Webinaires Webinar: Weaponizing Uncertainty in the COVID-19 Pandemic

Institute for Health and Social Policy - McGill University

Description of the webinar:

The COVID-19 pandemic has required political leaders, health care professionals, and citizens to make life-or-death decisions under conditions of rapidly-changing knowledge and extreme uncertainty. At the same time, individuals and political groups have 'weaponized' uncertainty for personal and political gain, amplifying extant political fractures and distrust of political and scientific authorities. How has weaponized uncertainty influenced our collective response to COVID-19, and what lessons can we learn for the future?

Speaker:

NICHOLAS B. KING is an associate professor in the Biomedical Ethics Unit and associate member in the Institute for Health and Social Policy, and the Department of Epidemiology, Biostatistics, and Occupational Health at McGill University. He directs the Policy and Data Science program and is a board member of the Center for Social and Cultural Data Sciences at McGill. Dr. King studies the ways that 'black boxes' of all sorts - from seemingly objective measures of health and health inequalities, to complex algorithms - are shaped by human interests and hidden value judgments, which in turn shape individual decisions, collective behaviors, and public policies. He has published in the Milbank Quarterly, Annals of Internal Medicine, BMJ, PLOS Medicine, the American Journal of Public Health, and the Bulletin of the World Health Organization.