October 15, 2021

 

The 14th Annual WSAS Symposium, COVID-19: Science and Society, was covered in a series of articles in GeekWire. Reporter Charlotte Schubert attended the Annual Symposium on September 23rd, 2021, and published a series of three articles about the event in the weeks following. “How disparities for women and minorities widened during the pandemic,” published on September 26, focused on the presentations of Academy Board Member Celestina Barbosa-Leiker and Children’s Alliance Executive Director Stephan Blanford, regarding the existing inequities worsened by the pandemic. On September 28, 2021, “Economists describe how the pandemic magnifies trends such as remote work and movement patterns,” addressed the shifting lifestyle and ideological landscape as the pandemic continues to interrupt the local and global economies through the lenses of presentations given by University of Idaho Professor Philip Watson, Paul Inghram, Director of Growth Management of the Puget Sound Regional Council, and Keynote Speaker WA State Department of Commerce Director Lisa Brown. The final article, published on October 2, 2021, “Misinformation and vaccines: How public health messaging and experts can help curb distrust,” discussed the Symposium through line of the role of misinformation and distrust in the spread of and response to the pandemic, highlighted by UW Center for an Informed Public Director Jevin West, WA Secretary of Health Umair Shah, and Keynote Speaker Apoorva Mandavilli, a Health and Science Reporter for The New York Times.

Recordings of the main presentations for the Symposium are available for free online at TVW.org. The morning session can be found here, and the afternoon session can be located here.