Surveying government and society’s reactions to covid-19: a cross-national panel
Philip Vergragt
SCORAI is looking for participants, especially from North America, in this international project
Please contact Philip Vergragt if you have an interest to participate.
Surveying government and society’s reactions to covid-19: a cross-national panel
The pandemic disrupted all dimensions of life across the globe. The triple shock of the sanitation emergency, economic shutdown and social lockdown through mandatory social isolation and physical distancing turned into the paradigmatic response of governments to the spread of the virus and the standard procedure societies followed, with lasting consequences for progressing towards a model of sustainability.
From the perspective of sustainable development, the watershed of changes has been confronted with horror and hope. Hope as government reactions and measures led to short-term tangible environmental dividends such as pollution decreases, while revealing that systemic change away from continuous consumerism and work-spend treadmill lifestyles falls within the will and range of policy-makers. Changes have also revealed terrible effects as the forced economic depression reverse progress against poverty and misery for the first time in 30 years, mental health levels reach its worst records, and health prevention protocols unsettles efforts to reduce dependence on plastic and individualized forms of mobility with appalling environmental consequences.
Led by key members from local SCORAI chapters in Israel (Valerie Brachya), Brazil (Fabián Echegaray), and China (Lei Zhang), a major project to map out social and environmental implications of covid-19 across different latitudes was launched in May 2020. The project was further supported by key members from SCORAI US (Philip Vergragt) and Europe (Jánis Brizga). Soon thereafter, a key member from SCORAI New Zealand (Joya Kemper) joined the initiative. The project’s first results were presented at the SCORAI Conference Special Session on Understanding post-Corona lifestyles for framing sustainability policy, held on June 10th, attended and watched by nearly 80 participants.
Documents for the session are available at: https://whova.com/portal/webapp/scora_202006/Agenda/1019081 , whereas a recording of the session is found here: https://play.kth.se/media/SCORAI+2020+-+DR-501/0_d79ypijc
Over ¾ of nations across the globe confronted the pandemic in a similar way, radically departing from business as usual policies. However, not all nations followed strictly the same process, sequences, intensity of measures or effects among their societies. We invite other colleagues to join us in this exciting initiative to put together a major scan of occurrences, responses and effects, and further elaborate on the approaches to keep track of long-lasting consequences of measures set in motion.
For further interests, please contact Valerie Brachya val...@jerusaleminstitute.org.il or Fabián Echegaray fab...@marketanalysis.com.br