Video from IFK webinar: COVID-19 and the Emerging World Order with David Masondo, Grant Harris, Dong Wang and Oluwaseun Tella @GranDGranT
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Latest WHO situation report: 80m children under 1 at risk of diphtheria, measles and polio due COVID-19 disrupts vaccination. Same situation report: 7 of 27 African countries still have 0 COVID-19 deaths. Stupid, stupid world
Just out, Better the drug you know: commentary on Daughton 2020, Natural Experiment Concept to Accelerate the Re-purposing of Existing Therapeutics for Covid-19 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2590113320300110
Broadbent A. 2020. Better the drug you know: commentary on Daughton 2020, Natural Experiment Concept to Accelerate the Re-purposing of Existing Therapeutics for Covid-19. Global Epidemiology 2(10027):1-2. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloepi.2020.100027
This is a (positive) commentary on what I thought was a really useful idea for accelerating research into anti-COVID drugs, which I shared previously and which you can (and should) read here:
Daughton CG. 2020. Natural experiment concept to accelerate the re-purposing of existingtherapeutics for Covid-19. Global Epidemiology 2(100026):1–6.66. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloepi.2020.100026
And the author Christian Daughton posted a reply to my commentary here:
Daughton CG. 2020. Response to: Broadbent 2020, Better the drug you know: Commentary on “Daughton 2020, Natural experiment concept to accelerate the re-purposing of existing therapeutics for Covid-19”. Global Epidemiology 2(100028):1-2. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloepi.2020.100028
“the truth is that lockdown is a luxury, and it’s a luxury that the middle classes are enjoying and higher income countries are enjoying at the expense of the poor, the vulnerable and less developed countries” Sunetra Gupta @FreddieSayers @unherd
https://unherd.com/2020/05/oxford-doubles-down-sunetra-gupta-interview/
Loads of great points
- COVID on the way out in UK
- Antibody tests unreliable, don’t show prevalence
- Infections rates shouldn’t even be reported; dependent on testing
- R number depends on immunity and thus a red herring
- Everywhere same curve: up, then gently down (resonant of Michael Levitt’s interview in the same place). Immunity explains better than a load of different explanations for all the countries with different measures.
- And lockdown is retrogressive, not progressive; it’s dumb to bundle up the anti-lockdown people as on the right (or left I guess). It’s a luxury that the rich can afford and the poor can’t.
Rough times for poor white guys: http://bostonreview.net/class-inequality/joshua-cohen-angus-deaton-deaths-despair
I haven’t yet read Angus Deaton and Anne Case’s book Deaths of Despair but it’s on my list. What strikes me about the discussion in the Boston Review is its resonance with the refrain from the alt right, much maligned by the alt left, that things are tough and getting tougher if you’re an uneducated white guy. Looks like we might now have some evidence to feed into that hitherto entirely ideological debate.
http://bostonreview.net/class-inequality/joshua-cohen-angus-deaton-deaths-despair
This Thursday at 11:30am (via Zoom) the @CHESS_DurhamUni reading group will be discussing our recent report from the IFK, ‘A Framework for Decisions in a Post-COVID World’ by @AlexBroadbent
This Thursday at 11:30am (via Zoom) the @CHESS_DurhamUni reading group will be discussing ‘A Framework for Decisions in a Post-COVID World‘ by @AlexBroadbent . . . please contact admin.chess@durham.ac.uk for the paper and joining instructions #COVID19 #socialpolicy #policymakers
Video now up – the first in our series of webinars, Reimagining the world after COVID-19, with Joyce Banda, Johan Giesecke and Sehaam Khan
This event took place on Wednesday 13 May 2020.
Panel 20 May: COVID-19 and the Emerging World Order
Please join us for a panel discussion on COVID-19 and the Emerging World Order, Wednesday 20 May @ 16.00-17:00pm South Africa, W Europe | 10:00-11:00 Beijing | 15.00-16:00 UK | 11.30-12.30 US East Coast. Please “arrive” (log in) 15 minutes beforehand to ensure time for you to be admitted prior to the event as we admit participants individually for security reasons. We start sharp on the hour.
Panelists:
- Dr David Masondo (Deputy Finance Minister of South Africa)
- Mr Grant Harris (former Advisor to US President Barack Obama on issues relating to sub-Saharan Africa)
- Professor Dong Wang (Executive Director of the Institute for Global Cooperation and Understanding, Peking University)
- Dr Oluwaseun Tella (Senior Researcher, Institute for the Future of Knowledge, University of Johannesburg)
Facilitated by Professor Alex Broadbent, Director of the Institute for the Future of Knowledge at the University of Johannesburg
You need to register to watch this live, and it will be posted as a recording afterwards. Register here: https://universityofjohannesburg.us/4ir/covid-19/
This is the second in a series of webinars on Reimagining the World After COVID-19, organised by the Institute for the Future of Knowledge on the initiative of the Vice Chancellor’s Office at the University of Johannesburg.
Our first panelist, Dr David Masondo, is the Deputy Finance Minister for South Africa. He obtained his PhD at New York University and his prior degrees at the University of the Witwatersrand. He has held various political and management positions in provincial and national government. He has an abiding passion for education and has lectured on various topics in political economy at the University of the Witwatersrand. He is founding chairperson of the Topisa Trust, which provides ongoing support to youth to promote education, sport and cultural excellence in villages in Limpopo.
Our second panellist, Mr Grant Harris, is Chief Executive Officer at Harris Africa Partners LLC, Adjunct Professor of Global Management at Kellogg School of Management, Lecturer at University of California Berkeley. Until 2015 he was Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for African Affairs at The White House under US president Barack Obama. He was educated at Berkeley, Princeton, and Yale Law School.
Our third panellist, Professor Dong Wang, is Executive Director of the Institute for Global Cooperation and Understanding, Peking University. He has considerable expertise in US-China relations, and in 2019 addressed the 11th US-China Political Party Leaders Dialogue on the topic.
Our fourth panellist, Dr Oluwaseun Tella, is Senior Research Associate at the Institute for the Future of Knowledge at the University of Johannesburg. He is a specialist in soft power and international relations, especially between China, Africa and the US, as well as within the continent of Africa.
Register here: https://universityofjohannesburg.us/4ir/covid-19/
A simple and FAST method for identifying existing drugs that may work against COVID-19 has just been published: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2590113320300109 This deserves to be widely read and tried. #epitwitter
I’ve got a commentary coming out soon too.
Impressive that the @FT is featuring a prominent discussion of Chesterton’s Fence
https://fs.blog/2020/03/chestertons-fence/
“There exists in such a case a certain institution or law; let us say, for the sake of simplicity, a fence or gate erected across a road. The more modern type of reformer goes gaily up to it and says, “I don’t see the use of this; let us clear it away.” To which the more intelligent type of reformer will do well to answer: “If you don’t see the use of it, I certainly won’t let you clear it away. Go away and think. Then, when you can come back and tell me that you do see the use of it, I may allow you to destroy it.”
GK Chesterton 1929, The Thing
CPEMPH 