• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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• v.7 no.7
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• pp.463-474
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• 2020

This study aims to investigate the impact of COVID-19 pandemic on the stock markets of sixteen countries. Pooled OLS regression, conventional t-test and Mann-Whitney test are used to estimate the results of the study. We construct a weekly panel data of COVID-19 new cases and stock returns. Pooled OLS estimation result shows that the growth rate of weekly new cases of COVID-19 negatively predicts the return in stock market. Next, the returns on leading stock indices of these countries during the COVID-19 outbreak period are compared with returns during the non-COVID period. We use a t-test and Mann-Whitney test to compare the returns. The results reveal that investors in these countries do not react to the media news of COVID-19 at the early stage of the pandemic. However, once the human-to-human transmissibility had been confirmed, all of the stock market indices negatively reacted to the news in the short- and long-event window. Interestingly, we noticed that the Shanghai Composite Index, which was severely affected during the short-event window, bounced back during the long-event window. This indicates that the Chinese government's drastic measures to contain the spread of the pandemic regained the confidence of investors in the Shanghai Stock Market.

• KSII Transactions on Internet and Information Systems (TIIS)
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• v.16 no.12
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• pp.4062-4080
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• 2022

COVID-19, a highly infectious disease, has affected the globe tremendously since its outbreak during late 2019 in Wuhan, China. In order to respond to the pandemic, governments around the world introduced a variety of public health measures including contact-tracing, a method to identify individuals who may have come into contact with a confirmed COVID-19 patient, which usually leads to quarantine of certain individuals. Like many other governments, the South Korean health authorities adopted public health measures using latest data technologies. Key data technology-based quarantine measures include:(1) Electronic Entry Log; (2) Self-check App; and (3) COVID-19 Wristband, and heavily relied on individual's personal information for contact-tracing and self-isolation. In fact, during the early stages of the pandemic, South Korea's strategy proved to be highly effective in containing the spread of coronavirus while other countries suffered significantly from the surge of COVID-19 patients. However, while the South Korean COVID-19 policy was hailed as a success, it must be noted that the government achieved this by collecting and processing a wide range of personal information. In collecting and processing personal information, the data minimum principle - one of the widely recognized common data principles between different data protection laws - should be applied. Public health measures have no exceptions, and it is even more crucial when government activities are involved. In this study, we provide an analysis of how the governments around the world reacted to the COVID-19 pandemic and evaluate whether the South Korean government's digital quarantine measures ensured the protection of its citizen's right to privacy.

• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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• v.8 no.7
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• pp.383-391
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• 2021

This study examines the connectedness between the number of COVID-19 cases in Thailand and trading value among investors in the Stock Exchange of Thailand. Daily data of COVID-19 cases and trading value were sourced from the Thailand ministry of public health and the Stock Exchange of Thailand, from January 12, 2020 to May 11, 2021. This study applies a multiple linear regression analysis to explain the relationship between variables. Empirical evidence clearly shows that the volatility of trading value was affected by COVID-19's new, confirmed, and deaths cases within the first pandemic period more than during the second pandemic period. Nevertheless, during the third pandemic period there is no evidence that the new, confirmed, and deaths cases significantly influenced trading value. Furthermore, the results show that COVID-19's new and deaths cases have a negative coefficient that indicated the trading value-buy/sell decreased in response to COVID-19's new and deaths cases, whereas the confirmed COVID-19 cases have a positive coefficient that indicated the trading value-buy/sell increased in response to COVID's confirmed cases. In summary, this study suggests that the number of COVID-19 cases have a significant impact on the trading value in the short term more than in the intermediate and long term.

• Asia Pacific Journal of Corpus Research
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• v.1 no.1
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• pp.1-30
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• 2020

The present study examines language used to talk about the global coronavirus pandemic during a three-month period of movement control order in Malaysia. More specifically, a corpus of online letters to the editor of a local popular national newspaper was collected during the time in which the official quarantine instruction was initiated, resulting in a total of 303 online letters written by Malaysians that were analyzed through use of corpus linguistics techniques. For this purpose, the latest version of #LancsBox 5.0 (Brezina et al., 2020) is used to analyze patterns of language surrounding the portrayal of Covid-19 and further visualizing them by use of collocation networks. Findings present 25 statistically significant collocates that share an interesting relationship in revealing what the letters are about and thus, reflecting how Malaysians perceive and receive news about the pandemic during this time. Recurring topics and expressions include describing the virus in terms of metaphorical use of language (Covid-19 does not discriminate), preparing for an economic fallout (Prihatin Economic Stimulus Package), and preference to associate Covid-19 as a pandemic (impacts of the Covid19 pandemic) rather than an outbreak (first/second/third wave of the outbreak). Implications of the study resonates with findings from Azizan et al. (2020) where constructions of positive discourse among Malaysian writers may reflect the culture and society that make up the nation.

• Korean Medical Education Review
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• v.23 no.3
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• pp.154-159
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• 2021

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has profoundly impacted all aspects of undergraduate, postgraduate, and continuing medical education. Only the focus of medical education-care for patients and communities-has remained an integral part of all of the above sectors. Several challenges have been experienced by learners and educators as the education and training of future doctors has continued in the midst of this crisis, including the cancellation of face-to-face classes and training, reduced patient encounter opportunities, fairness issues in online assessments, disruption of patient interview-based exams, reflections on the role of doctors in society, and mental health-related problems linked to isolation and concerns about infection. In response to these disruptions, educators and institutions have rapidly deployed educational innovations. Schools have adopted educational strategies to overcome these challenges by implementing novel education delivery methods in an online format, providing clinical experiences through simulation or telehealth methods, introducing online assessment tools with formative purposes, encouraging learners' involvement in nonclinical activities such as community service, and making available resources and programs to sustain learners' mental health and wellness. During the COVID-19 pandemic, educators and institutions have faced drastic changes in medical education worldwide. At the same time, the quantitative expansion of online education has caused other problems, such as the lack of human collaboration. The long-term effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on medical education need to be studied further.

• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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• v.8 no.11
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• pp.11-19
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• 2021

The aim of this paper is to evaluate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the stock prices of the companies traded on the UAE financial markets (Abu Dhabi Securities Exchange and Dubai Financial Market). The time series regressions have been applied to estimate the impact of COVID-19 data on the companies' stock prices movements. The data cover the period between January 29^th, 2020, and January 5^th, 2021. The data was collected from the website of the Federal Competitiveness and Statistics Centre of the UAE. The empirical results of this study show that the stock prices are negatively and significantly affected by the number of COVID-19 positive cases and the number of death while they are positively and significantly affected by the number of recoveries. The results vary from one industry to another. These results would be important to the policymakers and financial regulators in developing the needed policies to improve the stock markets' resilience and maintain financial and economic stability. In addition, the findings would be useful to the investors and portfolio managers in taking the most appropriate investment decisions and managing more efficiently their portfolios. This paper will shed light on the responsiveness of the UAE financial market to the COVID-19 pandemic.

• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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• v.8 no.9
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• pp.143-154
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• 2021

This study aims to explore the dynamic conditional correlation (DCC) between ten Asian stock indexes, the US stock index, and Bitcoin by using the dynamic conditional correlation model. The time span of the daily data is between January 2015 to May 2021, the total observation is 1,116. DCC(1,1)-EGARCH(1,1) with multivariate t and normal distributions for the DCC and EGARCH models, respectively, outperforms other models by the goodness of fit values. Except for Bitcoin, we discovered that the majority of the securities' volatilities have a very high volatility persistence. Furthermore, the negative shocks/news have more impact on the volatilities than positive shocks/news in most of the cases, except the stock index of China and Bitcoin. Most of the correlation pairs exhibit higher correlation during the COVID-19 pandemic compared to the pre-COVID-19, except Hong Kong-The US and Malaysia-Indonesia. Moreover, the correlation between Asian stock indexes during the COVID-19 pandemic is statistically higher than the pre-COVID-19 pandemic. However, there are a few instances where the Hong Kong stock index and a few countries are identical. The result of correlation size shows the connectedness between Asian stock markets, which are well-connected within the region, especially with South Korea, Singapore, and Hong Kong.

• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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• v.8 no.5
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• pp.1011-1017
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• 2021

An effective measure to prevent the spread of COVID-19 is wearing masks in public places. This solution is highly recommended in many countries all over the world. The objective of this study is to identify the antecedents of citizens' intention to purchase masks during the COVID-19 pandemic. Based on the theory of planned behavior (TPB), the current study analyzes attitudes toward mask-purchasing, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control, to assess their impact on intention to purchase masks. In total, six variables are examined: attitude toward mask-wearing, subjective norms, perceived behavioral control, perceived severity, perceived susceptibility, and the intention to wear masks. Data are collected from 243 respondents in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. They were processed through by factor analysis and multiple regressions. The results report that all three factors positively affect citizens' intention to buy masks in the following ascending order: Attitude toward mask-purchasing, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control. Our study is the first research that applies TPB to investigate citizens' intention to purchase masks to during the COVID-19 pandemic. Moreover, this study provides guidelines to the Vietnamese public managers to combat COVID-19 through the purchase of masks. Shopkeepers would be well advised to observe the intentions of consumers toward masks.

• International Journal of Computer Science & Network Security
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• v.21 no.12
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• pp.101-109
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• 2021

Cybercrimes are the biggest threat that can influence the future of e-commerce, particularly in difficult times such as the COVID-19 pandemic. This pandemic has resulted in noticeable changes in e-customer behaviour represented in three types: spending rates, types of goods bought, and the number of purchasing times. Moreover, the percentage of cybercrime in many countries, including Saudi Arabia, has increased during the pandemic. The increase in the number of cybercrimes during the COVID-19 crisis and the changes in consumer behaviour shows that there is an urgent need to conduct research on the factors that have led to this. This study will explore the most significant factors that have an effect on the unexpected change of customer behaviour and cybercrime perceived risk during the COVID-19 pandemic in Saudi Arabia. The finding of the study will hopefully contribute to attempts in finding safer methods for shopping online during COVID-19 and similar crisis.

• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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• v.54 no.1
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• pp.1-7
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• 2021

The Korean government's strategy to combat coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has focused on non-pharmaceutical interventions, such as social distancing and wearing masks, along with testing, tracing, and treatment; overall, its performance has been relatively good compared to that of many other countries heavily affected by COVID-19. However, little attention has been paid to health equity in measures to control the COVID-19 pandemic. The study aimed to examine the unequal impacts of COVID-19 across socioeconomic groups and to suggest potential solutions to tackle these inequalities. The pathways linking social determinants and health could be entry points to tackle the unequal consequences of this public health emergency. It is crucial for infectious disease policy to consider social determinants of health including poor housing, precarious working conditions, disrupted healthcare services, and suspension of social services. Moreover, the high levels of uncertainty and complexity inherent in this public health emergency, as well as the health and socioeconomic inequalities caused by the pandemic, underscore the need for good governance other than top-down measures by the government. We emphasize that a people-centered perspective is a key approach during the pandemic era. Mutual trust between the state and civil society, strong accountability of the government, and civic participation are essential components of cooperative disaster governance.