Nearly 4 years after the start of the Covid pandemic, key scientific & policy questions remain unanswered. Watch Collateral Global’s new video to learn more about our plans to answer these questions in 2024. CG is a unique research institute and educational charity dedicated to learning the lessons from the Covid-19 pandemic. In particular, we are concerned about the social harms of Covid policies and the politicisation of science. We support independent research that engages the totality of evidence and challenges persistent assumptions and misconceptions. Our mission is to help ensure that future pandemic policy responses are evidence-based and balance societal trade-offs to maximise the health and well-being of all people. Learn more about our work on our website: collateralglobal.org/article…

“There were structural reasons why journalism in my country (Ireland) was very much supportive of the government.” “Newspapers and the television stations became increasingly reliant on government ads and direct funding, people in the arts were often on government grants and given decent payouts in that period. If you spoke out, that could be potentially withdrawn or jeopardised.” “So there were very serious financial incentives for people to avoid speaking out.” Ross is a TV producer living in Los Angeles who grew increasingly concerned at the impacts of COVID-19 restrictions on his children. In response to his two teenagers being kept out of school for almost a year-and-a-half he founded an organisation called LA Uprising to campaign on their behalf. This podcast explores how political polarisation and groupthink led to the imposition of some of the United States’ most stringent controls in the state of California, and how a ‘priestly’ caste of experts were deferred to throughout the period, as politicians relied on fear to engineer consent @frankarmstrong2 Watch and listen to the podcast ‘ LA Uprising: How Fear Shaped California’s Covid Response’ here: collateralglobal.org/article…

“Francis, how did you self-reject from the groupthink?” “I was thinking this is probably coming to the US, but I was wondering to myself, how is this going to work? It's clear that it's spread so many different places, meaning that the chances of stamping it out entirely are very, very remote.” “It just seems completely fanciful to me what was being proposed, and of course the costs were obviously gigantic. I was very depressed during the pandemic, thinking, have I lost my mind?” In this episode of CG Podcasts, Professor Toby Green (King’s College, London) discusses the new book ‘In Covid’s Wake’ with authors Stephen Macedo and Frances E. Lee of the Politics Department of Princeton University. They discuss the economic and political fallout, the connections between the Covid policies and Trump’s election in 2024, and the future for academic and public discussions around the impacts of the Covid years. Watch ‘In Covid’s Wake: A Discussion of Covid Policies in the US’ here: collateralglobal.org/article…

“Everyone's a rebel until you really have to pay the price.” “Almost nobody likes saying no to the mob, because you get destroyed.” Ross is a TV producer living in Los Angeles who grew increasingly concerned at the impacts of COVID-19 restrictions on his children. In response to his two teenagers being kept out of school for almost a year-and-a-half he founded an organisation called LA Uprising to campaign on their behalf. This podcast explores how political polarisation and groupthink led to the imposition of some of the United States’ most stringent controls in the state of California, and how a ‘priestly’ caste of experts were deferred to throughout the period, as politicians relied on fear to engineer consent Watch and listen to the podcast ‘ LA Uprising: How Fear Shaped California’s Covid Response’ here: collateralglobal.org/article…

“How did you self-eject from the groupthink?” “I realised that COVID was more than a large enough topic unto itself, but I did have concerns, which is that, in the academy and elite professions, journalism, science, and so on, there's just a kind of dismissiveness of arguments that are associated with the other side and it’s to our detriment, I do think it's worse than it used to be.” In this episode of CG Podcasts, Professor Toby Green (King’s College, London) discusses the new book ‘In Covid’s Wake’ with authors Stephen Macedo and Frances E. Lee of the Politics Department of Princeton University. They discuss the economic and political fallout, the connections between the Covid policies and Trump’s election in 2024, and the future for academic and public discussions around the impacts of the Covid years. Watch ‘In Covid’s Wake: A Discussion of Covid Policies in the US’ here: collateralglobal.org/article…

