Medical Specialties Commons^™

Calculating Life And Death In A Time Of Covid, Larry Hirschhorn, Phd

School of Continuing and Professional Studies Coronavirus Papers

The current pandemic makes us feel helpless. We can respond to its predation pragmatically but its silent march through the population promotes dread. Our helplessness undermines our belief in our culture as the source of our self-esteem and felt significance. One response to our experience of helplessness is the omnipotent stance, the idea that we can master the virus, stop it in its tracks, command one another to comply with injunctions and wreak a path of destruction by devastating the economy. Omnipotence promotes magical thinking. In the service of defeating death, we ignore actual suffering; deaths of despair and deaths …

A Crisis Is A Terrible Thing To Waste: Recovering A Sense Of Agency In Coronavirus Times, Steven F. Freeman

School of Continuing and Professional Studies Coronavirus Papers

No abstract provided.

No Double Trouble: How To Reopen The Economy., Larry Hirschhorn, Phd

School of Continuing and Professional Studies Coronavirus Papers

This policy introduces a measure of choice, consonant with our culture. Those younger than 65 can make their own personal tradeoffs between heath and livelihood, while older people, knowing that the virus will be spreading more quickly through the population will be even more cautious, thus preventing their early deaths. We return decisions to people while ensuring that the sum total of decisions does not overwhelm our hospitals. One felicitous result of this policy is that the virus will spread more quickly through the healthier population. This means that when the elderly re-engage in social life they will encounter fewer …

Our Multi-Pandemic, Larry M. Starr

School of Continuing and Professional Studies Coronavirus Papers

Application of systems thinking to identify and understand complex problems and to discover innovative ways to intervene has been advocated separately within public health, education, finance, and many other spheres of society. We need it now for the multi-pandemic.

Systems View Of Coronavirus, Sung Won Paek, Larry M. Starr

School of Continuing and Professional Studies Coronavirus Papers

No one envisioned the kinds of problems that emerged from the novel coronavirus nor had anyone considered its interactive scope. Now is the time to begin to redesign our processes and systems so that when confronted again we can cope and navigate better. Everyone needs to be a partner in these redesigns and each of the health, social, educational, and other systems must be integrated because it is their interconnections that coproduce and give meaning to our lives.

Our Invisible Enemy, Larry M. Starr, Darshi Mody

School of Continuing and Professional Studies Coronavirus Papers

The novel coronavirus is invisible to the eye because it is microscopic measuring 80-160 nanometers in size; a nanometer is one billionth of a meter.

While we cannot see it in the air or on a surface, millions of us have seen the virus in full color when we discuss it on the local and national TV news, in articles and stories online, and in print media. This is because the virus is routinely pictured and used to attract us to the information being presented. The paradox is that millions of people can now recognize this invisible enemy.

Repeatedly presenting …

Our Wicked Problem, John Pourdehnad, Larry M. Starr, Venard Scott Koerwer, Harry Mccloskey

School of Continuing and Professional Studies Coronavirus Papers

The Coronavirus is more than a health problem. It is a “wicked” problem disrupting work, education, travel, politics, financial indicators, and more. This label came about in 1973 to help describe a special class of situations that are volatile, uncertain and ambiguous, often difficult to recognize, and difficult or impossible to solve because of incomplete, contradictory, and changing requirements. There is no clear problem definition due to interdependencies so the problem cannot be fully understood until after the solution comes about.

Pandemic Lockdown Must Fail: Save Lives Without Crippling The Economy, Larry Hirschhorn, Phd

School of Continuing and Professional Studies Coronavirus Papers

In the following working paper, I want to make a plea for what I am calling a “reverse quarantine”—quarantining people who are over 65 (who number 52 million), before they get sick. We need to complement this policy with federally funded and locally organized efforts to support seniors in place, drawing on the wellsprings of American pragmatism, the capacity to respond in emergencies, American volunteerism, and neighbor-to-neighbor assistance. We can’t turn quarantine into imprisonment. We must work as hard as we can to create a psychological sense of community at a moment when, paradoxically, social distancing is driving us apart. …

Disruptive Effects Of The Coronavirus – Errors Of Commission And Of Omission?, John Pourdehnad, Larry M. Starr, Venard Scott Koerwer, Harry Mccloskey

School of Continuing and Professional Studies Coronavirus Papers

It is increasingly evident that the coronavirus disease, COVID-19, is more than a health problem; it is and will continue to adversely affect work and workplaces, education, families and social engagements, political and environmental dimensions, and financial indicators. Apart from its health ramifications, the crisis is revealing serious challenges in the global supply chain. Those difficulties are, at least in part, consequences of unwise, short-sighted business decisions made over the course of decades to outsource and downsize.