The new SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus disease (COVID-19) started in Wuhan City of China on December 31st 2019As at August 3,2020 a total of 18,056,310 million cases had been diagnosed globally with over 689,219 deaths with cases in Nigeria snowballing gradually becoming lethal. Given Nigeria’s socio-economic and demographic significance to African continent, it is imperative to understand the cultural norms that may aid or obstructs prevention and treatment of the disease in order to halt its transmission. Data for study came from the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control and other publicly available data sources supported with PEN-3 cultural model developed in 1989 by Airhihenbuwa. The model places culture at the core of the development, implementation and evaluation of successful public health interventions. COVID-19 transmission increases with large population concentration in urban areas and proximity to major entry points to other adjacent states and countries. The paper suggested that dominant cultures, civilization and religious practices should be adhered to, adopted as the case may be for restrictions such physical distancing, hand hygiene, use of face masks and another prophylactic regimen to flatten the curve of the pandemic in Nigeria and likely occurrence of similar disease in future.

Covid-19 is considered as an important factor that impacts largely on the security and development. Covid-19 has caused the shiftin the definition of the national security and significance of new emerging non-traditional security issues, for instance the health security, and human security. Accordingly, Covid-19 has had devastating effects on the poor and human development, due to the economic recession and diversion of resources to focus on coping with the virus, stressing the accomplishment of sustainable development goals. It is anticipated that the entanglement of security and development issues gives rise to more complex challenges to ensure the stability and progress of sustainable economic development. This context has raised a question of how countries, especially lower middle-income countries like Vietnam, could cope with arising challenges and opportunities in the new context. This research concludes that Vietnam, as a perfect case study, has strongly supported global and regional cooperation to reset development agenda to focus on quick economic recovery towards resilient, green inclusive, and sustainable development. Internally, Vietnam was successful in controlling the pandemic, and become one of few countries that achieved positive GDP growth in the region in 2020. The key to overcome these challenges remains with the Communist Party of Vietnam’s strong political leadership to control Covid-19, and to take advantages of development trends such as globalization, shifting of supply chain, digital economy, and green recovery and green growth.

The COVID-19 pandemic has leftits mark on higher education, including first-year university students. The transition to online education has been particularly challenging for the University of Silesia and, to a far lesser extent, the International University of Applied Sciences. This study examines the academic experiences of first-year students entering university in the academic year 2020/2021. This article presents the results of a comparative study conducted on a sample of N=185 students from the University of Silesia (Poland) and N=120 students from the University of Applied Sciences (Germany) using an online questionnaire. The research showed that German students ranked the investigated issues higher; this does not mean that the University of Silesia provides a lower level of support, but that the information strategy and support elements are different.

The primary burden of tackling the pandemic COVID-19 lies with the state as the entity responsible for protecting the health and life of its citizens. Hence, it can be argued that the focus of the pandemic-induced changes to the Polish legal order was on administrative law, which not only sets out the principles of the functioning of the State as the executive power but also governs the relations between the government, local government and citizens, which had to be significantly modified during the pandemic. It would be impossible to analyse and discuss all the emergency measures that appeared in Poland’s administrative law due to the threats posed by the pandemic. The subject matter of the present study is the analysis of the legal solutions adopted in the Republic of Poland in the sphere of public law in connection with the spread of the virus and particular provisions shaping relationships between the two basic structural branches of Polish public administration, viz. the government administration and the local-government administration. The following part of this study will accordingly be devoted to the analysis of the legislative solution contained in Article 11h of the COVID-19 Act, establishing a legal framework for issuing binding instructions to, among others, the various bodies of local governments, local-government legal persons and local-government organisational entities without legal personality.

