Employment, Skills and Human Capital
Public health epidemiology is the science of counting to prevent disease and promote health. We count the number of new cases of a particular disease; this is the incidence. Then we count how much a disease has spread in a population; this is the prevalence. Lockdowns around the world have placed the world’s economies at a standstill, slowing the virus’ spread, but enacting a heavy economic toll. But experts warn that without structural change, emissions declines caused by coronavirus could be short-lived as economies get back to normal. 1. How COVID-19 is impacting the globe It’s the most dramatic government intervention into our lives since World War II. To fight the coronavirus outbreak, governments across the globe have closed schools, travel and businesses big and small. Many observers have fretted about the economic costs of throwing millions of people out of work and millions of students out of school. As confirmed cases of COVID-19 near 1 million worldwide, here’s a round-up of some of the latest scientific developments. The coronavirus pandemic is undoubtedly the greatest challenge the world has faced in over a generation. But is the presentation of data about the outbreak leading us to overlook any cause for optimism? As several companies race to develop a coronavirus vaccine, the public is repeatedly reminded that the finish line is at least 12 to 18 months away. This timeline feels excruciatingly long as the coronavirus pandemic continues to ravage the world around us. But it deserves some context. New technologies combined with international cooperation to fight infectious diseases are enabling faster responses to new disease outbreaks, shaving several years from traditional vaccine development timelines. Here are the key steps in the path to developing a vaccine against coronavirus and an outline of what they mean for time saving and for you. Leonardo DiCaprio is helping to launch a food fund for communities impacted by the COVID-19 coronavirus, part of a wave of philanthropic efforts to ease the damage inflicted by the worsening pandemic. Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, for example, announced Thursday he has donated $100 million to Feeding America, which has a network of food banks across the US. The coronavirus crisis is beginning to do something the city of San Francisco has been unable to accomplish for years – move homeless people off the streets and into shelters, including some of the city’s now-empty hotels. The global COVID-19 pandemic caused by the novel SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus is a public health emergency. In just under three months, we have gone from distant reports of a new disease emerging in China to seeing cities locked down and health services brought to breaking point. These two pandemics are interrelated, but are not the same phenomenon. In the second pandemic, stories of fear have gone so viral that we often think of them constantly. The stock market has been dropping like a rock, apparently in response to stories of COVID-19 depleting our lifetime saving unless we take some action. But, unlike COVID-19 itself, the source of our anxiety is that we are unsure what action to take. I want to share with you my 7 Cs for coronavirus survival if you’re a manager or a leader. This message is also available on video. In February a now-infamous photo made its rounds on social media. Posted by US Vice President Mike Pence, the image, which showed the members of the US Coronavirus Taskforce, left many asking a single question: where are the women? There’s no question the United States missed the opportunity to get ahead of the novel coronavirus. But the window for making important decisions hasn’t closed. The choices we and our leaders make now will have an enormous impact on how soon case numbers start to go down, how long the economy remains shut down and how many Americans will have to bury a loved one because of COVID-19. It’s tough out there right now. That’s undeniable. The novel coronavirus; Covid-19, the ‘rona—however you choose to refer to it—is dramatically altering the structure of our everyday lives with orders of social distancing, curfews, quarantines, lockdowns, and more. Global coronavirus cases surpassed 1 million on Thursday with more than 52,000 deaths as the pandemic further exploded in the United States and the death toll climbed in Spain and Italy, according to a Reuters tally of official data. The 10-mile trip from our home in Brooklyn to our daughter’s ophthalmologist on the Upper East Side normally takes 90 minutes by car. Two weeks ago, it took us less than half that, as we breezed along near-empty streets. Around the world, schools in over 100 countries are closed to protect against the spread of coronavirus, affecting the education of nearly 1 billion children. For the lucky ones, homeschooling will take the place of the classroom. The COVID-19 pandemic is a global emergency, bringing devastation to millions around the world, impacting lives and jobs, and grinding much of the global economy to a halt. It’s a crisis that has shown our vulnerability and confirmed our under-estimation of the probability and exponential nature of systemic risks. It calls on all of us to come together with compassion and humility. 