The first of April and who was laughing?
April fool anyone? Or perhaps an April fish? Not in the mood? No, me neither. Although my younger daughter cling-filmed the toilet bowl and salted her mother’s morning cup of tea. My age-dulled palate barely registered the salt, and an...
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Internally displaced peoples and COVID-19
Africa’s largest city, Lagos, home for more than 20 million people is as a quiet as never before. As with many other cities in the world, Nigeria’s economic capital, on the 31th of March entered a two-week lockdown to prevent...
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COVID: A rural perspective
How do we live today in the age of COVID? One answer is that, of course, there is no “we,” other than for our leaders who proclaim that “we will beat it together” and who misguidedly believe that “we can...
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In lockdown with depression
let’s not pass the buck onto families in the aftermath of COVID-19 Commentators are beginning to suggest that in the aftermath of COVID-19, we face a pandemic of mental illness. Countering this call to arms for psychiatry, others have emphasised...
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We need rest, not reflection: psychological support for the medical frontline
The covid-19 pandemic is likely to put healthcare professionals across the world in an unprecedented situation, having to make impossible decisions and work under extreme pressures. These decisions may include how to allocate scant resources to equally needy patients, how...
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Reasonable adjustments: work in the time of corona
Our universities have shut, and we do not know for how long. Many of us are adjusting to working remotely. The global pandemic of coronavirus is changing the way we interact socially, and changing the way we work. While employers...
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Diary of a cough: meaning matters
I’ve had a cough for all of the year 2020. It started on January 1st, after sharing Christmas meals and their preparation with an explosively sneezing brother. In my family, we like to blame our infections on a particular person,...
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Coronavirus: how the current number of people dying in the UK compares to the past decade
The speed of the global spread of coronavirus is staggering. On March 5, Chris Whitty, the UK’s chief medical adviser, announced the death, in Berkshire, of the first UK patient to have tested positive for COVID-19, the disease associated with...
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Sociology in Action: The unfolding COVID crisis
The scale and rapidity of the global, national and local responses to the impact of COVID are daunting, making it risky to comment in real-time. It is difficult to grasp all the fast-moving implications for societies as the crisis develops....
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COVID-19 Gallery
As countries around the world go into lockdown because of COVID-19, we are devoting this weeks gallery to the ongoing crisis. This health crisis should, and will, have a massive effect on the future of the sociology of health and...
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University strikes: why they’re happening and what you need to know
The current 14 days of strike action follow eight days of strike action by academics in November and December 2019. After that, industrial action will continue with academics working to contract – this means they will be unable to cover for...
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What’s missing from the UK COVID response? Clear communication