{"id":53726,"date":"2020-06-18T11:58:30","date_gmt":"2020-06-18T16:58:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=53726"},"modified":"2020-06-18T11:58:36","modified_gmt":"2020-06-18T16:58:36","slug":"tragedies-of-our-time-pandemic-planning-and-racial-politics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=53726","title":{"rendered":"Tragedies of Our Time: Pandemic, Planning, and Racial Politics"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.cobdencentre.org\/2020\/06\/tragedies-of-our-time-pandemic-planning-and-racial-politics\/\">TRAGEDIES OF OUR TIME: PANDEMIC, PLANNING, AND RACIAL POLITICS<\/a><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>An old adage says that tragedies often come in threes. Certainly, the first half of 2020 has seen a version of this. First, the coronavirus that has infected millions of people and killed hundreds of thousands. Second, the response by most governments to the virus by commanding near universal business lockdowns and stay-at-homes that have wrecked economic havoc on the world economy. And, third, the horrific killing of George Floyd, an unarmed and handcuffed black man in Minneapolis by a policeman, that has served as the catalyst for demonstrations against police abuse and charges of racism all around the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>They are tragedies that, for the most part, have been man-made. Yes, the coronavirus has been a \u201cforce of nature,\u201d though the verdict is still out on the actual origin of the virus and how it first entered the general population in Wuhan, China and then began to spread from one continent to another. But what has become fairly clear is the \u201chuman factor\u201d in analyzing and forecasting its likely impact on the world population, which, in turn, highly influenced government responses to it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Human \u201cError\u201d in the Coronavirus Projections<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>British Professor Neil Ferguson of the Imperial College in London, and a member of the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE), offered modeling projections about the likely spread and effect of the virus on the world population that greatly influenced the British and many other governments\u2019 decisions to order business shutdowns and stay-at-home \u201csocial distancing\u201d lockdowns. Partly because of this advice, much of the world\u2019s social and economic life came to a halt.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u2026click on the above link to read the rest of the article\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>TRAGEDIES OF OUR TIME: PANDEMIC, PLANNING, AND RACIAL POLITICS An old adage says that tragedies often come in threes. Certainly, the first half of 2020 has seen a version of this. First, the coronavirus that has infected millions of people and killed hundreds of thousands. Second, the response by most governments to the virus by [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,6],"tags":[130,7380,29838,657,29897,3174,855],"class_list":["post-53726","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-environment","category-liberty","tag-china","tag-cobden-centre","tag-george-floyd","tag-protests","tag-racial-protests","tag-social-unrest","tag-viral-pandemic"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53726","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=53726"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53726\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":53727,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53726\/revisions\/53727"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=53726"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=53726"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=53726"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}