Because COVID …

Because COVID …

Pandemic Responses, Rationales and Ruses

Edited by: Shirley Leitch orcid, Sally Wheeler orcid
 

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Description

The norms of everyday life were often cast aside during the pandemic years. States shut their borders, mothballed their economies, and locked down their cities. Individuals put family life, career goals, travel plans – even medical treatments – on hold. In Australia, a Government elected on a platform of neo-libertarian freedom and debt reduction, spent like Keynesians while curtailing even basic freedoms. Some citizens protested but most accepted curfews, mask mandates and the shuttering of schools and workplaces in exchange for the promise of safety.

Across every sphere of life, ‘Because Covid’ became an accepted shorthand, serving as both a response and rationale for previously unthinkable actions. Yet, it is always a mistake to take such things at face value.

Contributors to this book look beyond the rhetoric of Australia’s COVID-19 responses to consider where the pandemic has taken us as a nation. We examine economic policy, bioethics, freedom of speech, freedom of movement, global supply chains, public value science, violence against women, the experiences of Indigenous communities, news media practices, the arts sector, historical precedents, and more. What can we learn about managing future risks? What are the consequences, intended or not, of particular policy interventions? Are there new opportunities as normalisation kicks in? Our goal is to offer broad-ranging insights into the Australian experience at the very time the nation is beginning to learn how to live with COVID-19.

Details

ISBN (print):
9781760466916
ISBN (online):
9781760466923
Publication date:
Apr 2025
Imprint:
ANU Press
DOI:
http://doi.org/10.22459/BC.2025
Series:
Australia and the World
Disciplines:
Social Sciences
Countries:
Australia

PDF Chapters

Because COVID … »

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  1. The Australian pandemic experience (PDF, 115 KB)Shirley Leitch and Sally Wheeler doi
  2. History, the pandemic and the future (PDF, 135 KB)Frank Bongiorno doi
  3. Public value science outcomes: Lessons from the COVID-19 pandemic (PDF, 239 KB)Barry Bozeman doi
  4. JobKeeper: A critical analysis (PDF, 130 KB)Rohan Pitchford and Rabee Tourky doi
  5. Bioethics after COVID-19: Should we embrace a political turn? (PDF, 1467 KB)Nathan Emmerich doi
  6. The disruption of consumption (PDF, 175 KB)Sally Wheeler doi
  7. The arts, music and the pandemic (PDF, 188 KB)Kim Cunio doi
  8. ‘Ten footies, one small saltie’: The Northern Territory experience and the shadow pandemic (PDF, 328 KB)Chay Brown doi
  9. The impact of News Corporation scepticism on the COVID-19 pandemic: A case study from Victoria, June–August 2020 (PDF, 187 KB)Tony Ward doi
  10. Australia and forced displacement: A new research agenda? (PDF, 157 KB)Kate Ogg doi

Conclusions

  1. Pandemic daze: From causal to casual (PDF, 146 KB)Mark Kenny doi
  2. Proactive mitigation responses to COVID pandemics: Learning lessons needed to achieve a compassionate, resilient future (PDF, 174 KB)Robert L. Heath doi
  3. Afterword (PDF, 82 KB)Shirley Leitch and Sally Wheeler doi

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