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The chapter presents the similarities and the differences between the different case studies reported in the book and suggests some conclusion on the impact of COVID-19 on policies and practices devoted to persons with cognitive disabilities from a macro, meso and micro point of view. The COVID-19 surveillance regime has made people with disabilities, and particularly with intellectual ones, even more invisible, since their rights have been consistently under-represented in the different national contexts. Persons with intellectual disabilities have been considered objects of protection and this overprotective stance turns into an increasing process of institutionalisation, segregation and familiarisation of care. The COVID-19 surveillance regime has brought into light the limits of the implementation of the UN Convention and of the EU Strategy, but the book and the emerging epistemic community, in the framework of public sociology, contribute to support the rights of all persons, with or without disabilities, in public welfare policies in Europe.

The CoViD-19 pandemic has brought about a panoply of institutional challenges both domestically and in the international arena. Classical constitutional theory thereby underwent a reinvention by the executive for the sake of speedy policy action and to the detriment of institutional control while favouring authoritarian forms of governance. This paper concerns itself with institutional responses to such developments, placing emphasis on the role of the judiciary and people*s in contesting emergency decrees and other executive orders, especially where fundamental rights are infringed upon. The paper aims to explore the difficulties arising with exerting absolute executive powers during the health crisis, the respective role assumed by constitutional courts and the impact of the new governance paradigm on forms of public contestation, also as a means of quasi institutional control.

Indeed, the right to health may be translated into political discourse and become foundational to security and public interest paradigms. This may result in a shrinking public space given the constraints to the freedom of movement. In the name of public safety, the (collective) right to assembly, expression and protest have been submitted to major limitations in that regard.

Ultimately, this re-opens debates on the meaning of absolute rights and contextualities of derogations, as well as the reconcilability of civil and political rights and economic, social and cultural rights. It also exposes social inequalities, social justice dimensions and vulnerabilities, often exacerbated by the health crisis; migrant rights demonstrably face particularly severe and intersectional forms of violations.

Particular values lie with the interdisciplinary approach embraced in this paper; the authors draw on a variety of social sciences disciplines to shed light on this very current issue. Both theoretical and empirical methods are used and combined here, making sense of the underlying logic of virus governance and its impacts on fundamental rights.

The introduction presents the pandemic context as the new sanitary surveillance regime that has even more affected persons with disabilities. This book focuses on welfare disability policy, services and practices for and with people with disabilities during the COVID-19 pandemic time, examining the period between Winter 2020 and Spring 2022. A pandemic is a time when changes are accelerated, forcing the emergence of new solutions. The pandemic has called for innovation and reform in all disability welfare policies to overcome increasing and changing social needs. Despite the UN Convention of the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and the European Strategy 2021–2030, the impact of the pandemic has been different in each country according to the features of each national policy framework and local responses. Nevertheless, the European policy framework is the context and the benchmarking reference for the analysis carried out in this work. This book develops a sociological analysis of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on policies, services and practices in several European contexts adopting a public sociology perspective. Moreover, the book looks at supportive and self-help activities implemented during the pandemic to answer the needs of the persons with disabilities. By collecting these data, the book outlines and develops the concept of a community of practices as a group of people that share a concern for something they do and learn how to do it better by interacting with each other on a regular basis. Then the structure and the methodological choices of the book are presented.

Given the rapid rates of technological improvements possible, using modern biotechnology, the product life cycle of new genetically modified organisms (GMOs) is likely to be short and, hence, those investing in their development will desire access to the widest international market possible. There is, however, considerable consumer scepticism regarding GMOs, which is being translated into both government policy responses and actions by firms who are near the consumer end of the supply chain. As the licensing of GMOs is likely to vary from country to country and regulatory regimes will differ, firms involved in international supply chains for food products will be affected by the interplay of trade policy and consumer scepticism. All firms, even those not handling GMO products, will be affected because costly new monitoring procedures will be required. These additional monitoring costs suggest that competitive advantage is likely to be conferred on those supply chains which exhibit superior vertical co‐ordination.

Welfare policies for persons with disabilities have been strongly affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, and this introductory chapter provides the theoretical background to the book. Definition, data and main European policies about disabilities are outlined. The United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD) is the key pillar of disability policies in European countries. In line with a Disability Studies perspective, COVID-19 health surveillance regime has been a challenge in the implementation process of the UNCRPD, highlighting the role of lay knowledge and community of practices in managing everyday challenges for persons with disabilities and their families, and therefore their potential role in becoming part of epistemic communities to support the policy making and implementation process of the UNCRPD.

