‘Far right nationalists, anti-vaxxers, libertarians and conspiracy theorists have come together over COVID, and capitalised on the anger and uncertainty simmering in some sections of the community. They appear to have found fertile ground particularly among men who feel alienated, fearful about their employment and who spend a lot of time at home scrolling social media and encrypted messaging apps.’
Read here (The Conversation, Sept 21, 2021)
‘Throughout the pandemic, we’ve been awash in feel-good stories about celebrating essential workers, uplifting local businesses, appreciating what we have — all shining a light on our better angels. A year ago, Kelly Ripa told The Washington Post, “I think we’re all going to be better off for this” because “we’re all being satisfied with less.”
‘But, if experts in history and science are any guide, this altruism is probably not going to last. We are more likely to put this behind us as soon as possible, dive back into life with abandon and push boundaries. If anything, we will probably be less concerned with what other people think. Carpe diem, baby.’
Read here (Washington Post, May 1, 2021)
‘I don’t know about you, but I’ve found the latest stage of the pandemic hard in its own distinct way. The cumulative effect of a year of repetition, isolation and stress has induced a lassitude — a settling into the familiar, with feelings of vulnerability. The shock of a year ago has been replaced by a sluggish just-getting-to-the-end.
‘I’ve got the same scattered memory issues many others in this Groundhog Day life describe: walking into a room and wondering why I went there; spending impressive amounts of time looking for my earbuds; forgetting the names of people and places outside my Covid bubble.
‘My extroversion muscles have atrophied while my introversion muscles are bulging. If you tracked me on a personality chart, I suppose “liveliness” would be down and “reserved” would be up; “carefree” down and “anxious” up.’
Read here (New York Times, Apr 1, 2021)
‘I’m trying to describe a year in which we’ve all been physically hunkered down but socially and morally less connected. This has induced, at least in me, a greater fragility but also a great sense of flexibility, and a greater potential for change.
‘I’ve found I’ve burned out on my screens, burned out about the politicization of everything, and have rediscovered my love for the New York Mets. People who have endured an era of vulnerability emerge with great strength. I’m also convinced that the second half of this year is going to be more fantastic than we can imagine right now. We are going to become hyper-appreciators, savoring every small pleasure, living in a thousand delicious moments, getting together with friends and strangers and seeing them with the joy of new and grateful eyes.’
Read here (New York Times, Apr 1, 2021)
‘We are at an inflection point that will change the reality of this disease. The most insidious future is one in which we fail to change our moral benchmarks, and end up measuring the danger of COVID-21 by the standards of 2020. If wealthy countries with early access to vaccines abandon continued, global coronavirus-vaccination efforts as their cases fall or when the disease becomes milder for them, a still-severe disease could haunt the world indefinitely—and lead to rebounds everywhere.
‘Avoiding this myopia is the central challenge of COVID-21. It extends to the systemic problems highlighted by this pandemic. Much of the damage the virus has wrought has come indirectly, by exacerbating food and housing insecurity, for example, or restricting access to medical care. The Biden administration has elevated science and begun to focus on comprehensive approaches to prevention. No longer is federal leadership hawking hydroxychloroquine, suggesting injections with “disinfectant,” or stoking xenophobic sentiment. But this sudden sense of order is a beginning, not an end.’
Read here (The Atlantic, Mar 27, 2021)
‘The polio pandemic of the 1950s is another often-ignored “teachable” moment. On the surface, it would seem that it was a scientific, medical and policy success story. But the reality is closer to what we are seeing with COVID.
‘In 1954, when polio was at its most virulent, the Eisenhower administration declared that every child should receive the polio vaccine being developed at that time. But there was no cohesive plan at the federal level to make that happen, so the mandate was not a success. In addition, lack of oversight regarding the quality of the vaccine manufacturing process led to some children becoming sick or dying. Limited resources to administer the vaccine on a national scale were another problem, and it was not until Eisenhower’s signing of the Polio Vaccination Assistance Act in 1955 that there were enough federal funds available for a national public inoculation program. Such massive confusion resulted in public distrust that took years to abate.
