COVID-19

Arts & Culture

The Decameron: Medieval lockdown project or ‘wine-soaked sex romp’?

Boccaccio’s fourteenth-century masterpiece, now a Netflix series, shows the universality of human responses to a pandemic (along with some sex)

Health & Medicine

How a simulation is informing COVID-19 vaccine policy after our ‘return to normal’

A new model can simulate thousands of ‘individuals’ – each with their own vaccination and infection histories – tailoring vaccine schedules as new COVID-19 variants emerge

Environment

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Book extract

Black Summer showed we’re good in an emergency but bad in a crisis

Australia’s emergency response to bushfire is “exemplary” but we repeatedly fail to deal with the climate crises that cause disasters

Health & Medicine

The rise and fall in Australia’s life expectancy during the pandemic

Australia is a valuable international case study into life expectancy trends during the COVID-19 pandemic

Health & Medicine

Peer support groups connect people living with a brain injury

A collaboration between the University of Melbourne and Brain Injury Matters is learning from adults with a brain injury what peer support groups mean to them

Politics & Society

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Book extract

The COVID cost for Asia’s informal workers

A new book investigates the ravages of the COVID-19 impact on people in the informal economy across Southeast and South Asia

Environment

Lockdown at sea a lesson in sustainable shipping

To combat climate change we need to decarbonise international shipping. Powering cargo ships with wind should be part of the solution

Health & Medicine

More resilient than we thought during lockdown

New research finds that many people coped relatively well emotionally during Melbourne’s long COVID-19 lockdowns – but with caveats.

Health & Medicine

The unexpected drop in intimate partner violence

It should be exciting to say that cases of violence against women dropped during COVID, but we need to understand the big picture

Arts & Culture

The older Asian Australians boosting health literacy

COVID-19 exposed the shortcomings of Australia’s public health communication to older culturally and linguistically diverse communities