Illustration by Janet Mac, Updated 16:44, Dec. 16, 2020 | Published 14:14, Dec. 16, 2020
The desk was tiny, wooden, and had no legs it was meant to be screwed into a corner. When I was done using it, I could fold it flat against my bedroom wall and hide it behind my full-length mirror. In my ecstatic state buying it online, I may have even called it beautiful.
It was only the end of March and, a few weeks in, the pandemic already felt interminable. My partner and I were both working from the one-bedroom apartment we rent in Vancouver I as a graduate student and teaching assistant, he as a journalist. I hadn’t opened a book or touched my thesis in weeks. I needed the proverbial room of one’s own, one with a door silencing my partner’s eating sounds and diaphragmatic work voice. I thought the desk would be my ticket back to normalcy via productivity.
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The pandemic has impacted farmers, children, plant workers and even office workers in unique ways that go beyond physical illness. Several studies that explore these individualized effects will be presented during the Individual Impacts of Global Pandemic Risks session and the COVID-19: Risk Communication and Social Dynamics of Transmission and Vulnerability symposia, both from 2:30-4:00 p.m. ET on December 15, at the 2020 Society for Risk Analysis virtual Annual Meeting, December 13-17, 2020.
The COVID-19 pandemic affected workers in our nation s meat-packing plants disproportionately, especially in the early months. In April 2020, meatpacking facilities were deemed an essential business and forced to remain open, but many meatpacking workers have fallen ill from COVID-19 as a result of hours spent in high-risk facilities, leading to plant closures that have caused economic problems for livestock producers, meat processors, grocery stores, and consumers.
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The COVID-19 pandemic in the U.S. has been characterized by rapidly changing information, a high degree of uncertainty, and conflicting information about transmission, vulnerability and mitigation methods. Several studies focused on public perceptions of the pandemic and the impact of media will be presented during two sessions on December 15, from 2:30-4:00 during the Society for Risk Analysis virtual Annual Meeting, December 13-17, 2020.
In the first of a pair of studies on public attitudes about the pandemic, Zhuling Liu, University at Buffalo, examined Americans support for various measures such as stay-at-home orders and the temporary closure of nonessential businesses. The study, Public support for COVID-19 responses: Cultural cognition, risk perception, and emotions, focused on three factors: cultural cognition, emotions (such as fear and anger) and risk perception.