As many state of emergency declarations during first pandemic wave as in preceding decade
2021-06-22
(Press-News.org) In 2020, as many states of emergency were declared around the world during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic as there were in the entire previous decade. The influence of neighbouring countries on each other, weak democracies and poor pandemic preparedness are some of the explanations, according to research from the University of Gothenburg and Stockholm University.
A state of emergency is a situation in which a country's ordinary laws and rights are suspended and authorities are given increased powers. A state of emergency is declared by the government of a country, often as a result of war, civil unrest or natural disasters. The introduction of a curfew is a common measure in a state of emergency.
Previous research has explained why countries declare a state of emergency. However, for the first time, researchers have now focused on the states of emergency declared in connection with the COVID-19 pandemic that swept the world in the spring and summer of 2020.
Approximately half of the world's countries declared some form of state of emergency for brief or extended periods.
"The total number of states of emergency in the first half of 2020 is comparable to the total number of states of emergency declared between 2010 and 2019, so it is a big number. The areas that stand out are Latin America, Southern Europe and parts of Africa, which had a particularly large share of these states of emergency," says Magnus Lundgren, senior lecturer in political science.
Together with his research colleagues at Stockholm University, he has studied which factors made it more or less likely for a country to declare a state of emergency during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. The results are based on a statistical survey of 180 countries in the period from January to June 2020.
"We identified three main patterns relating to the influence of neighbouring countries, the degree of democracy and pandemic preparedness."
Firstly, it was more likely for countries to declare a state of emergency if other countries in the same region had already done so. Secondly, states of emergency were more common among countries with weak democratic systems, compared with countries with strong democratic systems and countries with non-democratic systems. Finally, countries with stronger pandemic preparedness were less prone to declaring a state of emergency.
The pandemic has put considerable pressure on society and governments have opted for various measures. A state of emergency can provide governments with greater opportunities to fight a pandemic, however, they often lead to significant curtailment of civil liberties.
"Our research can help us to understand how different countries have tried to stop the pandemic. Although not the subject of direct analysis in our study, the results can potentially help us understand whether and to what extent a state of emergency has been abused by governments to promote political goals that have nothing to do with the pandemic," says Mark Klamberg, professor of international law at Stockholm University.
INFORMATION:
Contact:
Magnus Lundgren, political scientist at the University of Gothenburg, phone: +46(0)72-443 1608, e-mail: magnus.lundgren@gu.se
Mark Klamberg, professor of international law at Stockholm University, phone: +46(0)70-629 2957, e-mail: mark.klamberg@juridicum.su.se
Further information
The study has been published in the Nordic Journal of Human Rights:
Emergency Powers in Response to COVID-19: Policy Diffusion, Democracy, and Preparedness https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/18918131.2021.1899406
ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:
2021-06-22
Protected Satellite Communications (SatComs) exhibit specific characteristics such as security, intelligence, anti-jamming, and nuclear disaster survivability. They constitute one of the key research topics in modern communications. Currently, the United States is using the latest Advanced Extremely High-Frequency (AEHF) system to provide protected communications. Other countries are also employing their own protected SatCom systems to meet future operational requirements. Furthermore, in the modern intelligent age, many intelligent-related technologies are introduced into the protected SatCom ...
2021-06-22
New York, NY (June 22, 2021) - A new class of drugs that inhibits a "master switch" involved in the vast majority of cases of mantle cell lymphoma (MCL), a fatal subtype of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, has been discovered by researchers at Mount Sinai.
In a study in Clinical Cancer Research published in June, the team reported that the drugs, known as small-molecule inhibitors of the SOX 11 oncogene, are toxic to MCL tumor development in human cells studied outside the body. If the effect is replicated in living patients, the discovery could lead to new therapies for a disease that is highly resistant to existing treatments.
"The SOX 11 protein, which is expressed in up to 90 percent of mantle cell lymphoma patients, is an attractive target for therapy," said senior author Samir Parekh, MD, ...
2021-06-22
CHAPEL HILL, N.C. - Scientists at the University of North Carolina Gillings School of Global Public Health have developed a universal vaccine that protected mice not just against COVID-19 but also other coronaviruses and triggered the immune system to fight off a dangerous variant.