This paper aims to point to the transition from international law to transnational law that, on the one hand, is caused, and on the other, is strengthened by the growing role of cities in the fight against COVID-19. Various interactions between cities and other international actors give rise to new trends and challenges on the international plane. One of such terms, transnational law, refers to developments beyond the nation-state and includes “all law which regulates actions or events that transcend national frontiers”. It is characterized by a plurality of overlapping normative systems and a growing role of new actors in the international arena, which are cities. The authors give examples of cities bypassing or complementing states with special emphasis on European cities (Polish including) as well as of cities’ transnational cooperation to fight COVID-19 pandemic, filling the gaps in inter-governmental multilateral cooperation.

The article discusses administrative fines imposed in connection with the Covid-19 pandemic. The form and rules of their imposition allow us to assume that the pragmatics of their imposition was flawed from the very beginning of the pandemic. This is confirmed by the judgments of administrative courts which question the financial penalties in question.

The article aims to analyse the potential role that hydrogen could play in the post-pandemic recovery of Portugal and its climate policy. The article focuses on reducing greenhouse gas emissions and creating new workplaces. The basis for analysis is the Portuguese hydrogen strategy, published in May 2020 and other strategic documents. In the first part of the article, climate goals adopted by the European Union and Portugal are described and analysed. Then the hydrogen strategy of Portugal was analysed from the perspective of hydrogen contribution to the emission reduction by 2030. The article describes the role of hydrogen in the Portuguese economy, paying particular attention to the 2020–2030 horizon, but also covers a period till 2040. The second part analyses the impact of COVID-19 on the Portuguese economy. Based on the International Energy Agency’s estimates, the potential for creating new workplaces is described.

Information technologies, ICT and Industry 4.0 are developing particularly fast in the fourth technological revolution. During the COVID-19 pandemic, there has been an increase in the scale of digitisation and internationalisation of remote communication processes and various aspects of economic activity. Digitisation of the economy is currently taking place simultaneously in many areas of economic processes and the functioning of many economic entities and public, financial and other institutions. Many companies, enterprises and public institutions that previously operated mostly or solely offline during the pandemic have switched to remote, electronic operation via the Internet. The development of electronic banking is also increasing, including internet and mobile banking. The share of electronic, cashless payments via the Internet and payments with electronic bank cards is increasing. In addition, in recent years, the range of applications of Data Science, Big Data, and Data Analytics technologies in economics, finance and organisation management, including enterprises, financial and public institutions, has been increasing. Therefore, the importance of implementing analytical instruments for advanced processing of large Data Science data sets in enterprises, financial and public institutions is also growing, including the construction of Big Data Analytics platforms to support organisation management processes in various aspects of operations, including improvement relationship with customers. The scale of cybercrime has also increased during the pandemic, as has the importance of improving cybersecurity techniques and instruments.

This article aims to answer the question about the legality of the selected measures implemented by the Polish government during the first wave of the coronavirus pandemic, which resulted in constitutional rights and freedom restrictions. The study focuses on examining selected restrictions implemented in the spring of 2020 in the light of the Polish Constitution, especially in the light of Article 31 (3), which defines the premises of limitation of citizens’ rights and freedoms. It indicates the lack of legal basis and incompatibility with constitutional premises of many restrictions. The study further examines the premises of the introduction of the state of emergency, indicating that the government's decision not to impose such a state was legal and why. The study considers legal status from March 13 to May 16, 2020.

The emergence and rapid spread of SARS-CoV-2 caused uncertainty about our health, jobs, and the education system. For teachers, changes in workplaces and the breakdown of interpersonal relationships during the pandemic caused even greater stress levels in what is already known to be a stressful job. We wanted to find out if a positive or negative attitude towards online work influenced levels of stress and mental well-being, perceived difficulties at work, subjective evaluation of received support, and effectiveness of remote work during the first wave of SARS-CoV-2 in Poland. Data was collected using a questionnaire, the PSS 10 scale and another scale based on GHQ12 and GH30. Nearly one-third of the respondents indicated positive aspects of online education. Those who could see the positive aspects of online education showed themselves better adapted to the new form of working and had higher results in all four scales that we researched. They handled online tools, used synchronous methods, conducted educational activities more often, and felt competent during online work. Supporting the effectiveness of educators by improving the competencies that they need for this new form of working is vital with regard to the changes within the school institution.

