Covid reflections: a reader

Bates, David ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5440-6039 , Ashton, John, Morgan, Laura, Rae, Maggie, Shircore, Richard, Stainton, Iain and Wylie, Ann (2025) Covid reflections: a reader. self-published. (Unpublished)

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Abstract

This is a collection of personal and professional reflective experiences shaped by the Covid crisis from across the UK public health community, curated and edited by Royal Society for Public Health colleagues Colonel David Bates and Richard Shircore (David also leads the context discussion).

This Reader consists of seven independent papers reflecting on the Covid Pandemic from March 2020 to October 2022. Its development has been prompted by the Hallet Enquiry (sic) into the crisis created by the event that continues to shape socioeconomic and political conditions in the UK and globally which continue to severely weaken human security. The team felt that although the strategic response to the pandemic was being considered in detail no strategy can be formulated without understanding how it impacts on the field workers, planning staffs and the public. This Reader seeks to redress this knowledge deficit. The Editors used their personal contacts and social media to request contributions starting in October 2023 and are very grateful for the frank and fulsome response of contributors. Apart from editing some sections, for clarity and focus, the Editors have not attempted to influence any of the content, hence each paper appears unique in the author’s original style including typography. This provides a strong ethnographic message that this is about individual understanding turned into intelligent discourse through personal reflection. Each author was invited to reflect on the issues following their professional or clinical experience of ‘Covid’ that impacted on their responsibilities and areas of influence in order to address the challenge of how pandemics and epidemics could or should be managed better. A common theme is that both prevention and management of pandemics are significantly enhanced by political and health policy adhering to the key elements of the Ottawa Charter which has health security at its core. The authors were therefore specifically requested to focus on their reflections with a view to gathering their qualitative opinions based on their expertise rather than crafting an academic paper for peer review with references. This collection may serve as the framework for a formal paper in due course, with the benefit of a ‘Reader’ keeping the Contributors free from Editorial direction.

Authors and contributions:
Colonel David Bates ARRC - Global Health Security in the Age of CoViD -19;
Professor John Ashton CBE - The Diary of a Plague;
Major (Retired) Laura Morgan RAMC - The Civil-Military Perspective;
Professor Maggie Rae CBE - Covid Reflections;
Richard Shircore MSc FRSPH - An Alternative to Lockdown? Try a Different Paradigm;
Iain Stainton, University of Cumbria Lecturer - Policing Covid;
Ann Wylie FRSPH - Revising Health promotion courses linked to reflections from Covid-19.

Item Type:	Book
Publisher:	self-published
Departments:	Institute of Health > Psychology and Psychological Therapies
Additional Information:	Colonel David Bates, Disaster, Humanitarian and Crisis Response Program Leader, University of Cumbria, UK.
Depositing User:	Anna Lupton
Date Deposited:	14 Mar 2025 13:13
Last Modified:	15 Mar 2025 08:00
URI:	https://insight.cumbria.ac.uk/id/eprint/8705

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