Pandemics as Historical Events
William G. Rothstein in The Coronary Heart Disease Pandemic in the Twentieth Century, 2017
This chapter describes characteristics of pandemics of infectious and chronic diseases that will be applied to the coronary heart disease pandemic of the twentieth century. Pandemics and epidemics include both infectious and chronic diseases. Most pandemics have causal factors that differ from the causes of the disease in normal times. The great influenza pandemic of 1917-1920 clearly met the criteria for a major pandemic in terms of the rapid increase in mortality rates at the onset of the pandemic. The lung cancer pandemic that began in the mid-twentieth century is an example of a pandemic of a noninfectious disease. The tuberculosis pandemic in advanced countries was not caused by broad long-term social changes, even though they are usually used to explain it. Tuberculosis mortality rates varied considerably among geographic regions, another basic characteristic of pandemics. The history of the tuberculosis pandemic reveals much about the complexity and diversity of pandemics.
Entropy and Healthcare in a Pandemic
Lesley Kuhn, Kieran Le Plastrier in Managing Complexity in Healthcare, 2022
In this chapter, pandemics are conceptualised as an explosive increase of entropy production in individuals and societies across the globe. The chapter shows how conceiving COVID-19 in this way fosters appreciation of the rapid entropic increase of suffering as disease, and as fear, disruption and stress across society. The chapter applies the ComEntEth (Complex Entropic Ethical) model to inform understanding of government, social and institutional responses to the COVID-19 pandemic. In so doing, it draws together the bio-medical and organisational implications of our ComEntEth model of healthcare. The centrality of an ethics of responsibility (Emmanuel Levinas) to the responses of government, society and healthcare organisations is highlighted and principles are identified for activating effective preventative and restorative processes for lowering the entropic increase in countries, societies, communities and healthcare organisations.
Introduction: COVID-19 Pandemic, the Game Changer
Kenneth Okereafor in Cybersecurity in the COVID-19 Pandemic, 2021
COVID-19 pandemic impacted on data security across many domains, nullified all year 2020 technology predictions, and resulted in unprecedented levels of cyberattacks on a global scale. Previously ignored vulnerabilities and digital loopholes were exploited by hackers and internet fraudsters to compromise systems' security and launch various cyberspace exploits. Chapter one introduces the book's objective to use real-world COVID-19 cyberattack incidents to educate the reader on Cybersecurity knowledge and concepts. It delivers an overview of expectations from the book, describing the pandemic as a game changer. The chapter also introduces the structure of the book and defines its target audience to include everyone who uses the cyberspace.
Framing post-pandemic preparedness: Comparing eight European plans
Published in Global Public Health, 2018
Martin Holmberg, Britta Lundgren
Framing has previously been studied in the field of pandemic preparedness and global health governance and influenza pandemics have usually been framed in terms of security and evidence-based medicine on a global scale. This paper is based on the pandemic preparedness plans, published after 2009, from eight European countries. We study how pandemic preparedness is framed and how pandemic influenza in general is narrated in the plans. All plans contain references to ‘uncertainty’, ‘pandemic phases’, ‘risk management’, ‘vulnerability’ and ‘surveillance’. These themes were all framed differently in the studied plans. The preparedness plans in the member states diverge in ways that will challenge the ambition of the European Union to make the pandemic preparedness plans interoperable and to co-ordinate the member states during future pandemics.
Vaccination against influenza: role and limitations in pandemic intervention plans
Published in Expert Review of Vaccines, 2012
Influenza pandemics occur periodically and the subtype of the next pandemic strain cannot be predicted. Vaccination remains a critical intervention during pandemics, but current production technology requires several months to develop sufficient vaccine to meet anticipated worldwide need. Candidate prepandemic vaccines for use in population priming or rapid deployment during an epidemic are in development but are subtype specific and logistical obstacles to timely distribution exist. Intensive research is underway to identify a universal vaccine, providing protection against all known influenza strains based on shared epitopes. Vaccine access is expected to be limited during early response to a pandemic, necessitating ethical vaccine distribution plans for within-country and global allocation. Mass vaccination plans must be in place prior to an event to ensure appropriate infrastructures are in place. Carefully crafted education campaigns regarding pandemic vaccine safety and efficacy should aid in maximizing pandemic vaccine uptake during a future event.
Framing pandemic management: New governance, science or culture?
Published in Health Sociology Review, 2014
Management of a pandemic engages multiple sites where previously settled or uncontroversial understandings may be transformed by global and domestic forces. This article examines the iconography of social distancing implicated in the discourses of ‘quarantine’ and ‘risk control’ in public health, and the tension between scientific and popular media readings of the contours of acceptable public health models for managing particular pandemics. The role of culture in shaping and reshaping borders at an operational level is explored as a basis for explaining the apparent paradoxes in the way historic and contemporary pandemics are actually managed, and the different ways particular pandemics are framed. The article argues that a rational-scientific approach to pandemic management is insufficient and that a more nuanced socio-political blend of science, culture and public perceptions offers a more substantial basis for public health policy.
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