1. How COVID-19 is impacting the globe As the world economy enters an unprecedented crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, and policymakers in Washington and other global capitals prepare record fiscal stimulus plans, stakeholders should heed an important lesson from the last financial downturn in 2008: Recovery is only possible through coordinated global action. An epidemic is an emotional issue. With the lives of our friends and loved ones on the line, we tend to respond with the heart first, then the head. Matt McCarthy wrote a bestselling book, Superbugs, about the threat posed by antibiotic-resistant bacteria. Now this New York doctor is fighting on the front line against the COVID-19 virus which poses a similar threat. As countries locked down to slow the spread of Covid-19, many people rushed to stock up on essentials. Food, toilet paper, medication, hand gel, and surgical masks temporarily disappeared from shelves in many countries. What makes it even harder for countries to have enough vital supplies on hand is that so much of it is pieced together in complex supply chains stretching around the worlds. Take medical supplies: some 80% of active pharmaceutical ingredients used in US drugs, for example, are produced overseas, particularly in China and India. Show Agenda posts
View more Employment posts
We could be vastly overestimating the death rate for COVID-19. Here’s why
Saturday 4th of April 2020
COVID-19 sparked an economic crisis ‘like no other’ – but these measures can help now: WHO, IMF
Saturday 4th of April 2020
Coronavirus could trigger biggest fall in carbon emissions since World War Two – but any decline could be short-lived
Saturday 4th of April 2020
COVID-19: What you need to know about the coronavirus pandemic on 4 April
Saturday 4th of April 2020
The COVID-19 lockdown will take its own toll on health, researchers warn
Saturday 4th of April 2020
COVID-19: top four science stories of the week
Friday 3rd of April 2020
What’s a logarithmic graph and how does it help explain the spread of COVID-19?
Friday 3rd of April 2020
Why a coronavirus vaccine takes over a year to produce – and why that is incredibly fast
Friday 3rd of April 2020
Leonardo DiCaprio launches food fund for communities hit by COVID-19
Friday 3rd of April 2020
This is how San Francisco is helping the homeless during the coronavirus pandemic
Friday 3rd of April 2020
The UK has a COVID-19 symptom tracker app. Here’s what it can tell us
Friday 3rd of April 2020
COVID-19 has brought about a second pandemic: financial anxiety
Friday 3rd of April 2020
7 leadership principles for managing in the time of coronavirus
Friday 3rd of April 2020
Why we need women’s leadership in the COVID-19 response
Friday 3rd of April 2020
Bill Gates: What our leaders can do now about COVID-19
Friday 3rd of April 2020
Why quarantine can make you more creative
Friday 3rd of April 2020
Confirmed coronavirus cases now exceed 1 million worldwide
Friday 3rd of April 2020
How to survive the COVID-19 lockdown with a newborn baby
Friday 3rd of April 2020
Homeschooling during the coronavirus pandemic could change education forever, says the OECD
Friday 3rd of April 2020
How to build back better after COVID-19
Friday 3rd of April 2020
COVID-19: What to know about the coronavirus pandemic on 3 April
Friday 3rd of April 2020
Great Recession showed countries can’t fight the coronavirus economic crisis alone
Friday 3rd of April 2020
A better answer to the ventilator shortage as the pandemic rages on
Friday 3rd of April 2020
A New York doctor reports from the front line: this week’s World Vs Virus podcast
Thursday 2nd of April 2020
A shipping industry leader explains how to keep supply chains moving amid a pandemic
Thursday 2nd of April 2020
Gender Parity
In February a now-infamous photo made its rounds on social media. Posted by US Vice President Mike Pence, the image, which showed the members of the US Coronavirus Taskforce, left many asking a single question: where are the women? The COVID-19 pandemic is not just a health issue. It’s a profound shock to our societies and economies. It has drastically altered everyday life as we know. And while we are all in it together, as it happens in any crisis or pandemic, women are being impacted by COVID-19 in different and less visible ways. • The gender wage gap remains at the centre of efforts to achieve gender parity. • Low-income communities are more vulnerable to climate change – especially women. • Recent global gender gains are under threat from growing conservatism. • E-commerce has the potential to level the economic playing field for women in developing countries. • The case for gender equality has been made, but there is a lag to action. This Women’s History Month, it’s important to celebrate and salute the heroic