‘When the sociologist Alondra Nelson was named as the new deputy director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy [in 2021], she noted that the pandemic had “held up a mirror to our society, reflecting … the inequality we’ve allowed to calcify.” She also noted that “science is a social phenomenon.” This implies not just that science requires real insight into the society with which it interacts, but also that it is forged in relationship to social forces and meanings. Social science can assist us in understanding social reactions to scientific knowledge, as well as in ensuring that science becomes aware of its own social biases and interests.’
Read here (Scientific American, Mar 20, 2021)
‘This is the fog of late pandemic, and it is brutal. In the spring, we joked about the Before Times, but they were still within reach, easily accessible in our shorter-term memories. In the summer and fall, with restrictions loosening and temperatures rising, we were able to replicate some of what life used to be like, at least in an adulterated form: outdoor drinks, a day at the beach. But now, in the cold, dark, featureless middle of our pandemic winter, we can neither remember what life was like before nor imagine what it’ll be like after.
‘To some degree, this is a natural adaptation. The sunniest optimist would point out that all this forgetting is evidence of the resilience of our species. Humans forget a great deal of what happens to us, and we tend to do it pretty quickly—after the first 24 hours or so. “Our brains are very good at learning different things and forgetting the things that are not a priority,” Tina Franklin, a neuroscientist at Georgia Tech, told me. As the pandemic has taught us new habits and made old ones obsolete, our brains have essentially put actions like taking the bus and going to restaurants in deep storage, and placed social distancing and coughing into our elbows near the front of the closet. When our habits change back, presumably so will our recall.’
Read here (The Atlantic, Mar 8, 2021)
‘What should spring up eternally is compassion, tolerance, humility and other qualities that would unite us in this beloved land no matter what our ethnic or religious affiliations...
‘Any change in societal or personal lives is influenced by gender, social class, race, culture, age and other variables. I can only speak as a 73-year-old woman, former academic, Christian and Malaysian-Chinese, and post-polio person. Each facet of our multi-layered identity will be affected in different degrees by this season of Covid-19.’
Read here (Aliran, Mar 4, 2021)
‘In spite of the increasingly polarized debate about school reopenings, community infection rates and prioritization of vaccination, it seems clear that both science and society are failing children. Children have proven uniquely resilient to COVID-19, but many are already suffering lasting educational, mental and physical harms. The greatest harm is falling on the most vulnerable children, and yet we know so little of the true extent and duration of these harms, because relatively little research has focused on them, compared to the research on COVID-19-related spread and mitigation.
‘School closures are a prominent example where following the science is not in itself an answer. These are hard decisions based on ethical and moral considerations for elected officials to make, in ways that acknowledge the evidence on the harms, the requirement for safeguarding and the emerging evidence on COVID-19. Understanding the evidence on the potential trade-offs for children is a critical component of such policies and decisions. It is time science and society elevated this central responsibility.’
Read here (Scientific American, Mar 3, 2021)
Read here (Axios, Feb 20, 2021)
‘Reported daily coronavirus infections have been falling across the world for a month and on Tuesday (Feb 16) hit their lowest since mid-October, Reuters figures show, but health experts warned against apathy even as vaccines are being rolled out worldwide. Falls in infections and deaths coincide with lockdowns and severe curbs on gatherings and movement as governments weigh the need to stop successive waves of the pandemic with the need to get people back to work and children back to school.
‘But optimism over a way out of the crisis has been tempered by new variants of the virus, raising fears about the efficacy of vaccines. "Now is not the time to let your guard down," Maria Van Kerkhove, the World Health Organization's technical lead on COVID-19, told a briefing in Geneva.’
