Emerging Standards and the Hybrid Model for Organizing Scientific Events During and After the COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract

Since the beginning of 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic has dramatically influenced almost every aspect of human life. Activities requiring human gatherings have either been postponed, cancelled, or held completely virtually. To supplement lack of in-person contact, people have increasingly turned to virtual settings on-line, advantages of which include increased inclusivity and accessibility and reduction of carbon footprint. However, emerging online technologies cannot fully replace, in-person scientific events. In-person meetings are not susceptible to poor internet connectivity problems, and they provide novel opportunities for socialization, creating new collaborations, and sharing ideas. To continue such activities, a hybrid model for scientific events could be a solution offering both in-person and virtual components. While participants can freely choose the mode of their participation, virtual meetings would most benefit those who cannot attend in-person due to the limitations. In-person portions of meetings should be organized with full consideration of prevention and safety strategies including risk assessment and mitigation, venue and environmental sanitation, participant protection and disease prevention, and promoting the hybrid model. This new way of interaction between scholars can be considered as a part of a resilience system which was neglected previously and should become a part of routine practice in scientific community.

Health Care Policies and COVID-19 Prevalence: Is There Any Association?

“…67,84,88,90,91,95,97,[104][105][106][107][108][109][110][111][112][113] This condition would highlight the importance of international health care policies, 65,[114][115][116][117][118][119] which can help with the prevention and early diagnosis of COVID-19. 105,109,116,[120][121][122][123] As shown in Figure 1, the prevalence in China has been maintained since March after a peak in February. The prevalence is, however, increasing rapidly in Spain and especially the United States of America.…”

Organizing a Mass Gathering Amidst a Rising COVID-19 Public Health Crisis: Lessons Learned From a Chinese Public Health Forum in Vancouver, BC

“…In fact, since the outset of the pandemic, several groups have highlighted the advantages of virtual approaches for event organization. Perhaps the provision of an online virtual conference is something many mass gathering organizers can consider, given its cost-effectiveness, feasibility, and inclusivity, wherever appropriate [ 24 - 25 ]. Options to participate online could even be beneficial in maintaining public safety while organizing events as the world economy opens up during the next phase of the pandemic [ 26 ].…”

“…In fact, according to a recent paper by Pradhan et al evaluating the best preventive care approaches to curbing infection spread, including COVID-19, hand sanitization has been cited as the second most important strategy, with disinfecting surfaces being the first [ 30 ]. Accordingly, making sanitizers widely accessible may be a good strategy to not only ensure participant safety but also environmental safety when organizing events during and after COVID-19 [ 25 ].…”

Biosensing surfaces and therapeutic biomaterials for the central nervous system in COVID-19

“…Such a percentage of all 70 million cases affected by the disease, in addition to the fact that it may recur, are serious alarm signals [41][42][43] in the healthcare system, which had to deal with increasing fatigue, burn-out, and stress [44,45] over the course of the pandemic year. It will undoubtedly call for globally integrated collaboration to respond to this complex problem [46][47][48][49][50][51][52][53][54] in the context of national online platforms [55].…”