women who are changing the world around them and empowering other women to do the same. Are men and women feeling the effects of the coronavirus differently? • Women’s mobility is more multi-modal and intermodal than men’s. This International Women’s Day, women in Africa have a lot to celebrate. Despite efforts in recent years to encourage more parity between men and women, the gender gap in Japan is widening. As the world recognizes International Women’s Day 2020, it’s an important moment to take stock of what’s holding the country back and how it can move forward to gender equality in the decade ahead. The continued gender gap in leadership roles around the world is well-known and striking. Women make up half the world’s workforce and the majority of college graduates, yet they hold only about a quarter of leadership roles. This year’s International Women’s Day (IWD) will be held on 8 March with a global programme of events to celebrate the social, economic, cultural and political achievements of women, and to inspire action that will help accelerate gender parity. We are familiar with statistics that quote the higher prevalence of suicide among men versus women. We also know that the overall rates of psychiatric disorder, like bipolar, are almost identical for men and women. But there are significant gender differences in the patterns of mental illness and it seems that women suffer more from depression than men. On the first International Women’s Day gathering in 1911, women were doing most of the world’s unpaid and underpaid work. Where are all the women? It is a question we shouldn’t have to ask in 2020. But we do. Why? Because there are simply too few women in leadership positions all over the world. On the eve of International Women’s Day and as we approach the 100th anniversary of women getting the vote here in the United States, the time is right to get a handle on the problem. • Research show gender diversity increases innovation levels. -The World Economic Forum created a visualization of global gender inequality. • Pharma companies putting greater priority on women makes sense financially and in terms of healthcare impact. International women’s day is an opportunity to reflect on solutions to achieving gender equality goals. One such route to women’s empowerment is by providing opportunities for women to trade and ensuring that the benefits of trade facilitation reform – making trade faster, easier and more cost-effective – reach women around the world. International Women’s Day (8 March) is marching into its 110th year – and this year it falls on a Sunday. Female workers are bearing the brunt of India’s unemployment crisis. “An equal world is an enabled world” – and every one of us can do our bit to bring about gender equality. • Women are under-represented in engineering, yet they are needed to develop inclusive solutions.Show Agenda posts
View more Gender posts
Why we need women’s leadership in the COVID-19 response
Friday 3rd of April 2020
Coronavirus: 9 ways you can support gender equality from your home
Thursday 2nd of April 2020
Why do multinationals pay women less in developing countries?
Tuesday 31st of March 2020
Women lose most from the climate crisis. How can we empower them?
Tuesday 24th of March 2020
There can be no human rights without gender equality
Monday 23rd of March 2020
How women in developing countries can harness e-commerce
Friday 20th of March 2020
3 leaders on creating a pipeline for female talent in business
Monday 16th of March 2020
5 powerful ways women can empower other women
Thursday 12th of March 2020
The coronavirus fallout may be worse for women than men. Here’s why
Thursday 12th of March 2020
5 ways urban transport could step up a gear for women
Monday 9th of March 2020
How to empower women entrepreneurs to grow Africa
Monday 9th of March 2020
How to narrow Japan’s widening gender gap
Sunday 8th of March 2020
How to support more women in leadership roles
Sunday 8th of March 2020
This is how women’s rights have progressed
Friday 6th of March 2020
Why are women more depressed than men?
Friday 6th of March 2020
Women’s lives might look very different in the next 3 decades – if we tear down barriers at work
Friday 6th of March 2020
The IMF is leading the way in women at the top, but more can be done
Friday 6th of March 2020
Big oil’s climate pledges will fail without workforce equality
Friday 6th of March 2020
Each for Equal is the women’s day theme – these maps of the world show how far we have to go
Friday 6th of March 2020
From the boardroom to the consulting room: pharma’s role in curing gender bias
Friday 6th of March 2020
How making trade faster and easier empowers women around the world
Friday 6th of March 2020
6 new books to read on International Women’s Day
Thursday 5th of March 2020
Women are worst hit by India’s unemployment crisis
Wednesday 4th of March 2020
The theme of International Women’s Day 2020, explained
Wednesday 4th of March 2020
Building a more sustainable world will need more women engineers
Wednesday 4th of March 2020
