Last month The Manchester Briefing brought together and summarised many of the think pieces and case studies for recovery and renewal that it has covered since the COVID-19 crisis first began.
This month the Briefing, which is put together by Alliance Manchester Business School and the Humanitarian and Conflict Response Institute, collates and summarises the remainder of the articles it has explored across a range of themes including governance, communities, health and economics, as well as providing links to those articles which cut across numerous themes.
Governance
For instance, under the governance theme one article explores how COVID-19 has prompted consideration of what national and local renewal of systems to develop resilience to crises and major emergencies could look like. Meanwhile another article provides examples of first responder adaption during COVID-19 to demonstrate how frontline services have modified and flexed their operations to help tackle the crisis.
Another case study looks at key considerations for local governments when managing wide-ranging change, such as that induced by complex, rapid and uncertain events like COVID-19. Identifying and understanding the types of change and the extent to which change can be proactive rather than reactive, can help to support the development of resilience in local authorities and their communities.
Another article looks at the pace at which some organisations and individuals have been moving during the COVID-19 pandemic with many in prolonged crisis mode, while another study outlines the NSCR+, a recently launched partnership which endeavours to renew approaches to local resilience.
Communities
Under the communities theme, one article looks at how to establish community resilience as a new local and national resilience capability. The report says this is a major opportunity for us to renew our local resilience by continuing the community action built during the pandemic.
Another report explores the unequal impacts of the pandemic, as set out in the Health Foundation’s COVID-19 report: ‘Unequal pandemic, fairer recovery: The COVID-19 impact inquiry report’. It argues that an alternative vision for recovery and renewal could be to ‘Build Forward Fairer’ which may put the much-needed priority of equality at the heart of renewal and transformation in the aftermath of the crisis.
Health
One of the reports under the health theme looks at the potential causes of vaccine hesitancy, which has been found to relate to the public perception of risk and risk events which cause fear or mistrust amongst the public, and explores strategies to address this hesitancy. Another case study explores good practice in managing logistics, addressing vaccine hesitancy and supporting accessibility in the UK’s vaccine roll out at local levels.
Vaccine passports also come under discussion with a report produced by the Ada Lovelace Institute which strives to support governments and developers to work through the important evidence available, understand the design choices and societal impacts, and assess whether a roll-out of vaccine passports could navigate risks to play a socially beneficial role.
Meanwhile, a multi-theme case study details the key messages from the UK’s Integrated Review relative to local and national resilience. It identifies how this review has shone a new light on community resilience in the UK and, potentially, could lead to moves to further enhance the local resilience capabilities that have been so active and effective during COVID-19.
Download this week's Manchester Briefing on COVID-19 (issue 45).
If you would like to contribute your knowledge to the Briefing contact Duncan.Shaw-2@manchester.ac.uk.