“There are a number of people from Eastern Europe living in Britain, and during 2020 2021, I met a number of them in various contexts who said, it (pandemic policy measures) reminded them of what it was like to live under communism, so they were not happy about it.” Toby Green joins Frank Armstrong for a wide-ranging discussion based on his new book The Heretic of Cacheu: Struggles Over Life in a Seventeenth-Century West African Port. The book exhumes the records of a Portuguese Inquisitorial trial from 1665 into apparently deviant conduct of a half-African, female slave-trader Cacheu – the first African region to be drawn by the Portuguese systematically into the transatlantic slave trade. It also explores the role of the Djabakós - traditional healers with knowledge of local herbs and their properties. Frank and Toby discuss parallels between what occurred during this colonial period and what happened on the African continent during the Covid-19 pandemic, where a range of inappropriate policies have caused lasting harm. @frankarmstrong2 @toby00green Watch ‘Heretical Ideas on Health in African History and Beyond’ using the link here: collateralglobal.org/article…

“Certainly the authoritarian frameworks which came into liberal democracies in 2020 and 2021 did feel, for a number of people, oppressive.” Toby Green joins Frank Armstrong for a wide-ranging discussion based on his new book The Heretic of Cacheu: Struggles Over Life in a Seventeenth-Century West African Port. The book exhumes the records of a Portuguese Inquisitorial trial from 1665 into apparently deviant conduct of a half-African, female slave-trader Cacheu – the first African region to be drawn by the Portuguese systematically into the transatlantic slave trade. It also explores the role of the Djabakós - traditional healers with knowledge of local herbs and their properties. Frank and Toby discuss parallels between what occurred during this colonial period and what happened on the African continent during the Covid-19 pandemic, where a range of inappropriate policies have caused lasting harm. Watch ‘Heretical Ideas on Health in African History and Beyond’ using the link here: collateralglobal.org/article…

“There’s just not enough scrutiny.” “You could say the covid response was an extreme case, but there are echoes in other areas, and we're more vulnerable to this kind of problem than we used to be given that assumptions go unquestioned in an environment where people think too much alike.” In this episode of CG Podcasts, Professor Toby Green (King’s College, London) discusses the new book ‘In Covid’s Wake’ with authors Stephen Macedo and Frances E. Lee of the Politics Department of Princeton University. They discuss the economic and political fallout, the connections between the Covid policies and Trump’s election in 2024, and the future for academic and public discussions around the impacts of the Covid years. Watch ‘In Covid’s Wake: A Discussion of Covid Policies in the US’ here: collateralglobal.org/article…

“You have all these rebels, like, Rage Against the Machine and the lead singer is the one going ‘get your shots’ and I'm like, what, Rage Against the Machine?” “I think one of the things about the pandemic that drove me crazy, there was very little pushback from an artistic place against what was a really extreme state of affairs.” Ross is a TV producer living in Los Angeles who grew increasingly concerned at the impacts of COVID-19 restrictions on his children. In response to his two teenagers being kept out of school for almost a year-and-a-half he founded an organisation called LA Uprising to campaign on their behalf. This podcast explores how political polarisation and groupthink led to the imposition of some of the United States’ most stringent controls in the state of California, and how a ‘priestly’ caste of experts were deferred to throughout the period, as politicians relied on fear to engineer consent Watch and listen to the podcast ‘ LA Uprising: How Fear Shaped California’s Covid Response’ here: collateralglobal.org/article…

“This is one of the sad things I think about the fallout of the pandemic in terms of critics of pandemic policies. Far too many of those critics have taken a very reductive view of health in the end.” Toby Green joins Frank Armstrong for a wide-ranging discussion based on his new book The Heretic of Cacheu: Struggles Over Life in a Seventeenth-Century West African Port. The book exhumes the records of a Portuguese Inquisitorial trial from 1665 into apparently deviant conduct of a half-African, female slave-trader Cacheu – the first African region to be drawn by the Portuguese systematically into the transatlantic slave trade. It also explores the role of the Djabakós - traditional healers with knowledge of local herbs and their properties. Frank and Toby discuss parallels between what occurred during this colonial period and what happened on the African continent during the Covid-19 pandemic, where a range of inappropriate policies have caused lasting harm. Watch ‘Heretical Ideas on Health in African History and Beyond’ using the link here: collateralglobal.org/article…

