Management of COVID-19 at the pandemic’s first wave in Ecuador

Claudett, Killen Harold Briones; Vasconez, Roger Alexander Murillo; Salas, Carolina; Briones-Zamora, Killen H; Briones-Márquez, Diana C.; Icaza-Freire, Andrea; Grunauer, Michelle

doi:10.1177/2050313x211045232

Cited by 3 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 24 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Due to the appearance of the Covid-19 disease, Ecuador was the country with the highest number of deaths in the region during March and April of that year, with an accelerated growth of new serious cases, leading to the collapse of the Ecuadorian health system, during the so-called "first wave", Brazil and Ecuador were the most affected countries in the region and the world [8].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Identification of a suitable NLP model for the detection of symptoms mentioned in textual conversations of Covid-19 infected persons

Acosta-Guzmán,

Varela-Tapia,

Sangacha Tapia

et al. 2023

Proceedings of the 21th LACCEI International Multi-Conference for Engineering, Education and Technology (LACCEI 2023): “Leaders

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

In March 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared Covid-19 disease as a global pan-demic. Therefore, the need for reliable information arose, so several Virtual Health Assistants emerged to provide information to the public to teach the population how to prevent or cope with the Covid-19 Alpha variant infection, but progressively emerged the Beta, Delta, Omicron variants with different symptomatology which triggered new waves of infections and deaths in the world. For this reason, the present study promoted the creation of a NLP (Natural Language Processing) model to analyze the experiences of infected people in Guayaquil and to detect the predominant symptoms mentioned in their textual conversations. For this purpose, the Quantitative Methodology was followed by performing surveys through Google form, reaching 2873 people in the city of Guayaquil who had and overcame the Covid-19. Thus, the corpus of textual conversations was generated. On the other hand, the Qualitative Methodology was used by executing interviews to NLP experts, which allowed corroborating the classifiers suggested in this type of software. Finally, twenty-two different NLP models were built based on classifier algorithms like K-Nearest Neighbors, Random Forest, and Long-Short Term Memory (LSTM), and their quality was evaluated using metrics such as Accuracy, Precision, Recall, and AUC, finding that the model based on LSTM version 3 obtained the highest performance.

show abstract

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Identification of a suitable NLP model for the detection of symptoms mentioned in textual conversations of Covid-19 infected persons

Acosta-Guzmán,

Varela-Tapia,

Sangacha Tapia

et al. 2023

Proceedings of the 21th LACCEI International Multi-Conference for Engineering, Education and Technology (LACCEI 2023): “Leaders

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…The country went through a collapse in the health system and a change in the lifestyle of the inhabitants, where, as is common in most countries, a massive quarantine measure was implemented to prevent the spread of the virus. However, despite reducing the number of infections, the population has faced conditions of emotional disorders, depression, stress, low mood, irritability, insomnia, and post-traumatic stress [ 49 ]. At the academic level, as of March 2020, classes for all levels were suspended in the country, generating a drastic transition from the face-to-face modality to the virtual modality [ 50 ].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Multivariate Analysis on Physical Activity, Emotional and Health Status of University Students Caused by COVID-19 Confinement

Merchán-Sanmartín

Brocel-Bajaña

Pambabay-Calero

et al. 2022

IJERPH

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Confinement as a result of COVID-19 had a strong impact around the world and restricted mobility. The university community started to take routine classes in a virtual and sedentary way, causing negative effects on their health and habits. The objective of this research is to analyze the impact of confinement through surveys of students and interviews with university professors, in order to study the effects of confinement on physical activity, emotional state, and health. The methodology was as follows: (i) preliminary data; (ii) survey development, interviews, and information collection; (iii) data processing and multivariate presentation of the results, using multiple correspondence analysis (MCA) and multiple factor analysis (MFA). The results of 375 respondents show that there is a low level of physical activity (<300 METs, 49.6%), where women register sedentary behavior (73%). Emotionally, most of them show feeling bored. Some express anxiety, depression, discomfort, and frustration. In terms of health, there are rheumatic, circulatory, respiratory, and other diseases related to obesity. It is essential to create programs that promote physical exercise to reduce the consequences of sedentary lifestyles on the physical, social, and mental health of university students, especially engineering students, who experienced greater effects of confinement than those studying nutrition and social sciences.

