Plenary V: Democracy in Crisis?

Confronted with surging unemployment and miles long lines at food banks across the United States, most states have begun reopening the economy. Many of these states are seeing rising numbers of new cases and face a real risk of relapsing into an uncontrolled pandemic. To avoid this outcome, they must adopt a strategy that entails testing, tracing, and isolation of the infected, with priority given to groups and places where the medical impact – reducing infections and saving lives – ...

La propagation planétaire de la pandémie Covid-19 a eu un impact humain élevé, principalement aux Etats-Unis et en Europe. Pour le moment, l’Afrique semble relativement moins affectée, à en juger par le nombre relativement réduit des personnes contaminées et des décès. A l’appui de ce constat, plusieurs explications ont été avancées, allant du climat chaud à une immunité acquise des épreuves sanitaires antérieures, en passant par des traitements miracles traditionnels. Dans leur ges ...

Analysts are trying to understand why the COVID-19 pandemic is progressing in Africa at a much slower rate than expected. According to one report, the continent had by the beginning of May seen 37,000 infection cases and 1600 fatalities, compared to the rest of the world, which has 3.2 million cases and 228,000 deaths1. Various explanations have been proffered to explain this disparity: Africa’s warm climate, the youthfulness of the continent’s population (60% of the population is u ...

Dans le domaine de la santé, des résultats importants ont été obtenus sur le continent africain comme le montrent les données récentes en termes d’espérance de vie et de la disponibilité des traitements contre les grandes causes de morbidité. Malgré cela, l’épisode récent de l’épidémie d’Ebola, qui a nécessité la mobilisation de moyens humains et financiers conséquents mais surtout de l’aide internationale, montre que les systèmes de santé restent vulnérables à des chocs de grande a ...

It is still too early to assess the extent of the Coronavirus pandemic in Africa, but everything seems to suggest that it will have a major impact on already vulnerable health systems – from prevention to the management of patients. Various forms of resilience are being tested with pejorative effects, especially against the very poor, who are less prepared to observe the protection measures and more exposed in their daily lives. However, lessons can be learned from past epidemic exp ...

In the field of health, important results have been achieved on the African continent as shown by recent data in terms of life expectancy and the availability of treatment for the major causes of morbidity. In spite of this, the recent episode of the Ebola epidemic, which required the mobilization of substantial human and financial resources, but above all international aid, shows that health systems remain vulnerable to major shocks. The current context of the Covid-19 pandemic poi ...

Data recently released on the first-quarter global domestic product (GDP) performance of major economies have showed how significant the impact of COVID-19 has been on economic activity and jobs, with large contractions across the board. The ongoing global recession is poised to be worse than the “great recession” after the 2008-09 global financial crisis, especially from the standpoint of emerging market and developing economies. The depth and speed of the GDP decline will rival th ...

They live in the shadow of death: the United States has 2,650 death-row inmates, 740 in California’s San Quentin State Prison alone. Today, these prisoners fear another executioner, the invisible COVID-19. The condemned on death row live in single cells, some having spent many decades in solitary confinement. The suicide rate is high, and many die of natural causes before their rendezvous with the special execution team. These prisoners hardly ever receive visitors, and for them th ...

Sweden is different. The nation of 10 million people has been a model of social democracy for decades. Its approach to government is modes compared to the United States, France of the United Kingdom. In Sweden, only the prime minister has been assigned a chauffeur-driven car. The foreign minister takes the bus or the metro, daily in touch with ordinary citizens. Members of parliament are assigned offices the size of a sparse room in a German refugee camp. The citizens of this natio ...

Les rumeurs autour de la pandémie Covid-19, partie de la Chine centrale en minovembre 2019, alimentent plusieurs fantasmes conspirationnistes. Il s’agit, notamment, d’hypothèse d’attaque biologique sur fond d’une guerre commerciale ou d’une fuite du pathogène SARS Co-V2 d’un programme biologique chinois. En marge de cette spirale, au demeurant spéculative, se réactualise le débat sur l’emploi des armes biologiques. En fait, plusieurs germes pathogènes d’origine naturelle, génétique ...