Science Education in the Era of a Pandemic (original) (raw)
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Health and Science in pandemic times: Narrative review
2021
Objective: This study aimed to describe the aspects related to health and science during the pandemic caused by Sars-Cov-2. Method: It is a narrative review through the search for articles in the scientific databases, published from January 2020 to January 2021. For the treatment of the data, the technique of content analysis with categorization of the findings was used four complete original articles were selected that answer the central question of the research and organized according to the content of their evidence, distributed in five categories. Results: The analysis of the literature highlights important points such as the negative impact of false news on science, interdisciplinarity and its benefits on science and public health, the funding of Science to combat Sars-Cov-2, the safety of scientists in research during the pandemic and vaccine hesitancy. Discussion: It was found that in view of the crisis generated by Covid-19, it was clear to various sectors of society that only science is capable of finding a solution and shows itself as a hope for all humanity, since she is the only one able to find a vaccine and treatment for the New Coronavirus. Conclusion: Furthermore, it is concluded that scientists will certainly generate the necessary knowledge to face the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as subsidize public policies that will organize health care, reduce inequities and enable comprehensive care to patients.
Journal of Music Teacher Education, 2020
Life and work, as we knew them, were immeasurably changed this spring. On Wednesday, March 11, I had my last in-person class meeting with instrumental methods students. Soon after, the University of Colorado Boulder chancellor informed faculty that all classes would move online the following Monday. On Thursday, March 12, I had my last brainstorming sessions with dissertation advisees and graduate assistants. And on Friday, March 13, I gathered materials from my office and prepared to teach classes, advise students, plan research, and edit a journal-all at a distance-for the remainder of the semester. Ever since, I have been hunkered down in my den at home, trying to make sense of a world engulfed in a major pandemic. Who knew that toilet paper would become a precious commodity? Did we have any idea there were federal stockpiles of ventilators and other medical supplies? Were we familiar with the accomplishments of Anthony Fauci and Deborah Birx before they were appointed to the White House Coronavirus Task Force? Consider the many words and phrases that have become part of our everyday parlance: "novel coronavirus," "COVID-19," "with an abundance of caution," "flattening the curve," "social distancing," "community spread," "contact tracing," "immunocompromised," "presumptive positive," and "personal protective equipment or PPE." It is as though the everyday citizen decided to pursue a doctorate in epidemiology and critical care. Science is now in the spotlight, positioned by many as a necessary counterbalance to political tomfoolery and medical quackery. As much as we may squirm over the epistemology of facts and truths, that is exactly what the public has been seeking and what ethical journalists operating as fact checkers have been hawking. But, as Albert Einstein observed, "Any fool can know. The point is to understand." Grassroots understanding is aided by the amazing amount of COVID-19 data being collected, analyzed, and disseminated. Case data for individual states, the United States, and the world have been reported by various public health agencies and then consolidated at research institutes and medical centers. One of my go-to sites is the
New Perspectives on Turkey, 2020
The pathogen that has almost completely paralyzed societies the world over had an innocuous beginning. On January 7 2020, researchers in China announced that they had identified a new coronavirus. The tone of the next day's New York Times piece reporting on this was nonchalant at best. Rather than pointing towards the potential damage that this virus could cause, it directed our attention to the threats caused by MERS and the SARS. 1 About a month later, on February 11, when the disease acquired its own name, COVID-19, it had already begun to wreak havoc in Asia, and was only a few days away from causing the first death in Europe and only about two weeks away from reaching out to Latin America and Africa. Another month later, on March 12, the World Health Organization called it a pandemic, recognizing the worldwide prevalence of the new coronavirus. As the time of the writing this commentary in late April, we are still in the thick of this pandemic. The global situation continues to be epidemiologically, economically, sociologically, and politically volatile. Despite the fact that experts in different fields and various global agencies had predicted with absolute certainty that we were going to confront epidemics and pandemics of this kind, and that these predictions were popularized by people like Bill Gates, states and societies were still caught off guard and unprepared. We ended up finding ourselves in an environment of chaos and uncertainty.
What Cost Scientific Illiteracy in Time of Global Pandemic?
In medias res, 2021
This paper traces the course of the ongoing pandemic as it was reported in some of the established world media as well as in scientific journals. The author has been following the various sources since practically the begining of the pandemic in Europe and here will try to assess the role and the actual practice of scientists, politicians and other actors throughout the pandemic, from its begining in China at the close of 2019 till end of February 2021. The key questions addressed in this paper are: Why the events of the ongoing pandemic unfolded as they did, with so many misguided decisions by politicians (as well as experts at times), with so much misinformation and fake news and so many missed opportunities for decisive and life-changing action? What is the reason behind prolonged intervals of silence in the communication chain? And what cost the insufficient familiarity with science – its facts, methods or means of communication – in the time of global pandemic? The main thesis ...
