A&S scholars sharing their COVID-19 expertise in the media this week

May 8, 2020 by Sean Bettam - A&S News

As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to affect our community and the world, scholars from a range of disciplines across the Faculty of Arts & Science are sharing their expertise on pressing issues in the media — from the mental and physical effects of social isolation to teaching students about the history of past pandemics.

Here’s some of what A&S scholars had to say this week.

May 7, 2020

  • Political Science professor Ron Deibert, director of The Citizen Lab at the Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy, remarked in a Wall Street Journal story on new research that revealed how international usage of the social networking app ‘WeChat’ has likely helped the Chinese company censor its users inside China. Deibert says that people overseas might be “misled into believing what we call the 'one app, two systems' approach, that they're somehow immune from China's information controls.”

May 6, 2020

  • Professor Marcel Danesi in the Department of Anthropology commented in the Toronto Star (paywall) on the growing interest among millennials in so-called ‘old-time’ hobbies such as stamp collecting, jigsaw puzzles and knitting. “Having played with virtual objects all their lives, young people today may be experiencing the need to grasp, literally, real physical objects,” Danesi explains. “Puzzles engage and challenge you so much, that the feelings of becoming stir crazy or wanting to go out kind of recede into the background.”
  • Rafael Gomez, associate professor and director of the Centre for Industrial Relations & Human Resources, provides perspective on Canada’s unemployment statistics on Toronto radio’s Newstalk 1010. He says the unemployment rate is not a good indicator, because while it asks whether people are looking for work, many people affected by COVID-19 won't be — since they are furloughed and expect to have a job to go back to. However, a drop in customer demand — because people have found new ways of shopping or are nervous about being in public — could mean some may no longer have jobs to go return to at all.

May 5, 2020

  • Lynette Ong, an associate professor in the Department of Political Science and the Asian Institute at the Munk School, discusses the extent of Canada’s reliance on China in the acquisition of personal protective equipment (PPE) in a CBC News story. Ong agreed that the PPE market is very complicated and requires great due diligence and said that the chief difficulty “is sorting out the good and the bad apples.”
  • Ong also spoke with The Current on CBC Radio about growing criticism of China’s handling of the early days of COVID-19, and the calls for greater transparency about the virus’s origins. She said, “there needs to be transparency in knowing where the outbreak occurred, but I also agree that the resources should be put to fighting the virus. But that doesn’t rule out a collective investigation down the road.”

May 4, 2020

  • Marcel Danesi also explains why solving puzzles are so satisfying, especially during a quarantine, in a Washington Post (paywall) story. “Puzzles give psychological order to the chaos we feel,” Danesi says. “When you come out of it, when you've solved the puzzle, then life seems to work better.”

May 2, 2020

  • John Scott-Railton, senior researcher with The Citizen Lab at the Munk School, spoke to the Washington Post (paywall) about growing public tolerance around government surveillance of mobile phones, suggesting that the pandemic has all but silenced the debate about encroachments on privacy by corporations. “People are anxious. They are worried. They want to go back to normal, to handle doorknobs, to online date,” he said. “We are looking to anyone who is pitching hope."
  • In a London Free Press story speculating on what various aspects of life might be like in the southwestern Ontario city after lockdown restrictions are eased, Nelson Wiseman of Political Science offered predictions about how strategies may be applied in school classrooms. “Canada will probably adopt what has worked best elsewhere,” said Wiseman.
  • A CTV National News story profiled the contact tracing app ‘MyTrace,’ the development of which was led by Professor Alan Aspuru-Guzik in the Departments of Chemistry and Computer Science. “You feel like you’re doing something great for the country,” Aspuru-Guzik says about using the app.
  • Shauna Brail, associate professor and director of the Urban Studies program at Innis College, provided perspective on how more people are wearing face masks in public in NOW Magazine, and how cultural norms shift in urban environments.
  • Christopher Parsons, a senior researcher associate with The Citizen Lab at the Munk School, spoke about privacy concerns surrounding COVID-19 contact tracing apps in a CTV News story. “When we develop these sorts of tools or applications, we’re entering into a totally new class or form of surveillance,” said Parsons. Parsons’ comments also appeared in the Toronto Star, the National Post and the Ottawa Citizen, among many other outlets.

May 1, 2020

  • Professor Ito Peng at the Department of Sociology and the Munk School, shared insights in a Toronto Star (paywall) story about how the COVID-19 pandemic has drawn significant attention to the working conditions of personal support workers. “Long-term care is the next frontier of our social and healthcare system,” Peng says. “COVID-19 is really forcing us to think about that now.”
  • Cinema Studies Institute director James Leo Cahill provided alternatives to going to the movies now that theatres are closed for cineplex.com readers. “Movies are offering a way out of our confinement. The ability to travel and to see people in proximity to each other is in itself a kind of salve and a compensation for the primary things we’re missing,” says Cahill. “When the 24-hour news cycle and the distressing unknowns of the COVID-19 pandemic are totally beyond our control, selecting a movie and letting the story take us elsewhere for a few hours is a real gift.”
  • University Professor Mark Lautens of the Department of Chemistry wrote an op-ed in the Globe and Mail (paywall) on how the pandemic is shedding light on the process of scientific discovery. Lautens suggests that “the apparent slow pace of science and sometimes contradictory messaging is likely infuriating” to a public hungry for quick and accurate information about responding to COVID-19. He offers that pulling back the curtain on just how scientific discovery happens can demonstrate its value and reveal the challenges to be faced.

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