The pandemic that broke out in 2019 had a significant impact on the lives of all social groups around the world. The imposed restrictions and mandatory quarantine were crucial to limit the virus’s spread. The research comprises an analysis of the psychosocial impact exerted by the pandemic that attempted to determine the response to the crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and its aftermath. For this purpose, a study on social resilience in the pandemic era was worked out. The study consisted of several parts: stress and the sense of safety, education, trust and defined needs and the mass media in COVID-19. The research team decided to present the study’s results in a series of articles that will contribute to forming a complete picture of the community in the context of the analysed variables. The paper is the first in this series. It contains an analysis of variables intended to determine the level of the experienced sense of safety and its constituent, i.e., stress, and the identification of socio-demographic data strongly influencing the studied variables. The study comprised 559 individuals who were surveyed between May 2020 and November 2020 with the use of an online survey questionnaire. SPSS Statistics version 21.0 and PQStat were used to conduct statistical analyses and correlate and assess the correlation of responses. Also used were Chisquare, Fisher’s test and Pearson’s linear correlation coefficient. A logistic regression analysis was carried out for dichotomous variables. The results of the study indicate that the level of experienced stress is influenced by age, place of residence, gender and job security. The sense of safety is inversely correlated with stress, i.e., as stress increases, the sense of safety decreases, indicating a need to undertake appropriate measures to reduce stress. It may be interesting to compare the level of stress with, among other things, information retrieval from different sources. These results will be presented in the subsequent studies.

Situation of Roma in Slovakia during COVID-19 pandemic

The article presented here presents the most important state measures directed at Roma and marginalized communities during the CoOVID-19 pandemic. In March 2020, a state of emergency was declared in Slovakia in connection with the spread of the pandemic, which for the residents of the Slovak Republic resulted in an immediate restriction of contacts, manifested in the closure of all types of schools, institutions and many workplaces. The mandatory mass quarantine of entire marginalized communities has raised NGO concerns about the equal treatment of people living in Roma communities in Slovakia. It is estimated that up to 70 percent of Roma children were not receiving distance education during the first wave of the pandemic, and up to 60 percent had no contact with an educator. Technical equipment, access to educational systems, but also Internet coverage in cities and municipalities became obstacles to education.

State of Emergency in the Italian Republic During the Covid-19 Pandemic – Constitutional Aspects

The Covid-19 pandemic forced European Union member states to introduce modern European standards regarding human rights and the rule of law in an unprecedented crisis. In 2020 Italy was the first affected country in Europe. Italian authorities, forced to take new and more stringent measures to contain the virus’s expansion, have introduced a state of emergency that may last until 2022. From a constitutional law perspective, the coronavirus emphasizes the need to consider the Italian “emergency constitution”. The ongoing health crisis gives rise to some reflections on the lack of an articulated crisis framework in the Italian constitution and whether existing tools are adequate to face of contemporary threats. This article discusses the Italian Constitution and other laws in the country relating to the state of emergency during the Covid-19 pandemic.

This study aimed to evaluate the COVID-19 pandemic anxiety experienced by students in Poland and its impact on their: social support, satisfaction with studying online and expectations of success in life. The data was obtained from a survey of Polish public and private university students. The research presented here examined the environmental and psychosocial effects of social withdrawal during the first period of the pandemic on the well-being and confidence in their chances for success in academic study. Recognising the individual and social condition of adolescents standing at the threshold of social maturity is essential to understanding the pedagogical and motivational consequences of institutional anti-pandemic regulation.