The purpose of this study is to assess the level of adjustment of the activities of health tourism and hospitality enterprises to the sustainable development criteria developed by the global sustainable tourism council.

The main research method used in this study was a diagnostic survey – an in-depth interview. This research was conducted among managers of 18 of the largest enterprises that conduct tourism and wellness activities in Polish health resorts.

The analysis of the research results indicated that only every other surveyed health resort entity implemented a sustainable development system or program. Most health resort entities undertook initiatives to support the local community in the field of education, health, sanitary safety and mitigating the negative effects of climate change. The respondents also unequivocally stated that they used good practices in promoting cultural heritage among health resort guests. Almost all of the analyzed enterprises applied solutions aimed at saving natural resources, i.e. reducing unnecessary purchases and saving electricity and water. Participation in programs to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and means of transport usage was very rarely declared.

It is recommended to include environmental issues in the business models of health tourism entities, e.g. by including them in the strategy, including mission, communicating pro-environmental goals and actions to stakeholders, and applying environmental management systems and concepts.

The research problem is a strong point of the work, as the issue of sustainable development of tourist organizations has rarely been discussed so far. Health resorts were also not considered the subject of research in this area. In this research, the authors assessed the degree of compliance of health tourism enterprises with the requirements of sustainable development, which is a contribution to the science system.

The main objective of the conducted research was to find out various manifestations of pro-environmental behaviours (PEBs) amongst students of extramural programmes forced to stay at home during the lockdown period.

In order to identify manifestations of PEBs during the lockdown, the authors conducted research with the participation of students of various management extramural programmes in a Polish university. The primary research method was diary, supplemented by literature review and analysis of curriculum content.

Pro-sanitary behaviours that dominated during the pandemic period were aimed at protecting individuals from contracting the virus and resulted from legal regulations. No clear and regular differences in PEBs were observed amongst the respondents with respect to their age, gender or familiarity with management systems used in their respective workplaces. Student-employees acquire little knowledge of PEBs during their studies. A serious barrier to the development of PEBs is the lack of access to knowledge that would clearly indicate the causes of environmental degradation.

Based on the obtained results, a list of recommendations for educational practices was developed. The list emphasises the importance of drawing students' attention to PEBs in the household environment.

The conducted research was another project focussed in general on environmental behaviours and aimed in particular at exploring how mandatory social distancing influenced people's PEBs. The paper also highlights some limitations of the diary method used to identify people's behaviours in the pandemic context.

Tourism as an emerging sector in Uzbekistan has been facing consistent reforms since 2016, aiming to diversify business opportunities. But, the unexpected COVID-19 pandemic has disturbed the plans. This study is to understand the current situation of the tourism business suffering from the pandemic and discloses the priority needs of tourism entities to survive during the crises. A structured questionnaire consisting of 15 questions is used to assess the issues of interest. Two hundred seventy nine valid questionnaires collected from tourism stakeholders are analyzed. The study results reveal that business revenue shows a significant decline during the pandemic and stakeholders are expecting a short-term financial support from the government. The role of the government in terms of assisting the tourism industry to revive after the pandemic is critical. Further, it is necessary to build strong cooperation between governments and tourism establishments to cope with adverse consequences due to the pandemic.

Our chapter focuses on the situation of children and adolescents with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) and their families in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. We present the results of a qualitative study aimed at outlining the state of policies dedicated to individuals with ASD prior to and during the global health crisis. We conducted desk research based on documents published by third sector organisations dedicated to individuals with ASD and categorised in our study as epistemic communities. Next, we carried out interviews with parents and professionals on the social practices of supporting children and adolescents with ASD during the period of the COVID-19 pandemic in the region of Lesser Poland [PL: Małopolska]. The discourse of NGOs enabled us to identify the greatest challenges of individuals with ASD and their families and solutions introduced prior to and during the pandemic. Based on the accounts of parents and professionals, we found that as many as every single person with ASD struggled with the epidemic in an individual manner, ceasing pre-pandemic habits, adapting to the new school context, and missing contacts with peers were the major difficulties.