How Pandemics End: Perspectives from Germany and the US
Friday, March 26, 202112-1:30pm Eastern Time (US) / 6-7:30pm German time
Zoom Webinar
You can watch a recording of the complete event by clicking the button above.
Read a report about the event from The Justice, Brandeis University’s Independent Student Newspaper.
About the Event
When will this be over? When can we finally be together again, go to the movies, the theater, the restaurant without fear of infection? That is what everyone is asking, not just here in the US.
At the end of the summer of 2020 it seemed as though Germany had done everything right about Covid-19. Its numbers of infections and deaths were far below other countries. Shops and schools reopened. Mask wearing was not common. Then the second wave hit, and German infection rates skyrocketed. The country has been in lockdown since November 2020, with no end in sight. Although new infections are slowing down, the fear of more aggressive mutations has recently led to border closings, and a frustratingly slow vaccination process hampered by the lack of available vaccine is causing increasing tension in the governing coalition.
So, are we nearing the end or has life over the past year become the new normal? In this discussion we will look at experiences in the US and Germany to look forward and ask, how do pandemics end?
About the Speakers
Anja Martini is working as science reporter and editorial adviser for Germany’s primary public TV news programs Tagesschau and Tagesthemen. After the outbreak of the pandemic in 2020, she hosted the podcast "The Coronavirus Update" on public radio with the chief virologist of the Berlin Charité, Professor Christian Drosten. The podcast quickly became the most popular podcast in connection with Covid-19 in Germany and won several awards for science journalism, including two Grimme online awards.
Elanah Uretsky is Associate Professor of International and Global Studies at Brandeis University. A medical anthropologist broadly trained in public health with particular expertise on China. Professor Uretsky is author of Occupational Hazzards: Sex, Business, and HIV in Post-Mao China. She is also author of “China beat the coronavirus with science and strong public health measures, not just with authoritarianism”and teaches a course called Global Pandemics: History, Society, and Policy.