CG Podcast

Kevin Bardosh sits down with Prof. Shahar Hameiri, a political scientist from the University of Queensland, to discuss his latest book, The Locked-up Country: Learning the lessons from Australia's Covid-19 response. Published in 2023, the book explores the multiple governance failures of Australia's Covid response and locates these within their historical context, with particular reference to the...

Kevin Bardosh sits down with Piero Stanig, Professor of Political Science at Bocconi University in Italy, to discuss his book, Lockdown Failure (Fallimento Lockdown). They explore the government response in Italy, the legacy of lockdown, and what to expect from the upcoming Italian government Covid Inquiry.   Check out our conversation.

Kevin Bardosh sits down with Frank Armstrong, Editor of Cassandra Voices, an Irish public intellectual forum and online news source, to discuss the pandemic experience in Ireland and what we can expect from a possible Irish Covid Inquiry. Frank has published numerous articles about the Covid-19 pandemic, including on topics like Zero Covid, lockdown, vaccine mandates, and media censorship. We disc...

Kevin Bardosh sits down with Tara Henley, a well-known Canadian writer and podcaster, to discuss the state of the Canadian media during and after the Covid-19 pandemic. Tara recently published the 2024 Massey Essay, The Trust Spiral: Restoring Faith in the Media, in the Literary Review of Canada. We discuss her thought provoking essay, including why trust in the mainstream media in Canada has decl...

In this episode Reva Yunus and Aleida Borges talk about the gendered aspects of a very ‘punitive’ pandemic response, especially in the Global South. Dr Aleida Mendes Borges also talks about the book, “Pandemic response and the cost of lockdowns. Global debates from humanities and social sciences”, which she co-edited with Peter Sutoris, Sinéad Murphy and Yossi Nehushtan.    Who were the people who...

In this CG Conversation, Dr Jennie Bristow talks to Professor David Livermore about the consequences of lockdowns and social distancing restrictions for the fabric of social life. As we move on from the pandemic itself, to what extent have the behaviours and mores of pre-Covid times changed? On one hand, dystopian fears about the end of handshakes, hugs, and parties have not materialised. On the o...

Lucy Johnston interviews Toby Green about his revisionist history of the pandemic In this podcast Lucy Johnston, Health Editor of the Sunday Express, interviews Professor Toby Green (CG steering group) about the new book he has coauthored with Thomas Fazi, The Covid Consensus: The Global Assault on Democracy and the Poor -- A Critique from the Left (The Covid Consensus | Hurst Publishers). Their d...

One of the editors of the new book published by Routledge -- Pandemic Response and the Cost of Lockdowns: Global Debates from the Humanities and Social Sciences -- Peter Sutoris (assistant Professor, University of York) discusses the book with CG steering group member Professor Toby Green. They range over the response of academics from the humanities and the social sciences, the importance of thes...

In this podcast, CG steering committee member Toby Green talks with John Perry, contributor to the London Review of Books, FAIR and other publications on Nicaraguan affairs. Perry gives the perspective of the pandemic response in Nicaragua and Honduras, 2 neighboring countries in Central America. Honduras's neoliberal government followed the dominant lockdown policy, with harsh policing, and close...

What could humanities scholars have to say about Covid? Here Caitjan Gainty, a historian of medicine and healthcare at King’s College London, discusses the Covid response with her colleague Daniel Hadas, a lecturer in Latin and Ancient Greek. In the Covid response, governments and public health authorities opted to side-line the knowledge and discourse of the humanities, in a singled-minded focus...

In this CG conversation, Daniel Hadas talks to Caitjan Gainty about how the history of medicine and healthcare can illuminate our attempts to analyse and understand the Covid response. Set in the UK but branching out globally, the conversation winds through some of the thorniest of Covid era issues. Vaccines and vaccine mandates, for example, look quite different when set against the problematic a...

Dr Reginald Oduor, Senior Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of Nairobi, discusses Kenya's experience of lockdowns and vaccine mandates with Collateral Global SAB member Toby Green of King's College, London. The impact of the lockdowns on civil rights, the poor, education, and health are discussed -- and also the impacts that this might have into the future, as ethical and political issues m...

The Covid-19 pandemic was often described as an ‘unprecedented’ disaster, which required wholly new ways of thinking about, and managing, social life. But what was different about this pandemic to those that have afflicted societies over time? Sociologists have long been interested in pandemics, because they disrupt the existing social order and throw existing problems and tensions into sharp reli...

In this podcast, actor and singer Clifton Duncan discusses the impacts of the Covid restrictions on the world of theatre with CG Scientific Advisory Board member Professor Toby Green. The impacts of Covid restrictions on performers have been devastating, with a strong class dimension. Clifton and Toby discuss the new dimension of the theatre world, segregation of venues, and the consequences for t...

Listen to this engaging conversation between two of the most eminent scientists, Professor Bhattacharya and Ioannidis as they look back on the past two years. Their discussion includes the early seroprevalence studies, Infection Fatality Rates (IFR), precision shielding, the collateral damages caused by lockdowns, and how we can begin to rebuild faith in public health. Original release March 2022

Collateral Global's Toby Green speaks with Dr Daniel Briggs - a criminologist from Universidad Europea in Madrid, Spain - about flaws in initial COVID-19 risk assessment, the absence of context to inform decision-making, the rush to lockdowns, and the devastating social ramifications of those choices. Original release 2021

CG’s Professor Toby Green hosts an enlightening discussion with Samuel Adu-Gyamfi, Head of History and Political Science at Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology in Kumasi, Ghana. Topics discussed include: - The impact of lockdown on the informal economy: "Preventing movement is simply taking away the lifeblood of virtually the entire country's economy." - The West's misunderstanding...

Originally released in 2021 An enlightening conversation between Professor of Psychology, Ellen Townsend and Professor Carl Heneghan of Oxford’s Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine regarding CG’s latest report on the impact of pandemic restrictions on childhood mental health. Ellen and Carl discuss: * What systematic reviews are and why the evidence they produce is so valuable * Why adults have an...