18 January, 2021 — RT
A health worker prepares an injection with a dose of the Pfizer/BioNTech COVID-19 © REUTERS/Jose Luis Gonzalez
3 November 2020 — Preprints
Version 1 : Received: 14 October 2020 / Approved: 15 October 2020 / Online: 15 October 2020 (16:02:58 CEST)
Version 2 : Received: 3 November 2020 / Approved: 4 November 2020 / Online: 4 November 2020 (10:14:33 CET)
How to cite: Joffe, A. COVID-19: Rethinking the Lockdown Groupthink. Preprints 2020, 2020100330 (doi: 10.20944/preprints202010.0330.v2). Joffe, A. COVID-19: Rethinking the Lockdown Groupthink. Preprints 2020, 2020100330 (doi: 10.20944/preprints202010.0330.v2).
The Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) has caused the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) worldwide pandemic in 2020. In response, most countries in the world implemented lockdowns, restricting their population’s movements, work, education, gatherings, and general activities in attempt to ‘flatten the curve’ of COVID-19 cases. The public health goal of lockdowns was to save the population from COVID-19 cases and deaths, and to prevent overwhelming health care systems with COVID-19 patients. In this narrative review I explain why I changed my mind about supporting lockdowns.
13 November 2020 — BMJ
Kamran Abbasi, executive editor
Politicians and governments are suppressing science. They do so in the public interest, they say, to accelerate availability of diagnostics and treatments. They do so to support innovation, to bring products to market at unprecedented speed. Both of these reasons are partly plausible; the greatest deceptions are founded in a grain of truth. But the underlying behaviour is troubling.
1 October 2020 — The Electronic Intifada
A doctor in Gaza City is using a temperature test machine to test a boy for coronavirus. Ashraf Amra APA images
With a fresh spike in the number of coronavirus infections, Gaza is yet again facing the very real prospect that its healthcare system will be overwhelmed.
26 August 2020 — The Electronic Intifada
A worker in Khan Younis during a lockdown imposed following the discovery of the first coronavirus cases in the Gaza Strip outside of quarantine centers, 25 August. Ashraf Amra APA images
After The Electronic Intifada reported on the removal of the Gaza health ministry’s page, Facebook restored it.
1 August, 2020 — Spectre Journal
What can a virus tell us about climate breakdown, in its causation and in humanity’s response? And what can both tell us about capitalism and communism? These are the questions that Andreas Malm addresses in his new book forthcoming next month. It is a remarkable work, a tour de force. It portrays capitalism not simply in metaphorical colors as a meta-virus run by parasites, but as the godfather of actual viruses, the patron of parasites. Written at whirlwind pace, one of its leitmotifs is tempo: the varying velocities of climate collapse, locust swarms, zoonotic pathogenic leaps, and the dynamics and gear changes of political response and strategy. While others were hesitantly piecing together analyses of COVID-19 and its links to climate change and the capitalist system, as the familiar coordinates heaved all around in April 2020, Malm seems to have summoned the energies of the crisis and guided them onto the page. The prose crackles—this is an urgent book.
4 August 2020 — Real Clear Politics
On Friday, July 31, in a column ostensibly dealing with health care “misinformation,” Washington Post media critic Margaret Sullivan opened by lambasting “fringe doctors spouting dangerous falsehoods about hydroxychloroquine as a COVID-19 wonder cure.”
12 June 2020 — Sustainable Pulse
Read more on Sustainable Pulse
4 June 2020 — Open Democracy
There’s been an urgent development in our campaign to stop the secrecy about NHS data deals with private companies. The government now says they’ll make the decision “imminently” on how much detail they’ll disclose. It could be as soon as tomorrow.
27 April 2020 — The Electronic Intifada
Palestinians prepare fish for sale at the Gaza seaport, 27 February. Ashraf Amra APA images
The coronavirus pandemic has derailed a lot of activities, but not Israel’s attacks on Palestinian fishers.
Israeli warships have increased their assaults in recent months, causing injuries to fishers and damage to boats.
13 April 2020 — The Electronic Intifada
Israeli defense minister Naftali Bennett, left, with EU ambassador Emanuele Giaufret in 2017. Bennett is now hoping other countries will buy a coronavirus tracking system made by an Israeli spy firm implicated in the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi. (via Twitter)
The coronavirus pandemic is a priceless opportunity for governments and spy firms to expand their reach into people’s lives.
8 March 2020 — Telesur
Epidemiologist Bruce Aylward at the China-WHO joint expert team press conference, Beijing, China, Feb. 24, 2020. | Photo: Xinhua – EFE
The World Health Organization stressed that international cooperation is crucial to managing the outbreak.
At an extraordinary council on the COVID-19 epidemic held in Brussels on Friday, the European Union (EU) health ministers agreed to develop a coordinated approach to prevention and protection of people at risk, and establish coherent containment measures, including evidence-based advice concerning travel to and from risk areas.
Ari Joffe