Long COVID and the Fifth Wave – The Hidden Pandemic

(Art design: Jean-Dominique Lavoix-Carli) More than 110 million people have experienced or still suffer from Long COVID since the start of the pandemic (Chen Chen et al., full references and detail of calculation below). This is the number that follows from the findings of a study systematically reviewing the research done on Long COVID until …

The Fifth Wave of the COVID-19 Pandemic and Lethality

(Art design: Jean-Dominique Lavoix-Carli) As the global fifth wave of the COVID-19 pandemic has now started, should we be worried about it? How lethal will it be? This article and the next will focus on direct health-related impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic fifth wave. Indeed, these effects are those that determine all others. Here, we …

What are Climate Wars?

As climate change intensifies, a major issue is to understand how rapidly changing geophysics and war are intertwined. Since 2013, at the Red Team Analysis Society we study the way climate change, the military and geopolitics interact (Climate change security, The Red Team Analysis Society). Since then, things have changed dramatically. The complex relationship between …

Towards a Covid-19 Fifth Wave

Are we at the beginning of a fifth wave of the COVID-19 pandemic? If yes, is it dangerous and should we be worried about it? Alternatively, is the COVID-19 pandemic over? Has the COVID-19 pandemic evolved towards an endemic illness that is not more dangerous than the seasonal flu? Meanwhile, have we just accepted COVID-19 …

The Military and the “Climate Blowback” – Summer 2021 (1)

The impacts of climate change are intensifying. Some of these are the multiplying extreme weather events, such as mega wildfires and giant floods. The intensity and the scale of these events are now so important threatening for infrastructures, ecosystems and human life, that they entail a growing mobilisation of military forces. Thus, we need to …

What is an Issue in terms of Strategic Foresight & Warning and Horizon Scanning?

An issue, in terms of warning and by extension SF&W, is “a situation, an objective, an opportunity, a danger, a threat or a risk, which is specific and defined.” (Grabo, 2004) For example, SF&W issues can be interstate and civil wars, fragile states, instability, energy security, oil, economic crisis, global water security, epidemics and pandemics such …

Scenarios for the Covid-19 and Post-Covid-19 Worlds – a Bibliography

The COVID-19 and post-COVID-19 worlds are fraught with uncertainties. We still have to face many unknown regarding the disease and thus the pandemics (e.g. Julie Steenhuysen, “Scientists just beginning to understand the many health problems caused by COVID-19“, Reuters, 26 June 2020). Yet, we must take decisions and act when the fog clouds our horizon. …

COVID-19 Vaccine and Uncertainty Early Warning

This brief article is a first early warning about possible uncertainty regarding vaccines against the COVID-19 and mass vaccination for the pandemic. Despite multiple ‘good news’ announcements invading media, business and policy-makers circles, and governments’ establishment, some indications potentially of coming dangers multiply and deserve further and more in-depth analysis and monitoring. As the COVID-19 …

The emergence of a COVID-19 international order

The COVID-19 seems to plunge the world further into a deep confusion. Messages are most of the time contradictory. They vary according to countries and actors, from “the epidemic is behind us”, “let us all go back to business as usual and work towards recovery” to worries of possible starting new pandemic wave. This confusion …

The Strange Case of Sweden in the COVID-19 Pandemic

Many countries hit by the pandemic are now exiting or about to exit the period of most stringent isolation measures. Indeed, they estimate they succeeded in controlling contagion. Meanwhile, they avoided the dreaded break down of their health-care system, which could have taken place if hospitals had been overwhelmed. In Europe, one country stands apart, …

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