The Impact of Travelling On The COVID–19 Infection Cases in Germany

Background COVID–19 continues to disrupt social lives and the economy of many countries and challenges their healthcare capacities. InGermany, the number of cases increased exponentially in early March 2020. As a political reaction, social restrictions wereimposed by closing e.g. schools, shops, cafés and restaurants, as well as borders for travellers. This reaped success as theinfection rate descended significantly in early April. In mid July, however, the numbers started to rise again. Of particularreasons was that from 15 June onwards, the travel ban has widely been cancelled or at least loosened. Methods Here, we present an extended susceptible–exposed–infected–recovered–deceased (SEIRD) model to describe the diseasedynamics in Germany, taking into account German travellers which returned infected from abroad. Epidemiological parameterslike transmission rate, lethality or detection rate of infected individuals, as well as a rate measuring the impact of these travellers,were estimated by fitting the model output to available data. Parameter estimation was performed via Bayesian inference withthe aid of the Monte–Carlo–based Metropolis algorithm. Results We found that travellers had a strong impact on the overall infection cases. Until the end of August, roughly 50,000 casesdirectly or indirectly related to travellers were estimated. These obviously caused even higher infection cases later on, whichamong other causes lead to a second wave of infection cases in late 2020. Conclusions We conclude that travel restrictions are an important tool for controlling infection cases during pandemics which can still havean impact on the upcoming summer in case the currently high vaccination rates can not prevent further infection waves.

The Impact of Travelling on the COVID–19 Infection Cases in Germany

COVID–19 continues to disrupt social lives and the economy of many countries and challenges their healthcare capacities. In Germany, the number of cases increased exponentially in early March 2020. As a political reaction, social restrictions were imposed by closing e.g. schools, shops, cafés and restaurants, as well as borders for travellers. This reaped success as the infection rate descended significantly in early April. In mid July, however, the numbers started to rise again. Of particular reasons was that from 15 June onwards, the travel ban has widely been cancelled or at least loosened. Here, we present an extended susceptible–exposed–infected–recovered–deceased (SEIRD) model to describe the disease dynamics in Germany, taking into account German travellers which returned infected from abroad. Epidemiological parameters like transmission rate, lethality or detection rate of infected individuals, as well as a rate measuring the impact of these travellers, were estimated by fitting the model output to available data. Parameter estimation was performed via Bayesian inference with the aid of the Monte–Carlo–based Metropolis algorithm. We found that travellers had a strong impact on the overall infection cases. Until the end of August, roughly 50,000 cases directly or indirectly related to travellers were estimated. These obviously caused even higher infection cases later on, which among other causes lead to a second wave of infection cases in late 2020. We conclude that travel restrictions are an important tool for controlling infection cases during pandemics which can still have an impact on the upcoming summer in case the currently high vaccination rates can not prevent further infection waves.

Historical geography I: Doom, danger, disregard – Towards political historical geographies

‘Doom’, ‘danger’ and ‘disregard’ are palpable sentiments in recent writing by historical geographers and give the subfield some decidedly political intonations. These three words have diverse, disquieting and expectant connotations and are tracked in this report through clusters of research on colonialism, racism, decolonisation, climate change, Earth history and political reaction and populism. This range of historical work within geography provokes more general questions about how the discipline, generally, sees itself today and at a time of profound uncertainty about the meaning and direction of history. At this time, it is easy to be despondent but vital to hope and work for change.

Марк Лилла: Либеральный консерватор против реакции

Book review: Mark Lilla. The Shipwrecked Mind. On Political Reaction. NY: New York Review of Books, 2016, 168 p. ISBN: 9781590179024

The Desperation of the Military's Economists: Advertising as a Way to Fight Inflation in 1970s Brazil

This article describes the Brazilian civil–military dictatorship's anti-inflation advertising campaigns in 1973 and 1977. It shows how Finance Ministers Antônio Delfim Netto and Mário Henrique Simonsen used advertising as a substitute for economic policy. It argues that they turned to advertising to divert attention from their own policy failures by blaming urban women, small shopkeepers and consumers for the growing inflation problem. This article details the background of the campaigns and examines the advertisements, especially their use of normative gender ideologies. By reference to newspapers and political speeches, it also documents the social and political reaction to the campaigns.

REVISION OF NEO-MARXISM: THE CONCEPT OF CAPITALIST STABILITY AS EXEMPLIFIED BY THE "OCCUPY WALL STREET" MOVEMENT

The article substantiates the author's concept of "nonlinear politics of capitalism" as a political-procedural disclosure of the neo-Marxist concept of "unstable stability of global capitalism". The method of justification is the verification of the concept of "nonlinear politics of capitalism" by the empirical material of the anti-globalist protest movement "Occupy Wall Street". The essence of the concept of the "nonlinear politics of capitalism" is that the modern political order of Western states not only opposes alternative ideologies and political practices, but also uses them as a way of its own legitimization and stabilization. The study reveals that in the modern Western capitalist order there is a mystification of capitalism in the multidimensional spectrum of social conflict, where the class contradiction appears as an archaism. There is a reinforcement of anti-capitalist resistance within a model in which all anti-capitalist slogans and demands fit into the ideology of "improving the conditions of exploitation", and anti-capitalist practices legitimize capitalism as an "inclu-sive" political regime. There is a nonlinear political reaction when capitalism shows the greatest strength in those situations that threaten its reproduction the least and vice versa. Such political tactics "channel" anti-capitalist protest, making it manageable and functional for the stable reproduction of capitalism.

Social deviations and the "black wave" of Yugoslav cinematography: Multiperspectivity of deviance

The main goal of this paper is to investigate various forms of social deviations that can be related to the phenomenon of the black wave of Yugoslav cinematography. The analysis is structured according to our general typology of possible models of connection between artistic and deviant contents (1. artist as a deviant; 2. presentation of deviance as a theme of a work of art; 3. work of art as a deviant phenomenon or action [Matković, 2017]). The author noticed complex and heterogeneus perspective of the relationship between the black wave and the sphere of social deviance, present at several different levels, which provided a basis for concluding on the multiperspectivity of deviance associated with the aforementioned artistic orientation. Among other conclusions, it was pointed out that the most energetic socio-political reaction was caused by the presentation of social deviations with political connotations, as well as deviations related to the dissatisfaction of various categories of Yugoslav society (i.e. those deviations that directly threatened the survival of the official state ideology and ruling regime), while the cinematographic treatment of socio-pathological phenomena in a narrower sense, although also undesirable, was still more tolerated, being subjected to repressions of lower intensity.

Immigration in the Covid-19 Era: The role of Greece and Turkey, the necessity for a common European immigration and foreign policy

Immigration and refugee flows in the Eastern Mediterranean migration path have been increased the last two decades, a fact that created the need for coordinated political reaction from the EU, which now faces new challenges because of the Covid-19 pandemic. This article analyses the new challenges Covid-19 creates by focusing on the “lesson learned” of previous pandemics and their effect on mankind and also on the necessity of a common European policy both in the fields of immigration policy and foreign policy towards the stabilization in the Eastern Mediterranean, mainly by focusing on the role of Greece and Turkey.