As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to evolve and spread across the world, so will its disproportionate impact on refugees. With the majority of refugees coming from Syria, Venezuela, Afghanistan, Somalia, South Sudan, and Myanmar, they are among the world’s most vulnerable populations and are facing unimaginable hardships and barriers to keep safe from the coronavirus.
Full Professor, Political Studies
Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Ottawa
East Asia presents a remarkable picture in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic. Taken as a whole, this region is the least affected in the world in terms of mortality rates attributed to the infection. One could add to China, Japan, the two Koreas, Vietnam, and Taiwan, the cases in Australia and New Zealand, as well as countries that have been spared so far on other continents. It is important to draw attention to the East Asian countries, with their varying economic conditions, to see what lessons can be learned.
There had to be a silver lining to the nearly universal lockdown of the COVID-19 pandemic. One of the small benefits has been a temporarily lighter human footprint in many ecosystems.
For six months, the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic has superseded all other public policy priorities. Governments placed their economies in a state of suspended animation, buttressed their health care systems, and pushed trillions out the door to help citizens weather the storm. But other policy problems are not going away. Indeed, COVID-19 has exposed and deepened many cracks in the system. As countries reopen, governments and multilateral institutions are grappling with what comes next, and how to reverse what the IMF estimates will be a five per cent contraction of the global economy in 2020.
As parents worry about the school lessons kids have missed because of the pandemic, there’s one dinner conversation about COVID-19 that can make-up for any lost science lessons. Talk about all the uncertainty and doubt, from changing rules about wearing masks to efforts to create a vaccine. Explain that what we’re living through is science in action.
President and CEO, Rideau Hall Foundation
Advisory Council Member, ISSP, uOttawa
By its very nature, innovation can be noisy. It demands change, flexibility and innovators to loudly champion how they’ve shaped the future for the better. That noisiness is not always in line with perceptions of “Canadian politeness”. Post-COVID-19 Canada will require more noise about innovation; not only to get us through the immediacy of the global pandemic, but to inspire innovative solutions to address longer-term critical global challenges.
Full Professor, Political Studies
Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Ottawa
As soon as governments became aware of the severity of COVID-19, most have promoted social distancing measures. This included cancelling or limiting attendance at sporting events, concerts, and other collective meetings where large groups converge. The rationale for these decisions has been to prevent what epidemiologists call ‘superspreading events (SSEs)’, or large infection clusters.
Science fiction is one of the means of representation of science in modern societies, in a way that is distinct from the representational modes of teaching, popularization, institutionalization, and politics.
Senior Fellow, ISSP, uOttawa
Senior Fellow, University of Alberta’s China Institute
Distinguished Fellow with the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada
The coronavirus is bringing to international attention the Chinese government’s disregard for transparency and the individual human rights of its citizens.
The opinions expressed in these articles are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the ISSP or its staff.
