The former prime minister and his allies have dodged questions and passed the buck in an inquiry that is meant to give the public confidence that lessons will be learned for the future.
Giving evidence to the COVID inquiry, Boris Johnson’s former adviser exposed the dysfunction of an administration lacking in the expertise needed to manage a crisis.
It is clear that some public trust in public health, science and government has been lost in Canada and around the world.
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Now is the time to learn from the COVID-19 response through an action-oriented independent inquiry focused on accountability. Reforms to data generation, access and use are essential.
Both New Zealand and Iceland kept death rates from COVID low, but used different strategies. While New Zealand relied on lockdowns and border closures, Iceland ramped up its testing capacity.
People reported memory loss during the pandemic.
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A side-effect of pandemic response measures has been the impact on our mental health. But memory problems are a natural response to the environments created by the lockdowns.
We found most governments were ill-prepared, too slow to act, paid too little attention to the most vulnerable, and were hampered by low public trust and an epidemic of misinformation.
In the first two years of the pandemic, Australia’s COVID elimination strategy was among the most effective in the world. Now we rank second in the world for the most cases per capita.
Kids say they have felt ignored amid policy responses to the COVID-19 pandemic that seemed more focused on the fates of restaurants, bars and entertainment venues than keeping schools open and safe.
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Making room for the input of children and adolescents in responses to the next pandemic would help maintain their health, education, well-being and more.
Physical activity can be an important tool for recovery from the collective trauma experienced and exacerbated throughout the pandemic.
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During spring and summer, as more people consider exercising outdoors, a trauma- and violence-informed approach to physical activity can help ensure equity, inclusion, safety and access.
The Philippines has reported 34,000 deaths in the pandemic. It’s now in its fourth wave and with vaccination levels at just 14%, case numbers continue to soar.
New Zealand continues to pursue an elimination strategy to stamp out community infections with the Delta variant. But it will need incentives and some degree of compulsion to raise vaccination rates.
The WHO is creating a Global Pandemic Radar – an example of collective intelligence that must learn lessons from this pandemic.
The COVID-19 pandemic seems to have widened the partisan divide between Democrats and Republicans on health care.
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States led by Republican governors generally had higher COVID-19 case and death rates in 2020.
Stacked disasters – like a winter storm that damages a water system during a pandemic – can provide lessons for the next time around.
AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis
Shoring up surveillance and response systems and learning lessons from how the COVID-19 pandemic unfolded will help the world be ready the next time around.
A teacher holds a child as young women learn business skills at Centre D'Apprentissage Feminin (C.A.FE.) in Bamako, Mali, Africa in June 2018. The school is funded by the Canadian NGO Education internationale, a co-operative offering exchange and development services in education.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/ Sean Kilpatrick
COVID-19 has presented an opportunity to increase gender equality both in Canada and worldwide. Rebuilding with women at the forefront will help communities succeed post-pandemic.
Nine months into the pandemic, Indonesia has seen serious threats to civil liberties, involving not only privacy but also freedom of expression and of the press in the digital realm.
The state government has enlisted a US software company to deploy a data management system that will speed up contact tracing. But security could be a hitch.
SHARP Professor, Vitalities Lab, Centre for Social Research in Health and Social Policy Centre, and the ARC Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision-Making and Society, UNSW Sydney