This is the first part of a much longer interview about my thinking on the Covid-19 pandemic and its management, drawing on my experience as a sociologist who has studied organizations and risk for almost fifty years! There are opportunities for the sort of detail, reflection and explicit use of sociology that are not usually… Read More »
As the pandemic enters its endgame, at least in the Global North, there are many demands to continue home-working, by those who can. This can be coupled with many signals of virtue, such as reducing commutes, limiting opportunities for infections to circulate or promoting work-life balance. Nice for those who can do it – but… Read More »
A puzzling feature of so many proposed exit strategies from the Covid-19 pandemic is the enthusiasm for the use of electronic or paper documents to demonstrate the immunity status of their holder. This might come from prior infection (immunity certificate) or from vaccination (vaccine passport)…. …In the context of an adult movie, information about the… Read More »
This is a recording of a webinar for the Royal Society of Medicine on Thursday 4 March 2021. Professor Dingwall was interviewed by Sir Simon Wessely about the way in which sociologists understood pandemics and why their contribution should matter more than it did. There was a particular focus on understanding pandemics as societal challenges… Read More »
The real Covid news gets better every day. Case numbers are falling. Hospital admissions are falling. Deaths are falling. The vaccination programme is a success beyond anyone’s wildest imagination. New, effective treatments are emerging. Spring, fresh air and sunshine are almost upon us. Why, then, is there so much talk of keeping restrictions in place… Read More »
No-one can make all human lives completely safe. The zero-Covid agenda presents a fantasy of immortality that more reflective medics know is impossible. As vaccination rolls out and treatments improve, the risk of serious illness or death is falling rapidly. We can live with a new endemic infection, but this will only happen if we… Read More »
… troubling infection rates and daily death counts, although impossible to ignore, are not the only way to understand this pandemic and our attempts to defeat it. After all, there is real hope for the future thanks to the creation of new vaccines. But we still need clear heads if we want to phase out… Read More »
…A big problem of Covid-19 management in the UK has been its lack of clarity about precisely this: when do we stop lockdowns, face coverings and social distancing, and dial our lives back to 2019?… The challenge that faces us as a society now is to decide between two views of the future. Are we… Read More »
One particular loss in the present emergency is Georg Simmel’s discussion of the case for cities, in his 1902 essay ‘The Metropolis and Mental Life’…it presents crucial arguments against the break-up of urban life that is envisioned by some contemporary Utopians: the case against the 15-minute city needs to be heard… Simmel composed this lecture… Read More »
I have just posted a link to a lengthy video interview with Dr Clemens Heni, a German political scientist, which you can access on YourTube via my video page. If you are interested, there are two other interviews in text available online. These formats make it possible to give a more reasoned account of my… Read More »