show abstract

“…However, the first wave hit Guayaquil very hard, leaving thousands of deaths, mainly because the country was unprepared for it (Castellanos Santamar ıa et al, 2021;Molina et al, 2021). As a result, Ecuador's death count was the highest in South America during March and April 2020 (Briones-Claudett et al, 2021).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…, 2021). As a result, Ecuador's death count was the highest in South America during March and April 2020 (Briones-Claudett et al , 2021).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Foreign language anxiety of an Ecuadorian polytechnic university’s English undergraduate students during the COVID-19 pandemic

Estrella

2022

JARHE

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

PurposeThis research aimed to identify the levels of stress students experience, the different sources that generate them and the relationship between the stress levels and the students' gender.Design/methodology/approachA mixed-methods design was used, focusing on the quantitative stage. The qualitative section was designed to obtain supporting information. 86 Ecuadorian undergraduate polytechnic students enrolled in an English course took part in this study. Quantitative data are obtained using the Telecollaborative Foreign Language Anxiety Scale (T-FLAS), while online interviews supply insight from students.FindingsThe present research identified four types of anxiety related to emergency remote teaching (ERT). Communication anxiety is one of them that has also been found in regular foreign language classes (Horowitz et al., 1986). However, the actual contribution is regarding the other three sources of ERT-related anxiety: Online interaction anxiety, ERT anxiety and technology anxiety. Also, it was identified that girls experience higher anixety levels than men do.Research limitations/implicationsA limitation of this study is the T-FLAS, a tool that has not been widely used. However, as Fondo and Jacobetty (2020) reported, other papers have made use of this novel tool. Another limitation to this research is the number of participants; although it is not very small, it might not be considered large enough for generalization purposes. Also, this study was limited by its scope, which only looked at the relationship between the students' genders and anxiety levels.Practical implicationsFirst, this researcher recommends that language departments use the survey at the beginning of each semester. That way, there will be a clear idea of the sources of anxiety students are experiencing, and measures can be taken to lower those anxiety-causing factors. Also, this study shows students experiencing a high level of anxiety when they are required to interact with their peers using a foreign language. Thus, supplying practice through guided discussions and role-plays should allow learners to reduce their anxiety levels and perform better during these kinds of exchanges in the short term.Social implicationsAnother issue reported by this study is the feelings of uneasiness when turning cameras on to do an exercise or taking quizzes and exams, as learners feel like their classmates and teachers are invading their homes. It is recommended that the Student Welfare Department of the educational institutions deal with this and other issues. They can design intervention, relaxation and yoga programs for students who are feeling anxious to help them lower those feeling and allow them to have better interactions in class during these times of remote learning.Originality/valueThis paper's originality lies in the fact that it looks at anxiety from the point of view of the COVID-19 pandemic and the move it had to be made to the digital realm. It identifies three factors that are new and related 100% to emergency remote teaching–learning. It is also valuable as it is looking at data emerging for a South American country, as data are scarce from this continent and especially from Ecuador.

show abstract

Management of COVID-19 at the pandemic’s first wave in Ecuador

Cited by 3 publications

References 24 publications

Identification of a suitable NLP model for the detection of symptoms mentioned in textual conversations of Covid-19 infected persons

Identification of a suitable NLP model for the detection of symptoms mentioned in textual conversations of Covid-19 infected persons

Multivariate Analysis on Physical Activity, Emotional and Health Status of University Students Caused by COVID-19 Confinement

Foreign language anxiety of an Ecuadorian polytechnic university’s English undergraduate students during the COVID-19 pandemic

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About