Read here (Channel News Asia, Feb 19, 2021)
‘Take a pen. Place it on the paper. Draw wherever you want. However you want. You know, Paul Klee said: “Drawing is like taking a line for a walk.”’ In the hospital workshop, I turn towards a patient, smile and continue: ‘So, let’s draw together. We could draw houses, and draw a path between our homes. Let’s grab paints. Turn the paper around. Upside down. If you don’t mind, I can paint your sky and you can paint mine… We can play and make…’
‘For more than 20 years, I’ve been saying these sentences, playing and making, as a clinical arts therapist, specialising in mental health, and as a lecturer and consultant using creative techniques with doctors, hospital directors, nursing managers and entrepreneurs. Guided by artists such as Louise Bourgeois and Jackson Pollock, and by Plato, I spend my days tapping into what the phenomenologist and philosopher of play Eugen Fink calls the ‘peach skin of things’. It glows.’
Two paragraphs that may interest you to read the whole story
Read here (Aeon, Feb 4, 2021)
‘Scientists have developed COVID-19 vaccines so rapidly it has exacerbated existing mistrust proliferated by social media. New research by Edelman Data & Intelligence (DxI) aims to examine and understand the psychological motivations driving attitudes at both ends of the spectrum – from vaccine resistors to vaccine adopters. By understanding the concerns and sensitivities of each group, the scientific community can tailor messaging to improve vaccine uptake.’
Read here (World Economic Forum, Feb 4, 2021)
‘It was in December that Axel Gerschlauer noticed the crisis within the crisis. In the last three weeks before Christmas, the pediatrician found himself treating three minors who had slashed their lower arms. Three youths in three weeks — Gerschlauer says he usually sees this sort of thing about once every three to six months. "This kind of frequency,” he says, "brought the scale of the problem home to me."
‘And this at a time when Gerschlauer is not even getting to see all his regular patients. Some are avoiding his practice altogether for fear of infection. His phone, meanwhile, has hardly stopped ringing, as desperate parents seek his advice. "There has been a shift of emphasis towards psychological issues, ranging from anxieties to concentration disorders to sleep disorders. In recent months, mental health issues have increased massively."
Read here (DW, Feb 4, 2021)
‘Growing evidence shows the pandemic has made intimate partner violence more common—and often more severe. “COVID doesn’t make an abuser,” says Jacky Mulveen, project manager of Women’s Empowerment and Recovery Educators (WE:ARE), an advocacy and support group in Birmingham, England. “But COVID exacerbates it. It gives them more tools, more chances to control you. The abuser says, ‘You can’t go out; you’re not going anywhere,’ and the government also is saying, ‘You have to stay in.'”
‘Surveys around the world have shown domestic abuse spiking since January of 2020—jumping markedly year over year compared to the same period in 2019. According to the American Journal of Emergency Medicine and the United Nations group U.N. Women, when the pandemic began, incidents of domestic violence increased 300% in Hubei, China; 25% in Argentina, 30% in Cyprus, 33% in Singapore and 50% in Brazil.’
Read here (Time, Feb 3, 2021)
‘Close relationships were long thought to be the essential component of humans’ social well-being, but Granovetter’s research led him to a conclusion that was at the time groundbreaking and is still, to many people, counterintuitive: Casual friends and acquaintances can be as important to well-being as family, romantic partners, and your closest friends...[this is the group of friends the pandemic has erased].
[At this point]...there’s cause for optimism. As more Americans are vaccinated in the coming months, more people will be able to return confidently to more types of interactions. If the best historical analogue for the coronavirus outbreak is the 1918 flu pandemic, the Roaring ’20s suggest we’ll indulge in some wild parties. In any case, Rawlins doubts that many of the moderate and weak ties people lost touch with in the past year will be hurt that they didn’t get many check-in texts. Mostly, he predicts, people will just be so happy to see one another again.
