new normal”, face mask effects might create an impact on service design, service delivery and service quality.

The findings show that wearing face masks turns hygiene and safety into a form of invisible care in the Asian hospitality industry. Practitioners' perspective regarding the necessity of a smile is less important to Asian customers, showing a discrepancy between the two parties. Customers do not believe that service quality has dropped due to the wearing of masks, but that the level of hygiene has risen. Unlike customers, practitioners are more concerned about not providing good quality service. However, the interview data show that respondents generally agree that mask wearing is a gesture and symbol for the hospitality industry to make tangible a new form of caring, professionalism, safety concern and communication.

This paper proposes a solution for recognizing human faces under mask-wearing. The lower part of human face is occluded and could not be used in the learning process of face recognition. So, the proposed solution is developed to recognize human faces on any available facial components which could be varied depending on wearing or not wearing a mask.

The proposed solution is developed based on the FaceNet framework, aiming to modify the existing facial recognition model to improve the performance of both scenarios of mask-wearing and without mask-wearing. Then, simulated masked-face images are computed on top of the original face images, to be used in the learning process of face recognition. In addition, feature heatmaps are also drawn out to visualize majority of parts of facial images that are significant in recognizing faces under mask-wearing.

The proposed method is validated using several scenarios of experiments. The result shows an outstanding accuracy of 99.2% on a scenario of mask-wearing faces. The feature heatmaps also show that non-occluded components including eyes and nose become more significant for recognizing human faces, when compared with the lower part of human faces which could be occluded under masks.

The convolutional neural network based solution is tuned up for recognizing human faces under a scenario of mask-wearing. The simulated masks on original face images are augmented for training the face recognition model. The heatmaps are then computed to prove that features generated from the top half of face images are correctly chosen for the face recognition.

This study explored how the Singaporean government responded to the Covid-19 pandemic crisis from early January 2020 to the end of May of the same year. It evaluated the capability of Singapore's leadership management in a crisis during the peak and ravaging period of the Covid-19 pandemic.

The study utilised a systematic design analysis approach, analysing Singaporean cases on the Covid-19 crisis using a systematic and narrative approach to underscore the country's response to the pandemic attack from January 2020 to May 2020.

Against the backdrop of Singapore's peculiar political system of government dominated by the ruling People's Action Party (PAP) and culture of bureaucracy, the government has increasingly executed several control measures, including strict travel bans, contact tracing, the circuit breaker–lockdown, mask-wearing, social distancing orders as well as financial support to businesses and employees from top to the bottom in the country. However, the treatment and health issues of the migrant workers in the dormitories continue to be the major concern among academics and scholars. At the same time, policy inadequacies truncate the excellent measure of Singapore's response to Covid-19. The case point review concluded that the mortality rate in Singapore remains low compared to other nations of the world. Singapore's case points unveil fundamental learning that an excellent leadership-driven harmonised strategic model is essential for crisis management in any society. The finding of the analysis demonstrated that Singapore adopted a contingency and value-based leadership model to advance good governance and tackle the spread of the deadly coronavirus in its country.

The study has demonstrated a profound analysis that has not been conducted hitherto. Investigation of the Singapore case point is not a popular analysis among Nigerian scholars. Therefore, from Nigeria's perspective, the study has showcased the good and the wrong sides of a coin in Singapore's leadership and power dynamic in crisis management.

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused severe challenges to ethnic minorities in the UK. While the experiences of migrants are both complex and varied depending on individuals' social class, race, cultural proximity to the host country and acculturation levels, more in-depth studies are necessary to fully understand how COVID-19 affects specific migrant groups and their health. Taiwanese migrants were selected because they are an understudied group. Also, there were widespread differences in pandemic management between the UK and Taiwan, making this group an ideal case for understanding how their acculturation journey can be disrupted by a crisis.

Qualitative data were collected at two different time points, at the start of the UK pandemic (March/April 2020) and six months on (October/November 2020), to explore migrant coping experiences over time. Theoretically, the authors apply acculturation theory through the lens of coping, while discussing health-consumption practices, as empirical evidence.

Before the outbreak of the pandemic, participants worked hard to achieve high levels of integration in the UK. The pandemic changed this; participants faced unexpected changes in the UK’s sociocultural structures. They were forced to exercise the layered and complex “coping with coping” in a hostile host environment that signalled their new marginalised status. They faced impossible choices, from catching a life-threatening disease to being seen as overly cautious. Such experience, over time, challenged their integration to the host country, resulting in a loss of faith in the UK’s health system, consequently increasing separation from the host culture and society.

