253.
Santiago Peña (Bomchil), Alegría Jijón,
A Brief Comment on ALArb’s Protocol for Virtual Arbitration Hearings, 2022.07.22,
http://arbitrationblog.kluwerarbitration.com/2022/07/22/a-brief-comment-on-alarbs-protocol-for-virtual-arbitration-hearings/ .
COVID-19 pandemic restrictions imposed in early 2020 led to a substantial change in the way international arbitration proceedings are conducted—forcing practitioners to hold any kind of hearing exclusively on a virtual basis in order to avoid the suspension of proceedings. Having identified a growing concern on guidance of how virtual hearings should be conducted, the Observatory on the State of Arbitration in Latin America launched the Protocol for Remote or Virtual Arbitration Hearings (the “Protocol”) in May 2021. In this article, the authors review briefly the structure and content of the Protocol and analyze the most relevant conclusions from its practical application.
252.
Maria Hauser-Morel, Charlotte Matthews,
Signing an Award in Counterparts: The Paris Court of Appeal Adopts a Flexible Stance, 2022.03.09,
http://arbitrationblog.kluwerarbitration.com/2022/03/09/signing-an-award-in-counterparts-the-paris-court-of-appeal-adopts-a-flexible-stance/ .
The Paris Court of Appeal has ruled in a Covid-related set aside request that French law does not impose an obligation on arbitrators to sign an award simultaneously on the same page. it is doubtful that the applicant would have succeeded to show that the impugned signature process constituted a violation of the mandate conferred upon the tribunal (1520-3°) or that it constituted a violation of public international order (1520-5°). It may reasonably be expected that the Paris Court of Appeal would equally be as un-formalistic with an international arbitral award, where the Court has shown particular deference to flexibility and party autonomy. In any event, going forward, it is likely that parties will increasingly use e-signature procedures, progressively rendering wet signature issues moot.
251.
Fok-Moon Lum, Anthony Torres-Ruesta, etc.,
Monkeypox: disease epidemiology, host immunity and clinical interventions, 2022.09.05,
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9443635/ .
Monkeypox virus (MPXV), which causes disease in humans, has for many years been restricted to the African continent, with only a handful of sporadic cases in other parts of the world. However, unprecedented outbreaks of monkeypox in non-endemic regions have recently taken the world by surprise. In less than 4 months, the number of detected MPXV infections has soared to more than 48,000 cases, recording a total of 13 deaths. In this Review, the authors discuss the clinical, epidemiological and immunological features of MPXV infections. The authors also highlight important research questions and new opportunities to tackle the ongoing monkeypox outbreak.
250.
Maria Bakola, Ireri Hernandez Carballo, etc.,
The impact of COVID-19 lockdown on air pollution in Europe and North America: a systematic review, 2022.09.08,
https://academic.oup.com/eurpub/advance-article/doi/10.1093/eurpub/ckac118/6694086?searchresult=1 .
The study integrated disparate studies to provide a comprehensive picture of the effects of COVID-19 lockdowns on air pollution. The authors performed a systematic review of studies investigating the impact of lockdowns on the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) ‘Criteria Air Pollutants’, known to have adverse health effects (available in Supplementary appendix S1), including CO, lead, ground-level O3, nitrogen dioxide (NO2), PM and sulfur dioxide (SO2). They compared studies across Europe and North America, in view of differing regulatory approaches to pollution. Additionally, the study evaluated potential mechanisms and modifying factors for the relationship between lockdown measures and air pollution. The study aimed to investigate: what are the effects of lockdowns/restrictive measures on air pollution levels during the pandemic in Europe and North America; why did some nations and cities experience greater reductions in air pollution levels; and what gaps remain and merit further investigation.
249.
Nicola Fuchs-Schündeln,
Covid-Induced School Closures in the US and Germany: Long-Term Distributional Effects, 2022.09.09,
https://academic.oup.com/economicpolicy/advance-article/doi/10.1093/epolic/eiac052/6694841?searchresult=1 .
The author documents that schooling time dropped on average by -55% in the US and -45% in Germany from the onset of the crisis to the summer of 2021. In the US, schools were closed longer in richer than in poorer areas, while in Germany the regional variation is much smaller. However, Germany exhibited substantial variation by grade level, with a strong U-shaped patterns that implies that children attending middle school faced the longest closures. A structural model of human capital accumulation predicts that the US school closures on average lead to a reduction of life-time earnings of–1.8% for the affected children. While the overall losses are likely somewhat smaller in Germany, the socio-economic gradient in the losses could be larger than in the US, leading to increased inequality and decreased intergenerational mobility.
