scholarly journals Uncertainty in Health Emergencies: Communicating Risks During COVID-19 Response

2022 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
Author(s):  
Silvia Logar ◽  
Rym Bednarova ◽  
Alessandro Rizzardo ◽  
Luca Miceli

The world’s fragmented response to the COVID-19 pandemic created fertile ground for mixed messages and inconsistency. The authors analyzed Google-trending insights from five countries (Italy, Spain, the United States, the United Kingdom, and France) across three-week time (1–23 March 2020) to document trends in population health anxiety in response to the initial global spreading of the outbreak. The results are expressed in the form of Uncertainty Index (UI), which reflects the total number of Google searches/COVID-19 prevalence and standardized per million inhabitants. The United Kingdom experienced the highest level of health anxiety (UI = 11.5), followed by France (UI = 4.6) and Spain (UI = 3.2). The United States suffered the highest rate of uncertainty in the early stage of the pandemic; the Italian population experienced a balanced level of anxiety. Institutionalizing risk communication during COVID-19 should represent an integral part of the country emergency response.

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-24
Author(s):  
Rehana Cassim

Abstract Section 162 of the South African Companies Act 71 of 2008 empowers courts to declare directors delinquent and hence to disqualify them from office. This article compares the judicial disqualification of directors under this section with the equivalent provisions in the United Kingdom, Australia and the United States of America, which have all influenced the South African act. The article compares the classes of persons who have locus standi to apply to court to disqualify a director from holding office, as well as the grounds for the judicial disqualification of a director, the duration of the disqualification, the application of a prescription period and the discretion conferred on courts to disqualify directors from office. It contends that, in empowering courts to disqualify directors from holding office, section 162 of the South African Companies Act goes too far in certain respects.


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