When the World Health Organization declared the pandemic, they signalled to governments around the world that they must take action to protect their populations from a pandemic disease. Did they also alert a global network of public/private partnerships that their opportunity had arrived? What are the costs of the pandemic response and did some see it as the justification they sought to pursue their ambitions?
ARTICLES
Prof David Paton: New evidence on the impact of the English care home vaccine mandate
This new research and paper, which Prof David Paton has undertaken with a colleague, examines the impact of the English care home vaccine mandate on vaccine uptake, care home staffing and Covid deaths.
Prof Paul Frijters: Wellbeing cost-effectiveness analysis, applied to Covid policies
The talk will explain the logic and key uses of the CE methodology, applying it to lockdowns in response to Covid, whose negative effects, via the disruption to social life and mental health, outweigh the potential (but unlikely) benefits by huge multiples. The intention of the presentation is to alert scholars in the new enlightenment to the potential of this new tool-kit.
Dr David Bell & Prof Toby Green: The Covid Response and the Global Poor
In this discussion, David Bell (PANDA) and Toby Green (Collateral Global) will discuss the devastating impacts of the Covid response in poor countries around the world: what has happened, why it has happened, and what can be done to make sure it does not happen again? They will bring their combined expertise in public health and world history and colonial history to the question of continuities of power and inequality, and how this reversion to the medical colonialism of the first half of the 20th century has taken place.
Marc Morano: The COVID/Climate Connection
Author Marc Morano will discuss how climate change and viral concerns are being combined by the ruling class globally. From the World Economic Forum to Bill Gates to the UN, the WHO, and your local government, your freedom to travel, earn a living, decide what you eat, are now being taken over by “emergencies” that lead to “endless crises” pushing unelected bureaucrats to force you to do things you don’t want. Marc will discuss climate change, energy, COVID, and how your freedoms are being stripped away by governments around the world.
Dr David Thunder: What is the Proper Role of Expert Knowledge in the Management of a Public Crisis?
In this presentation, David offers a preliminary explanation and assessment of the role of expert knowledge in national and international responses to Covid-19, and draws some general conclusions relevant to future crises, whether concerning public health, pandemics, climate change, or food and energy shortages.
Dr Piers Robinson: Cockup or Conspiracy? Understanding COVID-19 as a ‘Structural Deep Event’
As debate over ‘The Science’ has increased, people are questioning whether there was more to COVID-19 in terms of underlying agendas, in particular with respect to global-level actors. Was it incompetence or coordination?