While no one knows which virus may cause the next outbreak, coronaviruses remain a threat after causing the SARS outbreak in 2003 and the global COVID-19 pandemic.
To prevent a future coronavirus pandemic, UNC-Chapel Hill researchers designed the vaccine to provide protection from the current SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus and a group of coronaviruses known to make the jump from animals to humans.
The findings were published ...
2021-06-22
As many as 16.8 million Americans had undiagnosed SARS-CoV-2 infections - 5 times the rate of diagnosed infections - by the end of July of 2020, according to an analysis of antibodies from more than 8,000 previously undiagnosed adults collected during the pandemic's first wave. The authors calculated that almost 5% of the undiagnosed U.S. population harbored SARS-CoV-2 antibodies, with the highest positivity rates among African Americans, those under the age of 45, urban dwellers, and women. The results suggest a larger spread of COVID-19 in the U.S. than originally suspected in previous reports. SARS-CoV-2 can stealthily cause asymptomatic ...
2021-06-22
The rapid development of safe and efficacious vaccines against SARS-CoV-2 has offered hope that the global COVID-19 pandemic may soon be under control. However, vaccinations remain incomplete in many developed nations, and lag further still in the developing world. In a new Focus, Jonathan Sprent and Cecile King posit that vaccine hesitancy, motivated in part by fear of side effects documented in scientific journals and the popular media, could hold back the global population from reaching herd immunity. Seeking to reassure those with reservations, Sprent and King suggest that "it is highly likely ...
2021-06-22
Osaka, Japan - As far back as 1959, brewers at Guinness developed a system that fundamentally altered the texture of their draught beer. Now, researchers from Japan have solved the physics of Guinness' cascading flow, which will have widespread applications to technology in life and environmental sciences.
In a study recently published in Physical Review E, researchers from Osaka University have revealed why the nitrogen bubbles of Guinness draught beer flow similarly to a fluid.
The bubbles of many just-opened carbonated beverages simply move upwards, following Archimedes' principle. Much of the appeal of the draught from Guinness beer is that the bubbles sink and flow collectively, known as "bubble cascade." ...
2021-06-22
In Finland, every fifth mother was diagnosed with gestational diabetes in 2019. The condition increases the mother's risk of developing type 2 diabetes in the future. However, the most significant consequence of gestational diabetes is fetal macrosomia, or excessive growth of the fetus. Macrosomia increases birth injuries for both the child and the mother, causes fetal hypoxia, that is, a lack of oxygen in the fetus, and increases labour-related complications for the newborn.
A research group active at the University of Helsinki and Helsinki University Hospital demonstrated that the mother's gestational diabetes ...
2021-06-22
In a world-first, a Kobe University research group led by Associate Professor FUKAYAMA Hiroshi of the Graduate School of Agricultural Science has used rice to successfully illuminate the mechanism by which plants regulate the amount of starch produced via photosynthesis. This knowledge could contribute towards improving the quality and yield of agricultural crops.
These research results were published in the international scientific journal Plant, Cell & Environment on May 14, 2021.
Main Points
Plants convert carbon dioxide (CO2) into organic substances ...
2021-06-22
Without an audience, men run slower and women faster: The lack of spectators during the coronavirus pandemic appears to have had a noticeable effect on the performance of athletes at the 2020 Biathlon World Cup, a new study by Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg (MLU) in Psychology of Sport and Exercise shows. According to the new analysis, women also performed better in complex tasks, such as shooting, when an audience was present while men did not.
Social facilitation theory states that a person's performance is impacted if other people watch them. The mere presence of an audience improves the performance of simple tasks, especially those that require stamina. "The studies have been relatively clear so far, but the results are more heterogeneous when it comes to more complex ...
2021-06-22
Increased risk of cancer due to a genetic predisposition in first- and second-degree relatives is long-established but has previously only been studied in white or European populations.
Now, a new study published in eLife is the first to demonstrate that the inherited risk of early-onset cancer is significantly higher among Latino and African American families for solid tumors, and Asian/Pacific Islander families for blood-based cancers, compared to non-Latino white families in California.
"Cancer clustering within families, meaning the devastating diagnosis of more than one early-onset cancer within the same family, usually points ...
LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES:
[Press-News.org] As many state of emergency declarations during first pandemic wave as in preceding decade