248.
Giacomo De Giorgi, Pascal Geldsetzer, etc.,
The impact of face-mask mandates on all-cause mortality in Switzerland: a quasi-experimental study, 2022.09.10,
https://academic.oup.com/eurpub/advance-article/doi/10.1093/eurpub/ckac123/6695430?searchresult=1 .
Focusing on a quasi-experimental setting in Switzerland, the research aimed to determine (i) the effect of face-mask mandates for indoor public spaces on all-cause mortality; and (ii) how the effect has varied over time, and by age and sex. The research concluded that mandating face-mask use in public indoor spaces in Switzerland in mid-to-late 2020 does not appear to have resulted in large reductions in all-cause mortality in the short term. There is some suggestion that combining face-mask mandates with social distancing rules reduced all-cause mortality.
247.
Vernon Valentine Palmer,
Excused Performances: Force Majeure, Impracticability, and Frustration of Contracts, 2022.09.12,
https://academic.oup.com/ajcl/advance-article/doi/10.1093/ajcl/avac017/6696364?searchresult=1 .
The global pandemic spreads to the far corners of the world, causing untold deaths, sickness, crowded hospitals, supply shortages, business closures, disrupted supply lines, and other distressing conditions. The report made incidental attempts to illustrate how the pandemic fits within the existing law on excused performances. In a sense it is not anticipated that Covid-19 will produce fundamental doctrinal changes in the common law of the United States. Rather, it will produce changes and important insertions in the so-called force majeure clauses of future contracts.
246.
Joshua Teperowski Monrad, Sebastian Quaade, Timothy Powell-Jackson,,
Supply, then demand? Health expenditure, political leanings, cost obstacles to care, and vaccine hesitancy predict state-level COVID-19 vaccination rates, 2022.09.08,
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9452439/ .
The objective of the research is to examine predictors of state-level COVID-19 vaccination rates during the first nine months of 2021, employing a robust, iteratively re-weighted least squares multivariable regression with state characteristics as the independent variables and vaccinations per capita as the outcome. The research identifies associations between vaccination rates and several state characteristics, including health expenditure, vaccine hesitancy, cost obstacles to care, Democratic voting, and elderly population share. The research shows that the determinants of vaccination rates have evolved: while supply-side factors were most clearly associated with early vaccination uptake, demand-side factors have become increasingly salient over time. The results are generally robust to a range of alternative specifications. Both supply and demand-side factors relate to vaccination cov-erage and the determinants of success have changed over time.
245.
Pei-Ling Lee, Chun-Teck Lye, Chin Lee,
Is bank risk appetite relevant to bank default in times of Covid-19? 2022.09.06,
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9446075/ .
The paper aims to analyze the effect of bank risk appetite on banks' default probabilities during the year of COVID-19 in 12 countries while controlling for bank-specific and country-specific effects over time. A System Generalized Methods of Moments (GMM) model of default probabilities is estimated over the periods 2010–2021. This study confirms the ‘risk-mitigation view’, in which banks with higher ESG scores are more prudent in lending and have better relationship management, reducing the probability of bank default. Underperforming banks tend to have a higher portion of risky loans in their credit portfolio and therefore demonstrating a higher default propensity. Bank risk appetite, ESG, asset quality, economic growth, and currency depreciation appear to be material drivers for bank risk. It is found that a lower risk appetite ratio is associated with higher estimated default probability during the COVID-19 outbreak, identified through interaction with a single time dummy for 2020 (the break-out year of the pandemic).
244.
Bela Patel, Robert E Murphy, etc.,
Surge in Incidence and COVID-19 Hospital Risk of Death, United States, September 2020 to March 2021, 2022.08.26,
https://doi.org/10.1093/ofid/ofac424 .
The study aimed to determine if in-hospital mortality was impacted by the community surge of COVID-19 during September 2020-March 2021. The study found that the unadjusted proportion of deaths among discharged patients was 9% in both the pre-surge and rising surge stages but rose to 12% during both the peak and declining surge intervals. The surge rise in-hospital mortality was present in seven of nine geographic divisions and greater for community hospitals than for academic centers.
Beijing Interest Group on Global Health and Global Governance
Contact: secretary@bigghgg.cn