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Face à la pandémie du COVID-19, la science de l’information se trouve confrontée à un certain nombre de nouvelles problématiques, liées aux crises d’information, auxquelles elle n’était pas préparée. Qui dit crise mondiale, crise économique, crise énergétique, changement climatique, etc... dit crise d’information, crise caractérisée par une augmentation drastique de la quantité d’informations, par une épidémie d’information i.e. une infodémie et par de nouvelles et nombreuses mauvaises conduites des pratiques informationnelles. La crise sanitaire liée à la pandémie du COVID-19 n’échappe pas à la règle: infodémie de bonnes informations médicales et sanitaires mais aussi infodémie de mauvaises informations, bonnes pratiques informationnelles mais aussi nombreuses inconduites. Habituée au registre de la vérité scientifique, la science de l’information doit affronter le registre de la post-vérité et du complotisme qui semble caractériser nos sociétés actuelles. Information-soupçon, information-dénonciation, information- mensonge, c’est, pour la science de l’information, un nouvel horizon guère réjouissant qu’elle devrait pouvoir maîtriser sans problème en mobilisant son arsenal de concepts, de méthodes, de lois, de modèles et de théories bien établis en conservant et en développant l’horizon réjouissant de l’information-vérité. In the face of the COVID-19 pandemic, information science is facing a number of new challenges related to information crises for which it was not prepared. Who says global crisis, economic crisis, energy crisis, climate change, etc ... says information crisis, crisis characterized by a drastic increase in the amount of information, by an information epidemic ie an infodemic and by news and numerous misconduct of information practices. The health crisis linked to the COVID-19 pandemic is no exception to the rule: infodemic of good medical and health information but also infodemic of bad information, good informational practices but also numerous misconduct. Accustomed to the register of scientific truth, information science must confront the register of post-truth and conspiracy that seems to characterize our current societies. Information-suspicion, information-denunciation, information-lies, it is, for the science of information, a hardly encouraging new horizon that it should be able to master without problem by mobilizing its arsenal of concepts, methods, laws, of well- established models and theories by preserving and developing the joyous horizon of information-truth.

Textual analysis of 14,270 NBER Working Papers published during 1999–2016 is done to assess the effects of the 2008 crisis on the economics literature. The volume of crisis-related WPs is counter-cyclical, lagging the financial-instability-index. WPs by the Monetary-Economics, Asset-Pricing, and Corporate-Finance program members, hardly refer to “crisis/crises” in the pre-crisis period. As the crisis develops, however, their study-efforts of crisis-related issues increase rapidly. In contrast, WPs in macroeconomics-related programs refer quite extensively in the pre-crisis period to “crisis/crises” and to crises-related topics. Overall, our findings are consistent with the claim that economists were not engaged sufficiently in crises studies before the 2008 crisis. However, counter to the popular image, as soon as the crisis began to unravel, the NBER affiliated economists responded dramatically by switching their focus and efforts to studying and understanding the crisis, its causes and its consequences. Thus, although economists were slow to see the crisis coming, they were fast to act. Preliminary observations on current developments suggest that the economists’ initial response to the ongoing Covid-19 crisis is consistent with these conclusions.

COVID-19 outbreaks at nursing homes during the recent pandemic, which received ample media coverage, may have lasting negative impacts on individuals’ perceptions regarding ursing homes. We argue that this could have sizable and persistent implications for savings and long-term care policies. We first develop a theoretical model predicting that higher nurs- ing home aversion should induce higher savings and stronger support for policies subsidizing home care. We further document, based on a survey on Canadians in their 50s and 60s, that higher nursing home aversion is widespread: 72% of respondents are less inclined to enter a nursing home because of the pandemic. Consistent with our model, we find that the latter are much more likely to have higher intended savings for older age because of the pandemic. We also find that they are more likely to strongly support home care subsidies.

We investigate, for the first time, the empirical drivers of the COVID-19 cross-country mortality rates at a macroeconomic level. The intensity of the pandemic (number of infected people), the demographic structure (proportion of people age 65 or above) and the openness degree (number of tourists arrivals) seem to be significant predictors in addition to health infrastructures (number of hospital beds, physicians). We also find that the subprime crisis and the austerity policies conducted in certain countries, by reducing the public health expenditures in the last ten years and altering the adaptation capacity of the health system, have probably intensified the tragic consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic. Pollution seems to have only played a marginal role as well as control strategies (travel restrictions, testing policy). We do not find consistent effects against the COVID-19 virus due to past exposal to other types of epidemics like Malaria or Tuberculosis.

The aim is to show how forgetting the disasters of the past contributes to increasing exposure to risks in our societies. It first addresses the question of historical materials and methods and emphasizes the role of expert speech and modeling, as almost revealed truth and irrefutable proof of the unprecedented nature of a catastrophe. In practice, such a posture often leads to unpreparedness in the face of the coming disaster and to a form of routine risk management, as evidenced by the examples of the flood risk in Paris, the Xynthia storm of 2010 and, more recently still, the Covid 19 crisis. These weaknesses demonstrated, it is finally important to propose other horizons capable of reducing vulnerability. Cet article vise à montrer comment l’oubli des catastrophes du passé contribue à accroître l’exposition aux risques de nos sociétés. