IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/mth/jpag88/v10y2020i3p1-5.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Construction of the COVID-19 Pandemic: Designing Societal Solutions That Would Prevent a Full Lockdown

Author

Listed:
  • A. Georges L. Romme

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has triggered one of the deepest economic recessions in human history, largely as a result of the full lockdown strategy adopted by many national governments. This lockdown strategy was primarily motivated by the limited capacities of Intensive Care Units and a lack of medical staff and equipment. In this essay, I argue that the COVID crisis and the widely used lockdown response are socially constructed, which invites a public discourse on how we can design societal solutions that would prevent the need for an indiscriminate lockdown response to a future pandemic or any other similar crisis. One potential solution is further developed in this essay- the design of latent capabilities for responding to any future emergencies. These latent capabilities, embedded in many host organizations, can help in quickly resolve shortages in professional skills and resources, which are likely to occur in any future crisis. Here, the COVID-19 crisis provides a major learning opportunity, to be exploited as soon as possible.

Suggested Citation

  • A. Georges L. Romme, 2020. "The Construction of the COVID-19 Pandemic: Designing Societal Solutions That Would Prevent a Full Lockdown," Journal of Public Administration and Governance, Macrothink Institute, vol. 10(3), pages 1-15, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:mth:jpag88:v:10:y:2020:i:3:p:1-5
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.macrothink.org/journal/index.php/jpag/article/download/17356/13464
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: http://www.macrothink.org/journal/index.php/jpag/article/view/17356
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Paul C. Fenema & A. Georges L. Romme, 2020. "Latent organizing for responding to emergencies: foundations for research," Journal of Organization Design, Springer;Organizational Design Community, vol. 9(1), pages 1-16, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Cristina VEITH & Iyad ISBAITA & Paul MARINESCU, 2021. "Factors Influencing Trust In Remote Teams," Proceedings of the INTERNATIONAL MANAGEMENT CONFERENCE, Faculty of Management, Academy of Economic Studies, Bucharest, Romania, vol. 15(1), pages 859-870, November.
    2. M. Hassan Awad, 2023. "Place and the Structuring of Cross-Sector Partnerships: The Moral and Material Conflicts Over Healthcare and Homelessness," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 184(4), pages 933-955, May.
    3. Cristina Veith & Irina Dogaru, 2020. "Digital work in the context of covid 19," Manager Journal, Faculty of Business and Administration, University of Bucharest, vol. 31(1), pages 61-69, December.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • R00 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - General - - - General
    • Z0 - Other Special Topics - - General

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:mth:jpag88:v:10:y:2020:i:3:p:1-5. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Technical Support Office (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.macrothink.org/journal/index.php/jpag .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.