With the Covid-19 pandemic, the conventions will look vastly different from previous years. In this episode, Julian Zelizer and Sam Wang discuss how a virtual convention might affect election coverage, voter enthusiasm, and rising political talent.
Q&A: Laura Kahn *02 on COVIDâs Spread and How We Defeat It
Laura Kahn *02, a physician and research scholar at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, studies the politics of infectious disease, including how leaders can make better decisions during outbreaks and how global-health policy can better prevent and mitigate zoonotic diseases, which are transmitted from animals to humans. In this article, she answers questions about how governments should respond to such pandemics and how the world can stop them from happening again.
Love in the time of COVID-19: negligence in the Nicaraguan response
Ben Gallo â17, a medical student at Brown University, and Briana Christophers â17, currently at Weill Cornell Medicine, have co-authored an article in âThe Lancet Global Healthâ outlining the Nicaraguan governmentâs erratic response to COVID-19. Directly contradicting mitigation strategies recommended by the World Health Organization, President Daniel Ortega has refused to encourage any physical distancing measures. Vice President Rosario Murillo, Ortegaâs wife, has even called for street marches instead.
Gallo, Christophers, and their co-authors state that the countryâs lack of testing and low numbers of ventilators can cause the already fragile public health infrastructure to collapse under the pressure of widespread infection. In addition, they contrast the Nicaraguan response with those of other governments in the region, all of which taken stronger measures against the virus. Nicaragua is the poorest country in Central America, but even those with greater resources and more pro-active responses are struggling to contain the virus. The consequences of Nicaraguaâs refusal to act could also undermine itsâ neighborsâ efforts, putting the whole region at risk.
Read the full article at the Lancet.
âWe Roarâ podcast features Princetoniansâ voices on the COVID-19 pandemic
Princeton University has launched a new podcast series to share the personal stories and expertise of students, faculty, staff and alumni during the COVID-19 pandemic. The âWe Roarâ podcast will offer short meditations by a wide range of Princetonians as they continue their work and daily lives through one of the watershed moments of our time.
In one of four episodes released today, President Christopher L. Eisgruber describes the negotiations behind the Universityâs decision to send students home for the remainder of the semester. âIâm confident that by getting our students off the campus we were able to keep the infection numbers in our community small,â he said. âIt was a difficult day that I will never forget.â
The other premiere guests on âWe Roarâ are Jeremy Adelman, the Henry Charles Lea Professor of History and director of the Global History Lab, a pioneer in distance education whose work has taken on a new relevance; Kara Amoratis, associate director of International Travel Safety and Security, who describes how she evacuated students from far-flung corners of the globe, despite extraordinary challenges; and Kirsten Traudt, Class of 2020, whose classics studies have prepared her to take âthe long view of history.â
Future guests include former U.S. Senate majority leader Bill Frist, Class of 1974; Chitra Parikh, Class of 2021, University Student Government president; Rebecca Lazier, a senior lecturer in dance in the Lewis Center for the Arts and acting director of the Program in Dance; Alan Blinder, the Gordon S. Rentschler Memorial Professor of Economics and Public Affairs; and many more.
âWe Roarâ is available on Apple Podcasts (formerly iTunes), Spotify and other podcast platforms. New episodes will be released on Tuesdays and Fridays.