Apart from changing learning and teaching habits, the COVID-19 pandemic has also affected the way parents involve themselves in learning from home. This study explores the challenges parents face when participating in online learning during the COVID-19 pandemic and what ways can be done to encourage students to learn mathematics online. We use multiple case studies to achieve research objectives. This study involved eight mothers of children in elementary school. Six of them are housewives, and the rest are government employees. Semi-structured interviews were used to gather data. Aside from technical constraints such as the availability of internet networks and infrastructure, the findings of this study show that technological literacy and parental involvement in cognitive, emotional, social, and pedagogical aspects are still lacking. We discussed four key findings, including issues with network availability and technological literacy, issues with parents’ routine work and how to accompany their children, parents’ beliefs about mathematics, and parental involvement in cognitive, affective, social, and pedagogical aspects. Finally, the parents’ learning community must be accommodated, developed, and assisted for their involvement to be more effective.

The scale of disinformation surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic has been called infodemic. It involved disseminating various messages and theories that had a significant negative impact on limiting the spread of the disease but also exacerbated existing social antagonisms and emboldened and radicalised fringe groups. Infodemic, to a large extent manifested in social media, also fostered the formalisation of denialist circles, who transferred their sometimes very aggressive sentiments from the web to the real world. Negation and contestation of the pandemic were partly born spontaneously but were also created as part of postmodern hybrid activities. Consequently, narratives of infodemic led to difficulties in functioning health services, but above all, to an increase in morbidity and mortality related to COVID-19. The consequences of the infodemic would also include various economic effects, such as increased medical expenses for unvaccinated people or turbulence in the labour market.

The article recounts the changes in the security perception of Poles after the outbreak of the coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) pandemic. Upon utilisation of comparative empirical research carried out in 2020 and 2021, using the diagnostic survey method with the survey techniques, the conclusion confirmed that Poles’ sense of security decreased in 2020 and 2021. According to the respondents’ answers, the most frequent explanation for declining security perception coincides with the threat of contracting the coronavirus. Those include losing a job due to the restrictions introduced in economic activity, determined by the appearance of the coronavirus, and the introduction of restrictions on movement in connection with the occurrences of COVID-19. In addition, the study found that the respondents’ most frequently chosen methods of improving their sense of security include using personal protective equipment, avoiding contact with other people, and refraining from leaving their homes.

Remote teaching became one of the key topics in educational research due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Our article looks at the other side of the story, i.e., in-person education during the pandemic. This aspect of teaching excellence has been overlooked because it seemed to be thoroughly studied. However, COVID-19 has profoundly changed in-person teaching. In our study, we focus on the Polish medical and technical universities as the studies they offer include solid practical components (labs or clinical classes). Our article examines how in-person classes were administered and organised during three consecutive semesters, starting in the Spring of 2020, when teaching at Polish HEIs was mostly conducted remotely. We build our analysis on internal legal acts issued by rectors and interviews with university staff who oversaw the teaching process. The legal documents describe the procedures related to in-person teaching or frontline teaching in person. The interviews complement this image by providing the rationale behind the regulations, their reception by the students and the faculty, or the backstage of in-person teaching. The LogFrame was applied to provide a conceptual framework to understand how universities could continue providing their services.

Economic LONG COVID – Constitutional Context and Economic Perspective

The aim of this article is the analysis of the constitutional context of government interventions of the European Union states as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, with an indication of the effects on economic freedom. An analysis was made of the constitutional provisions of the European Union member states in shaping the economic system and economic freedom guarantees, as well as a comparative analysis of three economic freedom indicators: Index of Economic Freedom, Economic Freedom of the World and The Oxford Covid-19 Government Response Tracker. Research showed that despite the constitutional guarantees of economic freedom, the scope and intensity of the preventive measures undertaken by the governments in order to counteract the health, social, and economic effects of the pandemic may cause a long-term restriction of freedom and democracy. The conclusions presented in this article are the result of research that is a continuation of analyses, the synthesis of which is presented in the publication „The constitutional principle of economic freedom and COVID-19 – state interventionism in pandemic conditions” (“Constitutional Law Review” 2021, no. 5/63).

In this article, the author addresses the issue of state compensation liability. She presents Polish constitutional regulations as well as civil law regulations. In the analysis, she takes into account current problems related to the consequences resulting from the introduction of restrictions on rights and freedoms during the COVID-19 pandemic.