Reflections on the impact of coronavirus on public affairs

摘要

As the editorial team considered how we might best mark the 20th anniversary year of the publication of the and reflected on what significant developments have occurred in the world of public affairs over the past two decades, none of us around that table could have possibly imagined how the world of politics and society as a whole could and would change in just a few short months. Yes, we all witnessed the horrible effects of Ebola in Africa and of SARS in the Far East and in the United Kingdom we experienced the nationwide lockdown of countryside during the infamous foot and mouth disease that ravaged the countryside in 2001. However, devastating each of these disease outbreaks that we might think of as contagions have been, none can really compare or have prepared us fully for a the rapidity and impact that the recent coronavirus pandemic has had across the world, not only in terms of the scale of the infection rising death rate, but in the profound impact it has had on the economy and on people's lives and livelihoods. Moreover, at the time of assembling this issue of the , we are perhaps still on the edge of what could be a major economic abyss with rising unemployment worldwide, vastly disrupted supply chains and sectors such as aviation, tourism and leisure, and retail to name but three, virtually brought to a standstill. As we approach the end of May 2020, just over 5 million cases of coronavirus been officially reported worldwide with over 328,000 deaths attributed to the disease. However, these global statistics tend to cloak wide variations in the reported incidents of and deaths attributed to coronavirus across the world which do not simply represent differences in population size, but appear to some extent, to reflect the relative effectiveness of individual governmental responses to the virus. Inevitably, in those countries worst affected by the virus, which includes United Kingdom, a battle is already emerging between political parties over who is to blame for the failure to get to grips with suppressing the virus more quickly than has been the case. In the United Kingdom for example, opposition parties and the media focused on the shortage of personal protective equipment (PPE) and the shortcomings of the virus testing system not only for NHS workers and patients, but particularly for care workers and care homes dealing with the elderly, where the virus has had a devastating effect. Although reported new cases of the virus, hospital admissions, and deaths attributed to the virus have begun to plateau in many of the countries worst affected such as Italy, France, Spain and the United Kingdom, the spectre of a second wave of outbreaks is forcing authorities in all these countries to only cautiously lift the stringent lockdown measures that have had such a devastating impact on each country's economy.