Imagining pandemics now, and then: a century of medical failure
Interface Focus, 2021
Ever since the devastating 1918–1919 influenza pandemic, policy makers have employed mathematical models to predict the course of epidemics and pandemics in an effort to mitigate their worst impacts. But while Britain has long been a pioneer of predictive epidemiology and disease modellers occupied influential positions on key committees that advised the government on its response to the coronavirus pandemic, as in 1918 Britain mounted one of the least effective responses to Covid-19 of any country in the world. Arguing that this ‘failure of expertise’ was the result of medical and political complacency and over-reliance on disease models predicated on influenza, this paper uses the lens of medical history to show how medical attitudes to Covid-19 mirrored those of the English medical profession in 1918. Rather than putting our faith in preventive medicine and statistical technologies to predict the course of epidemics and dictate suppressive measures in future, I argue we need to c...
A historical narrative on pandemic: Patterns of behavior and belief
Journal of Global Faultlines, Pluto Journals, 2022
Given the fractured reality of pandemic, the people's history needs to be written and understood. This paper provides a historical narrative on pandemics based on a literature review and makes inferences from the past and present. This narrative also reflects the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic in the world and India. The narratives provide a novel perspective to understand public health practices in a global context. It suggests the need for a more synchronized health response in pandemics while highlighting the uncertainties and challenges of using historical diseases as comparisons for the COVID-19 pandemic. The emphasis is on learning from historical evidence and ascertaining how these retrospective diagnoses help make arguments about health and illness in our present moment.
Histories of the past and histories of the future: pandemics and historians of education
Paedagogica Historica
The COVID-19 outbreak at the beginning of the 2020s not only marked a dramatic moment in world health, but also the start of manifold and entangled global crises that seem to define a watershed moment with severe effects on education. Pandemics we know are recurrent events. Faced with COVID-19 some historians have looked to previous pandemics to understand the nature of the disease and its trajectory, and how previous generations have dealt with similar health crises. This special issue intends not to reinforce narratives of the past but rather to question them. The histories that have been written for this special issue Histories of the Past and Histories of the Future: Pandemics and Historians of Education offer insights that refer to past and future research agendas. They look at the mediation and circulation of knowledge during past pandemics, trace unheard voices and emotions of pandemics, analyse national policies and emerging discourses, and underline the entangled histories of education and pandemics. Collectively the articles brought together in this issue forcibly suggest that the most fruitful and rewarding way forward to studying past pandemics lies in thinking ecologically. By assessing the myriad consequences of living in " pandemic times," of confronting exposure, transmission, transmutation, disruption, and loss, and looking to community and collective futures we believe we cannot study pandemics and their impact on education and children's lives without widening the aperture of our research. Adopting an ecological approach will help us to not only actively engage with histories of the present and contempory collecting, but also offer the possibility of new understandings and new insights into the dynamics and consequences of past pandemics.
Between the Worlds: Narratives and Notions of Pandemics (2022)
Between the Worlds: Narratives and Notions of Pandemics, 2022
Y. Erolova, E. Tzaneva, V. Ivanova, J. Popcheva (eds.) (2022). ‘Between the Worlds: Narratives and Notions of Pandemics’. Vol. 4. Sofia: IEFSEM & Paradigma. In the context of the COVID-19 pandemic challenges, new fields of study are intertwining and emerging to explore the causes, responses, prevention, coping, and consequences of this worldwide infectious disease affecting all sectors of society at global, regional, and local scales. Analytical frameworks and solutions are inquired through interdisciplinary approaches researching past and present impacts of similar sociocultural, economic, and political phenomena. These efforts contribute to the new anthropological subfield – the Anthropology of pandemics and seek to understand how people experience and respond to pandemics in general and this particular one, but also how pandemics shape society and culture, and how they reveal social and cultural inequalities in our world. As a result of researchers’ joint efforts, people’s beliefs, values, and practices, forming their understanding of disease and their response to it, have been examined. This collection is the result of the International Conference ‘Between the Worlds: Narratives and Notions of Pandemics’ held on 7 and 8 June 2022 in Sofia, Bulgaria. The editors of the volume consider it a serious challenge to integrate and organise together so many different texts, methodological approaches, and the opinions of 24 scholars – philosophers, psychologists, historians, ethnologists, anthropologists, and economists from different schools and scientific traditions.