It is important to note that the Taiwanese sample recruited through Facebook community groups is biased and has a high level of homogeneity. These participants were well-integrated, middle-class migrants who were highly educated, relatively resourceful and active on social media. More studies are needed to fully understand the impact on well-being and acculturation of migrants from different cultural, contextual and social backgrounds. This being the case, the authors can speculate that migrants with less resource are likely to have found the pandemic experience even more challenging. More studies are needed to fully understand migrant experience from different backgrounds.

Public health policymakers are advised to dedicate more resources to understand migrants' experiences in the host country. In particular, this paper has shown how separation, especially if embraced temporarily, is not necessarily a negative outcome to be corrected with specific policies. It can be strategically adopted by migrants as a way of defending their health and well-being from an increasingly hostile environment. Migrants' home country experience provides vicarious learning opportunities to acquire good practices. Their voices should be encouraged rather than in favour of a surprising orthodox and rather singular approach in the discussion of public health management.

The paper has clear public health policy implications. Firstly, public health policymakers are advised to dedicate more resources to understand migrants' experiences in the host country. Acknowledging migrants' voice is a critical first step to contribute to the development of a fair and inclusive society. Secondly, to retain skilful migrants and avoid a future brain-drain, policymakers are advised to advance existing infrastructure to provide more incentives to support and retain migrant talents in the post-pandemic recovery phase.

This paper reveals how a group of previously well-integrated migrants had to exercise “coping with coping” during the COVID crisis. This experience, over time, challenged their integration to the host country, resulting in a loss of faith in the UK’s health system, consequently increasing separation from the host culture and society. It contributes to the understanding of acculturation by showing how a such crisis can significantly disrupt migrants' acculturation journey, challenging them to re-acculturate and reconsider their identity stance. It shows how separation was indeed a good option for migrants for protecting their well-being from a newly hostile host environment.

Different countries have responded to the pandemic with distinct domestic and international travel restrictions. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the stringency of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) countermeasures in Japan against their G20 cohorts. Primary data were monitored at a ski resort in Kyushu regarding the social acceptance of initial COVID-19 countermeasures, ranging from hygiene and local “lockdowns” to border control measures.

The stringency of the COVID-19 countermeasures was examined using data from the Oxford COVID-19 Government Response Tracker (OxCGRT) and triangulated with the early stage social acceptance of survey respondents in Aso Kuju National Park in February 2020 that consisted of 165 valid Japanese language questionnaires.

An one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) identified significant differences in social acceptance for countermeasures, with more-concerned respondents agreeing more strongly with “low-tech” health protocols, such as washing hands (M = 3.7) or wearing a mask (3.4). More concerned visitors were significantly more likely to modify their travel plans (2.9) or cancel their trip altogether (2.7). Male day trippers were less likely to be concerned by the COVID-19 pandemic.

This paper's originality is derived from a triangulation of the stringency of Japan's initial COVID-19 countermeasures via a combination of comparison with G20 cohorts and social acceptance of domestic snowboarders and skiers. Moreover, by shining a light on the trade-off between public health and human rights, the paper provides a current review of the ethical dimension of a travel restriction debate that is often overlooked in the ongoing pandemic.

Over the past decades, many health authorities and public policy experts have traditionally relied on indicators that are dependent on a nation's economy, its health-care infrastructure advancements, and superiority in biomedical sciences and technology to predict potential infection rates should a health pandemic occur. One such commonly relied-upon indicator was that of the Global Health Security (GHS) Index. However, the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has shown how such variables prove to be inaccurate in predicting the infection rates during a global health pandemic. Hence, this paper proposes the utilization of socio-cultural behavioral traits to predict a country's COVID-19 infection rates.

This is achieved by proposing a model involving the classification and regression tree (CART) algorithm and a Poisson regression against the six selected cultural behavioral predictors consisting of individualism, power distance, masculinity, uncertainty avoidance, long-term orientation, and indulgence.

The results show that all the selected cultural behavioral predictors are significant in impacting COVID-19 infection rates. Furthermore, the model outperforms the conventional GHS Index model based on a means squared error comparison.

The authors hope that this study would continue promoting the use of cultures and behaviors in modeling the spread of health diseases.

The authors hope that their works could prove beneficial to public office holders, as well as health experts working in health facilities, in better predicting potential outcomes during a health pandemic, thus allowing them to plan and allocate resources efficiently.

The results are a testament to the fact that sociocultural behavioral traits are more reliant predictors in modeling cross-national infection rates of global health pandemics, like that of COVID-19, as compared to economic-centric indicators.