Post-pandemic recovery starts with a reassessment of the 2020-2023 response
Funding announcement for RECOVER19, a research project unlike other COVID-era science endeavours
In conjunction with the WHO’s declaration of the end of COVID-19 as a global health emergency ten days ago, Michael Ryan, the executive director of organization’s Health Emergencies Programme, was cited uttering “In most cases, pandemics truly end when the next pandemic begins”. A transparently self-serving prophecy, the statement makes no sense historically or operationally. Among adults, emergency management is usually classified into four phases: (1) prevention and mitigation, (2) preparedness, (3) response, and (4) recovery. In related news, Canada’s federal government has announced another significant investment into COVID-19 science — thankfully not into more vaccine confidence research or suppression of dissenting opinions, but, in an unexpected bout of foresight, the country supports post-pandemic recovery research.
The 2022 special call under the New Frontiers in Research Fund required proponents to address elements of the United Nations’ Research Roadmap for the COVID-19 Recovery. That document talks about social cohesion, community resilience, and trust in government, issues that are of great concern to COVID skeptics, if you read the words accordingly. So, drawing from a number of larger and smaller groups of like-minded academics, I pulled a group together to submit a notice-of-intent-to-apply in late April 2022 and a full proposal in early August, both titled “Transparency and shared responsibility for sustainable post-pandemic recovery and evidence-informed decision-making during future global emergencies”.
In January, we received the funding decision — $500,000 over two years to investigate Canada’s and the world’s pandemic response. Our premise is that an effective and sustainable recovery cannot be achieved without a comprehensive, unbiased assessment of what went wrong in the least three years. The grant has only recently been announced in public, using language from the project summary which can pass for a relatively unexciting, mainstream research endeavour (see also my university’s research news item). As we release more details about our plans and progress, it will become clear that we mean it when we call the project RECOVER19: “Re-Evaluating the Coronavirus Emergency Response”. The recover19.org project web site will become a hub to share project results.
Last week, we posted preliminary information about five case studies to be conducted for this research. The “pandemic report cards” will grade countries represented on the research team or through co-applicants’ expertise. We will take into account pre-existing guidelines around e.g. limited socio-economic disruption, respect for civil rights, and voluntary participation in medical and non-pharmaceutical interventions. Case studies related to equity and ethics, governance, and language will further probe the character of public health and media communications; reasonable and proportionate decision-making in public- and private-sector organizations; and the distribution of the burden of unintended impacts of government restrictions. Last but not least, another case study deals with the cardio-vascular outcomes of the pandemic, and the response. Here, we are particularly interested in estimating the benefits and risks of the mRNA vaccines for post-secondary students, as many of us have experienced the divisive impact of campus vaccination mandates on students, staff, and faculty.
The RECOVER19 research team comprises 38 independent researchers from Ontario, Canada, and around the globe who are all fundamentally critical of many aspects of the COVID-19 pandemic response of the last three years. We have also started hiring some excellent, equally critical talent. I am excited to work with this group over the next two years! In the short term, I hope to be able to share the team composition soon via the project web site. As another teaser for our upcoming work, I would like to share the reference list from the grant proposal (last updated early August 2022 before submission); it will give you an idea of the type of research we plan to extend and expand.
REFERENCE LIST FROM GRANT PROPOSAL (COLLECTED IN COLLABORATION WITH CO-APPLICANTS):
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