The public health response to the COVID-19 pandemic included a range of contentious personal and public restrictions including long lockdowns imposed on schools and businesses.
Now, a new book titled Pandemic Societies by Alan Petersen is critically examining these public health management strategies and considering what future pandemics may bring, including the expansion of technologies of surveillance and control, as well as opportunities for renewal caused by economic and social disruption.
Available to comment:
Alan Petersen, Professor of Sociology, Monash University
Contact: +61 420 772 356 or alan.petersen@monash.edu
The following can be attributed to Professor Petersen:
“A major question arising from my analysis of the evidence on the COVID-19 pandemic thus far is: could alternative interpretations of and responses to this event have had different outcomes – perhaps ones less damaging than those experienced?
“The personal and social disruptions and harms exacted by pandemic measures, especially long lockdowns, including loss of employment or closure of businesses, impacts on young people’s education, heightened anxieties, experiences of isolation and loneliness, self-reported increases in alcohol and drug abuse and mental illness, domestic violence, and the increased incidence of child sexual exploitation and other online harms are incalculable.
“I believe that a critical public health perspective on the COVID-19 pandemic will not only advance understanding of the dynamics, dimensions, and implications of this event but can assist in the effort to develop alternative, potentially less personally and socially harmful responses to pandemics in the future.
“In short, the crisis conditions of COVID-19 offer the prospect of social renewal; of taking steps to create societies that are more equal, less polarised, and more attune to the diversity of people’s views and experiences, which are shaped by many factors including gender, age, ethnicity, nationality, sexuality, and physical and mental ability.”
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