‘All of the researchers I spoke with were hopeful that this extended pause would give people a deeper understanding of just how vital friendships of all types are to our well-being, and how all the people around us contribute to our lives—even if they occupy positions that the country’s culture doesn’t respect very much, such as service workers or store clerks. “My hope is that people will realize that there’s more people in their social networks that matter and provide some kind of value than just those few people that you spend time with, and have probably managed to keep up with during the break,” Sandstrom said. America, even before the pandemic, was a lonely country. It doesn’t have to be. The end of our isolation could be the beginning of some beautiful friendships.’
Read here (The Atlantic, Jan 28, 2021)
‘To the surprise of many, adherence to stringent behavioural regulations has remained extremely high (over 90%), even though many people are suffering considerably, both financially and psychologically. Equally, despite anecdotal observations about growing violations and polling which shows that people report low levels of adherence in other people, both self-reported data and systematic observations of behaviour in public places suggest that adherence stayed high during the second lockdown. Some 90% of people or more adhere to hygiene measures, to spatial distancing, and to mask wearing most of the time. Moreover, people generally support regulations and, if anything, believe that they should be more stringent and introduced earlier. This pattern has been repeated in the past few days, with 85% of the public endorsing the January lockdown and 77% thinking it should have happened sooner...
‘The problem, then, is that in psychologising and individualising the matter of adherence, one disregards the structural factors that underlie the spread of infection and the differential rates in different groups. One also avoids acknowledging the failures of government to provide the support necessary to follow the rules (most obviously in the case of self-isolation). Additionally, one overlooks the fact that some of the rules and the messaging around them may be the problem (such as encouragement to go out to the pub—doing one’s “patriotic best” according to the prime minister—and to return to work after the first lockdown). It is particularly misleading and unfair to ask people to do things and then blame them for doing so.’
Read here (BMJ, Jan 18, 2021)
‘Ed Yong spent 2020 covering the pandemic for The Atlantic. His latest feature is "How Science Beat the Virus." He says: “I am trying to give readers a platform that they can stand on to observe this raging torrent that is the pandemic, this cascade of information that is threatening to sweep us all away. I’m trying to give people a rock on which they can stand so that they can observe what is happening without themselves being submerged by it. But I am trying to construct that platform while also being submerged in it.”
Listen to the podcast here (Longform, Dec 23, 2020)
‘Some simple advice for anyone contemplating a holiday gathering: Wait until March...The fight against the coronavirus has been called a “national marshmallow test” [for the United States] that we’re failing. In a famous study, children were left alone with a marshmallow for 15 minutes, and promised a second if they didn’t eat the first. Kids who were better at delaying gratification were found to be more successful later in life. At first, this correlation was explained as demonstrating the importance of willpower and executive function.
‘Later, a team of researchers set out to replicate this study and uncovered something profound. Once they adjusted for factors such as household income, mother’s education, and home environment at age 3, the effect disappeared...
‘If we failed our national marshmallow test this summer and fall, perhaps that says something about how little reason the public was given for optimism. Hope can’t just be a slogan or a pep talk; it must be justified by facts, experiences, and trustworthy promises. And in fairness, until last month, it was less clear when and how this would all end... But hope is justified today.’
Read here (The Atlantic, Dec 17, 2020)
‘McKinsey designers highlight the photos and illustrations that helped us tell the visual story of a remarkable year...
‘The way we see the world may well have changed in the course of 2020—as the global pandemic has upended our personal and professional lives. As the year draws to a close, we turned to McKinsey’s designers to get perspective on the images that helped bring our insights to life.
‘While we sometimes commission bespoke art for our articles and reports, for the most part we curate our visuals from outside image libraries. Even in prepandemic times, this presented special challenges when it came to selection (does the visual messaging fit the topic and tone of the piece?) and adaptation (is the image treatment consistent with our style and brand?). But in a year where much of the world spent many months maintaining some level of physical distancing, large swaths of the images in the libraries we access—those that showed people in the close proximity we were all used to before the pandemic—became unusable.
‘See our designers’ favorites from this year and why they resonated, then read the stories behind them to understand some of the year’s most important issues.’
Read here (McKinsey & Co, Dec 17, 2020)