The COVID-19 pandemic represents not just a global health crisis, but may signal the beginning of a new era of economic activity, the potential consequences of which we currently do not fully understand. In this context, the mid-to-long-range impacts of the pandemic on the energy sector have been studied extensively in the last few months. Despite these efforts, the pandemic still raises many open questions concerning the long-term operation and planning of power systems. For instance, how will the pandemic affect the integration of renewable energy sources? Should current power system expansion plans change in light of the COVID-19 pandemic? What new tools should be provided to support system operators during global health crises? It is the purpose of this paper to better understand the many aspects of these open questions by reviewing the relevant recent literature and by analyzing measured data. We point out the main challenges that the pandemic introduced by presenting patterns of electricity generation and demand, frequency deviations, and load forecasting. Moreover, we suggest directions for future research that may assist in coping with the mentioned challenges. We hope that this paper will trigger fruitful discussions and encourage further research on these important emerging topics.

In this paper we explore how the COVID-19 pandemic, also known as Coronavirus pandemic, affected the operation of small electric grids, and what can this event teach us on the readiness of such grids in the face of future global health crises. We focus on three major effects: changing patterns of generation and consumption, frequency stability, and the joint impact of low consumption and high share of renewable energy sources. Specifically, we analyze changes in consumption in the Israeli, Estonian, and Finnish grids, and attempt to identify patterns of consumption changes that may be explained by the pandemic. We also analyze changes in voltage and frequency, and show that the low consumption caused significant deviations from the nominal values of both parameters. One main conclusion is that the reduced energy consumption during the pandemic is critical, and has a major effect on the operation of small electric grids. Another conclusion is that since the pandemic pushed the relative share of renewable energy to record highs, this event may help us to better understand the influence of a high share of renewables on small grids, thus offering a glance into a renewable-rich future.

The gold standard diagnostic method for gastrointestinal infections is stool culture, which has limited sensitivity and long turnaround time. Infection diagnosis recently shifted to syndrome-based panel assays. This study employed the FilmArray® Gastrointestinal Panel, which detects 22 pathogens simultaneously, to investigate gastrointestinal infection and pathogen distribution in 91 stool samples of patients hospitalized at the Tzafon Medical Center, Israel, during 2020, and to compare the clinical and demographic data of negative vs. positive samples. Among the 61 positive samples (67%), the most common pathogen was Campylobacter (34.4%). Positive test results were associated with a slightly younger patient age (p = 0.012), significantly higher post-diagnosis use of antibiotics (63.9% vs. 36.7%; p = 0.014), and shorter length of stay and time to discharge (p = 0.035, p = 0.003, respectively) than negative test results. To conclude, the FilmArray® Gastrointestinal Panel enabled the early identification of causative infectious agents and enhanced clinical management and outcomes.