“They proceeded with a vaccine mandate premised on the vaccine's capacity to stop transmission after knowing not just some scientists, but the CDC acknowledging that the vaccine did not stop transmission.” In this episode of CG Podcasts, Professor Toby Green (King’s College, London) discusses the new book ‘In Covid’s Wake’ with authors Stephen Macedo and Frances E. Lee of the Politics Department of Princeton University. They discuss the economic and political fallout, the connections between the Covid policies and Trump’s election in 2024, and the future for academic and public discussions around the impacts of the Covid years. Watch ‘In Covid’s Wake: A Discussion of Covid Policies in the US’ here: collateralglobal.org/article…

“We are losing democracy, we are destroying the village to keep the village over and over again.” Ross is a TV producer living in Los Angeles who grew increasingly concerned at the impacts of COVID-19 restrictions on his children. In response to his two teenagers being kept out of school for almost a year-and-a-half he founded an organisation called LA Uprising to campaign on their behalf. This podcast explores how political polarisation and groupthink led to the imposition of some of the United States’ most stringent controls in the state of California, and how a ‘priestly’ caste of experts were deferred to throughout the period, as politicians relied on fear to engineer consent Watch and listen to the podcast ‘ LA Uprising: How Fear Shaped California’s Covid Response’ here: collateralglobal.org/article…

“Everybody is aware that something changed during Covid.” Toby Green joins Frank Armstrong for a wide-ranging discussion based on his new book The Heretic of Cacheu: Struggles Over Life in a Seventeenth-Century West African Port. The book exhumes the records of a Portuguese Inquisitorial trial from 1665 into apparently deviant conduct of a half-African, female slave-trader Cacheu – the first African region to be drawn by the Portuguese systematically into the transatlantic slave trade. It also explores the role of the Djabakós - traditional healers with knowledge of local herbs and their properties. Frank and Toby discuss parallels between what occurred during this colonial period and what happened on the African continent during the Covid-19 pandemic, where a range of inappropriate policies have caused lasting harm. Watch ‘Heretical Ideas on Health in African History and Beyond’ using the link here: collateralglobal.org/article…

“As an expert, you're supposed to be credible and believable, you're not supposed to lead with fear.” Ross is a TV producer living in Los Angeles who grew increasingly concerned at the impacts of COVID-19 restrictions on his children. In response to his two teenagers being kept out of school for almost a year-and-a-half he founded an organisation called LA Uprising to campaign on their behalf. This podcast explores how political polarisation and groupthink led to the imposition of some of the United States’ most stringent controls in the state of California, and how a ‘priestly’ caste of experts were deferred to throughout the period, as politicians relied on fear to engineer consent Watch and listen to the podcast ‘ LA Uprising: How Fear Shaped California’s Covid Response’ here: collateralglobal.org/article…

The American Civil Liberties Union published a report in 2008 which said: “American history contains vivid reminders that grafting the values of law enforcement, national security under public health is both ineffective and dangerous. Too often, fears aroused by disease and epidemics often justified abuses of state power, highly discriminatory enforceable vaccination and quarantine measures as adopted in response to outbreaks of the plague and smallpox over the past century have consistently accelerated rather than slowed the spread of disease while fermenting public distrust and in some cases, riots.” In this episode of CG Podcasts, Professor Toby Green (King’s College, London) discusses the new book ‘In Covid’s Wake’ with authors Stephen Macedo and Frances E. Lee of the Politics Department of Princeton University. They discuss the economic and political fallout, the connections between the Covid policies and Trump’s election in 2024, and the future for academic and public discussions around the impacts of the Covid years. Watch ‘In Covid’s Wake: A Discussion of Covid Policies in the US’ here: collateralglobal.org/article…

“Governments can come up with policies which address the physical, but they also need to reflect on how that relates to people's own personal experience of this time, which isn't just a physical question.” Toby Green joins Frank Armstrong for a wide-ranging discussion based on his new book The Heretic of Cacheu: Struggles Over Life in a Seventeenth-Century West African Port. The book exhumes the records of a Portuguese Inquisitorial trial from 1665 into apparently deviant conduct of a half-African, female slave-trader Cacheu – the first African region to be drawn by the Portuguese systematically into the transatlantic slave trade. It also explores the role of the Djabakós - traditional healers with knowledge of local herbs and their properties. Frank and Toby discuss parallels between what occurred during this colonial period and what happened on the African continent during the Covid-19 pandemic, where a range of inappropriate policies have caused lasting harm. Watch ‘Heretical Ideas on Health in African History and Beyond’ using the link here: collateralglobal.org/article…

