Background The emergence of COVID-19 pandemic has not only shaken the global health sector, but also almost every other sector including the economic and education sectors. Newspapers are performing a significant role by featuring the news of COVID-19 from its very onset. The temporal fluctuation of COVID-19 related key themes presented in newspaper articles and the findings obtained from them could offer an effective lesson in dealing with future epidemics and pandemics. Aim and Method This paper intends to develop a pandemic management framework through an automated content analysis of local newspaper coverage of COVID-19 pandemic in Bangladesh. To fulfill the aim, 7,209 newspaper articles are assembled and analyzed from three popular local newspapers named “ bdnews24.com”, “New Age” , and “ Prothom Alo English” over the period from January 1, 2020 to October 31, 2020. Results Twelve key topics are identified: origin and outbreak of COVID-19, response of healthcare system, impact on economy, impact on lifestyle, government assistance to the crisis, regular updates, expert opinions, pharmaceutical measures, non-pharmaceutical measures, updates on vaccines, testing facilities, and local unusual activities within the system. Based on the identified topics, their timeline of discussion, and information flow in each topic, a four-stage pandemic management framework is developed for epidemic and pandemic management in future. The stages are preparedness, response, recovery, and mitigation. Conclusion This research would provide insights into stage-wise response to any biological hazard and contribute ideas to endure future outbreaks.

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Background To prevent the viral transmission from higher infected to lower infected area, controlling the vehicular traffic, consequently public movement on roads is crucial. Containment strategies and local cognition regarding pandemic might be helpful to control vehicular movement. This study aimed to ascertain the effectiveness of containment strategies and local cognition for controlling traffic volume during COVID-19 pandemic in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Method Six containment strategies were considered to explore their influence on traffic condition, including declaration of general holiday, closure of educational institution, deployment of force, restriction on religious gathering, closure of commercial activities, and closure of garments factories. Newspaper coverage and public concern about COVID-19 were considered as local cognition in this research. The month of Ramadan as a potential event was also taken into account considering it might have an impact on the overall situation. Average daily journey speed (ADJS) was calculated from real-time traffic data of Google Map to understand the vehicular traffic scenario of Dhaka. A multiple linear regression method was developed to comprehend the findings. Results The results showed that among the containment strategies, declaration of general holiday and closure of educational institutions could increase the ADJS significantly, thereby referring to less traffic movement. Besides, local cognition could not significantly affect the traffic condition, although the month of Ramadan could increase the ADJS significantly. Conclusion It is expected that these findings would provide new insights into decision-making and help to take appropriate strategies to tackle the future pandemic situation.

Mucor circinelloides were isolated from post harvest infected papaya, which was collected from Savar region. M. circinelloides was identified by morphology and biology of fungus based on colony features, fungal mycelium, sporangia and sporagiospores as well as molecular approach. Mycelial colonies are floccose, pale greyish-brown. Sporangiophores were transparent, long, erect and shorter branches, 4.5-7 x 3.5-5 μm in size. Sporangia are hyaline, spherical, ranged from 20-80 μm in diameter. Columellae were hyaline, spherical to ellipsoidal up to 50 μm in diameter. The highest mycelial growth was recorded in potato dextrose agar (PDA) medium for the growth and development of M. circinelloides. Temperature 30°C was optimum. This fungus grew well in pH 7. So, tested fungi grew well in neutral condition. Complete dark condition was favourable for the vegetative growth of the fungus. The molecular phylogeny in morphologically identified post-harvest pathogenic fungi of papaya such as M. circinelloides were studied based on their ITS. The sequences of ITS region of M. circinelloides revealed that the total length was 620 bp and sequence analysis suggested that 5.8S of rDNA sequences were identical. Jahangirnagar University J. Biol. Sci. 10(1 & 2): 31-38, 2021 (June & December)

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