COVID-19 and studying disasters in Singapore


Academic Views, Coronavirus

Lim Wee Kiat holds a PhD in Sociology, specialising in sociology of disaster, from University of Colorado Boulder, where he was a graduate research assistant at the Natural Hazards Center. His research interests lie at the intersection of risk, disaster, and organisation, investigating how organisations make sense of, prepare for, and respond to sociotechnical disruptions. […]

May 25, 2020

Does Singapore need mandatory contact tracing apps?


Academic Views, Coronavirus

Monamie Bhadra Haines (Assistant Professor in Sociology at NTU) and Hallam Stevens (Associate Professor of History at NTU and Associate Director (Academic) of the NTU Institute of Science and Technology for Humanity) argue against using mandatory contact tracing apps in the effort to prevent the spread of COVID-19. Many governments around the world are now […]

May 18, 2020

Understanding the spatialities of COVID-19


Academic Views, Coronavirus

Kamalini Ramdas and David Taylor of the Department of Geography at the National University of Singapore argue that pandemic response should include haptic as well as optic approaches to space—paying attention to how humans experience space, rather than taking only a ‘bird’s-eye’ view. Geographers have long been interested in how viruses and diseases travel, and […]

May 13, 2020

COVID-19 and social distancing: Impacts on youths, university and post-secondary students


Academic Views, Coronavirus

Andy Hau Yan Ho, Associate Professor of Psychology at Nanyang Technological University and Joint Honorary Associate Professor at the Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine, considers the impact of social distancing on the psychological well-being and development of youths in Singapore. One of the strongest measures put in place throughout the world to protect people […]

May 12, 2020

COVID-19 and mental health


Academic Views, Coronavirus

Jung Jong Hyun, assistant professor at NTU, has been researching social determinants of mental health, using the stress process model as a guiding framework. Here he examines how COVID-19 can undermine mental health and how we can cope with it. (Banner photo: Amanda Ho) Another month! After hearing about the Circuit Breaker extension, I wondered […]

April 25, 2020

Who are we trading off? Considerations for Singapore’s post-pandemic social compact


Academic Views, Coronavirus

Chong Ja Ian, Harvard-Yenching Institute Visiting Scholar 2019-2020, argues that the pandemic reveals the need for Singapore to reconsider how it makes decisions about national directions and policy trade-offs. (Banner photo credit: Sumita Thiagarajan) Singapore’s state-affiliated mainstream media has lately been publishing pieces relating to inequality. Undoubtedly, this has to do with the disproportionate economic […]

April 23, 2020

Voting in a time of coronavirus: Discretion, the better part of valor


Academic Views, Coronavirus

Chong Ja Ian, Harvard-Yenching Institute Visiting Scholar 2019-2020, discusses the risks—from both public health and other perspectives—of holding a General Election when COVID-19 remains at large. Without a doubt, Singapore is in an extraordinary situation. It faces an ongoing pandemic, as does much of the world. Beyond disease control, there will be the challenges of responding […]

March 21, 2020

Countering the coronavirus: Transparency, capacity and community matter more than regime type


Academic Views, Coronavirus

Chong Ja Ian, Harvard-Yenching Institute Visiting Scholar 2019-2020, discusses claims that authoritarian political systems are better able to handle the COVID-19 crisis than are more open ones. Currently making mainstream and social media rounds are claims that authoritarian systems or places with supposed “Confucian values” are better than more open political systems at handling public […]

March 17, 2020

COVID-19 — It’s the economy


Academic Views, Coronavirus

Linda Lim, Professor Emerita at the Stephen M. Ross School of Business, considers some of the economic implications of the COVID-19 pandemic for Singapore and the world. The ongoing rout on global stock markets is driven by uncertainty about the path that COVID-19 will take.  There is fear that even if its health consequences turn […]

March 15, 2020