Best of the week - 1 May 2020
Each week BISA Director, Juliet Dryden, scours the internet for COVID-19 content that might interest you. Here she brings you this week's best podcasts and readings. She finishes with 'In other news', giving you a moment's break from the pandemic.
Podcasts
- In a Talking Politics podcast Economist Diane Coyle talks about the long-term consequences of lockdown, for the economy, for society and for our wellbeing. How can we measure the costs? Who might be the biggest losers? And what will it mean for the structure our economies in future?
- St Antony’s College, Oxford brings us a new series called Look At the World Podcasts. This week features Professor Thomas Hale talks us through his pioneering Oxford COVID-19 Government Response Tracker and the lessons for public policy and global governance.
- Listen to Neil Ferguson on Unherd defend the lockdown strategy.
- David Miliband, Head of the International Rescue Committee, talks about the impact of the pandemic on the world's poorest countries.
- Corona Wars: will Trump or Xi win? The geopolitics of coronavirus. Listen to the Edition with Niall Ferguson, Gerard Baker, James Forsyth, Jeremy Hunt, Melanie McDonagh and Freddy Gray.
- A Glut in Oil from the Daily/New York Times podcasts. Last week the cost of a barrel of oil dropped into the negatives. What happened? And what does it reveal about the state of the economy? Clifford Krauss, an energy correspondent for The Times based in Houston discusses these questions, and looks into how the pandemic is affecting the oil industry.
- Feeling confused by all the data and metrics around the coronavirus? Intelligence Squared brings us Coronavirus and the Stats. Britain’s most eminent statistician David Spiegelhalter, biometrics expert Sheila Bird, and the American scientist John Ioannidis, are in conversation with Anne McElvoy of The Economist.
- Donald G. McNeil Jr, New York Times health and science reporter looks at what the United States can learn from China’s domestic handling of the pandemic on NPR's Fresh Air.
Readings
- Caroline Kitchener for The Lily looks at why women academics are submitting fewer papers during the pandemic.
- Are female leaders more successful at managing the coronavirus crisis?
- The Guardian looks at the struggle the UK’s universities are facing to move online.
- Anthony Costello asks why the government's secret science group has a shocking lack of expertise.
- Carl Bergstrom argues there is no absolute truth when it comes to the pandemic.
- The Economist - How have previous contagions changed cities?
- Also in The Economist: Time to think small: UK universities worry about the future.
- Andrew Higgins in the New York Times asks where Putin has gone?
- Ed Yong for The Atlantic explains why the virus is so confusing.
- David Spiegelhalter examines how Britain compares to other countries for coronavirus deaths.
In Other News
Demography - Listen to Exponential View’s Lessons for an Aging World. For the first time in history, there are more people on the planet over 65 years old, than under five. How do we adapt to this demographic transformation? Camilla Cavendish, award-winning journalist and former Director of Public Policy for UK Prime Minister David Cameron, discuses with Azeem Azhar
Brexit - Stephen Castle and Mark Landler look at the UK and its exit plans.
Middle East - What’s going on in Lebanon? and Why is Iran hauling gold bars out of Venezuela’s almost empty vaults?
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