“During Covid, in a way, we almost became a victim of expertise, or of the elevation of expertise, a kind of priest like cast of scientists.” Ross is a TV producer living in Los Angeles who grew increasingly concerned at the impacts of COVID-19 restrictions on his children. In response to his two teenagers being kept out of school for almost a year-and-a-half he founded an organisation called LA Uprising to campaign on their behalf. This podcast explores how political polarisation and groupthink led to the imposition of some of the United States’ most stringent controls in the state of California, and how a ‘priestly’ caste of experts were deferred to throughout the period, as politicians relied on fear to engineer consent Watch and listen to the podcast ‘ LA Uprising: How Fear Shaped California’s Covid Response’ here: collateralglobal.org/article…

The American Civil Liberties Union “The principle they invoked was a reasonable principle for limiting people's liberty, the harm principle. But there's no increase, so far as I can see, into how this played out in the context of covid.” In this episode of CG Podcasts, Professor Toby Green (King’s College, London) discusses the new book ‘In Covid’s Wake’ with authors Stephen Macedo and Frances E. Lee of the Politics Department of Princeton University. They discuss the economic and political fallout, the connections between the Covid policies and Trump’s election in 2024, and the future for academic and public discussions around the impacts of the Covid years. Watch ‘In Covid’s Wake: A Discussion of Covid Policies in the US’ here: collateralglobal.org/article…

“I don't even think it was fair to be punishing anyone. That's not why government should exist. They serve us.” Ross is a TV producer living in Los Angeles who grew increasingly concerned at the impacts of COVID-19 restrictions on his children. In response to his two teenagers being kept out of school for almost a year-and-a-half he founded an organisation called LA Uprising to campaign on their behalf. This podcast explores how political polarisation and groupthink led to the imposition of some of the United States’ most stringent controls in the state of California, and how a ‘priestly’ caste of experts were deferred to throughout the period, as politicians relied on fear to engineer consent @frankarmstrong2 Watch and listen to the podcast ‘ LA Uprising: How Fear Shaped California’s Covid Response’ here: collateralglobal.org/article…

“I know people who've taken their own lives” “It's almost an unspoken epidemic. Many of us know people who've been horrendously affected in psychic terms. When you're facing a medical crisis, that's instantly what society will turn to address. But it doesn't take long for the other aspects of health to move from the background into the foreground.” Toby Green joins Frank Armstrong for a wide-ranging discussion based on his new book The Heretic of Cacheu: Struggles Over Life in a Seventeenth-Century West African Port. The book exhumes the records of a Portuguese Inquisitorial trial from 1665 into apparently deviant conduct of a half-African, female slave-trader Cacheu – the first African region to be drawn by the Portuguese systematically into the transatlantic slave trade. It also explores the role of the Djabakós - traditional healers with knowledge of local herbs and their properties. Frank and Toby discuss parallels between what occurred during this colonial period and what happened on the African continent during the Covid-19 pandemic, where a range of inappropriate policies have caused lasting harm. Watch ‘Heretical Ideas on Health in African History and Beyond’ using the link here: collateralglobal.org/article…

“The evidence suggests that the vaccine was the one bright spot of the covid response, not so much vaccine mandates, but the quick development of that vaccine and the quick roll out of it, does seem to have made a significant difference.” “There's some irony that the main focal point of criticism has been around vaccines, as opposed to any other kinds of criticism that one could raise.” In this episode of CG Podcasts, Professor Toby Green (King’s College, London) discusses the new book ‘In Covid’s Wake’ with authors Stephen Macedo and Frances E. Lee of the Politics Department of Princeton University. They discuss the economic and political fallout, the connections between the Covid policies and Trump’s election in 2024, and the future for academic and public discussions around the impacts of the Covid years. Watch ‘In Covid’s Wake: A Discussion of Covid Policies in the US’ here: collateralglobal.org/article…