The psychosocial impact of the pandemic and responses to it have been immense, but the Canadian government’s approach to COVID-19 remains divisive.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Justin Tang
Canada’s ‘us against them’ COVID-19 strategy is amplifying social division, creating major psychosocial impacts, and has resulted in a significant decrease in trust toward authorities.
Policy-makers lack an understanding of how to assess research and the quality of that research. We need to do better during the COVID-19 pandemic and during future health crises.
(Louis Reed/Unsplash)
In most countries, ignorance about how to use evidence properly to inform decision-making has led to missteps during the COVID-19 pandemic. Here’s how to do better.
A ‘Freedom Convoy’ has been protesting vaccine mandates at Parliament Hill, but most Canadians don’t share their views on COVID-19 restrictions.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Justin Tang
Most Canadians support government measures to help control the spread of COVID-19, according to a public opinion study. But they’re growing weary of the pandemic.
Oli Mould, Royal Holloway University of London; Adam Badger, Royal Holloway University of London; Jennifer Cole, Royal Holloway University of London, and Philip Brown, University of Huddersfield
The emergence of community fridges during the pandemic helps communities help each other while fighting food waste.
A crisis like the COVID-19 pandemic lends urgency to scientific research, putting researchers under pressure to produce.
janiecbros/E+ via Getty Images
Scientists can be asked to help find solutions during disasters. A study of how archaeologists worked on the problem of looting during the Syrian war offers lessons for science done during crisis.
As governments depend on multinational consulting firms not just for advice on COVID-19 but for core policy-making functions, we should question the extent to which such partnerships have really augmented government capacities — or hollowed them out.
(Shutterstock)
Since the beginning of the pandemic, governments in Canada have spent hundreds of millions of dollars on outside consulting firms like McKinsey, Deloitte and EY with almost no public oversight.
A garment worker walks through a clothing factory in Montréal during the COVID-19 pandemic. Canada, the U.S. and the U.K. did not collect adequate information about workplace transmission.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Graham Hughes
Routine collection of work information from people testing positive for COVID-19 from the start of the pandemic would have enabled better understanding of the role of workplaces in transmission.
Liz Minchin, The Conversation and Molly Glassey, The Conversation
Watch two of Australia and New Zealand’s top vaccine and virus experts answering questions about COVID-19. This was filmed at a Conversation reader event with Avid Reader bookshop.
Australia has housed rough sleepers during the pandemic, unlike the US, but it’s a temporary fix.
Cristobal Herrera-Ulashkevich/EPA/AAP
Australia found shelter for more than 33,000 rough sleepers and other homeless people during the pandemic, but a coming surge in homelessness demands a comprehensive national housing strategy.
Champions Liverpool were given a run for their money by newly promoted Leeds at the start of the season.
EPA-EFE/Shaun Botterill / POOL
Eating at a restaurant and want to stay COVID safe? Check to see if staff are sanitising surfaces, wearing masks, using contactless payment, and spacing out customers.
The red umbrella is a symbol used by sex worker activists to draw attention to the work conditions and human rights of people in the sexual service industry.
(Shutterstock)
Australia’s COVID-19 response was bettered only by South Korea and Latvia, according to a new United Nations report. Just don’t ask how we’re doing on climate and sustainability.
Amazon’s planned upcoming ‘Just Walk Out’ technology will let customers take items off a store’s shelf, bag them, and walk straight out.
Wheelchairs sit behind Camilla Care in Mississauga, Ont., on May 12, 2020. Fifty residents from the long-term care home have died from COVID-19.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Frank Gunn
The extraordinary scope and scale of the COVID-19 disaster at Canada’s long-term care centres would seem to warrant a public inquiry. But there are no guarantees there will actually be one.