UWI experts co-author new book on COVID-19 in the Caribbean and Pacific Island regions
18 November 2021
UWI experts co-author new book on COVID-19 in the Caribbean and Pacific Island regions
The UWI Regional Headquarters, Jamaica. Thursday, November 18, 2021—A new book addressing the challenges of the Coronavirus in the CARICOM region features chapters written by experts from The University of the West Indies (The UWI).
Written by Dr Yonique Campbell, Senior Lecturer at The UWI Mona Campus, together with her University of Sydney co-author, Professor John Connell,
COVID in the Islands: A comparative perspective on the Caribbean and the Pacific considers the complex impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic in two contrasting island regions and within several islands and island states. The book focuses on public health, the economies, social tensions and responses, public policy, future ‘bubbles’ and regional connections.
Dr. Campbell has a keen interest in Small Island Developing States and felt it was important to bring together interdisciplinary perspectives and offer detailed insights into responses to COVID-19 at different scales in several sectors. She has been a member of The UWI’s Department of Government in the Faculty of Social Sciences at Mona for over seven years, after receiving a DPhil from the University of Oxford. She also serves as a Senior Policy Advisor to the Minister of Health & Wellness for the Government of Jamaica. Her publications focus on public policy, citizenship rights, security, and the governance of risks. She is also the author of
Citizenship on the Margins: State Power, Security & Precariousness in 21st-Century Jamaica (Palgrave Macmillan). Professor Connell, her co-author has also written several books including
Islands at Risk (2013) and
The Ends of Empire. The Last Colonies Revisited (with Robert Aldrich; 2020).
In this latest publication Dr Campbell also collaborated with UWI colleagues and subject matter experts from the University’s COVID-19 Task Force, including Professor Clive Landis, Pro Vice-Chancellor and Principal of the Cave Hill Campus, who Chairs the Task Force, and Dr Michelle McLeod
, Senior Lecturer, Mona School of Business and Management, who is the Task Force’s tourism specialist.
Professor Clive Landis assumed the role of Chair of The UWI COVID-19 Task Force in February 2020. He is a Professor of Cardiovascular Research and has served in other capacities at The UWI and has published over one hundred (100) peer-reviewed publications in the areas of inflammation and wound healing in surgery and disease. He contributed chapter 4, titled
Coronavirus and CARICOM: The Benefit of a Regional University in a Coherent Pandemic Response. It describes the relative success of CARICOM countries in controlling the COVID-19 pandemic and offers possible explanations.
Dr. McLeod has more than 30 years of experience in the tourism industry. She authored chapter 12 (pp 219-230), entitled,
The Bahamas: Tourism Policy Within a Pandemic, which discusses COVID-19’s destructive effect on the tourism industry in the islands, the failure to employ proper strategic maneuvers to combat its effect, the characteristics of tourism policy consultations and formulation, and how COVID-19 ultimately foiled initial attempts at reopening the islands.
Professor Landis’ and Dr. McLeod’s book chapters are among several publications produced by members of The UWI COVID Task Force, fulfilling its objective to leverage the University's knowledge and experts to assist the Caribbean in its response to the virus outbreak.
COVID in the Islands: A comparative perspective on the Caribbean and the Pacific is expected to launch later this month. Specific chapters, eBook and a hardcover version will be available through international booksellers such as Barnes & Noble, Google Books, Amazon.com, and others.
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Photo caption:
COVID in the Islands: A comparative perspective on the Caribbean and the Pacific book cover
Excerpt from the book: Suddenly and catastrophically, early in 2020, the island world experienced an unprecedented shock. In different places and at rather different times the COVID-19 pandemic was crossing the horizon… For a pandemic that erupted in the interior of China late in 2019, the new coronavirus proved a dramatic shock for SIDS and other island territories. In many respects it represents the epitome of globalisation – rather more so than the Spanish Flu of 1918 that extinguished around 50 million lives… The COVID-19 crisis has been seen as a forerunner of a potentially greater crisis – the impact of climate change. Indeed 2020 may also be remembered as the warmest year in human history.
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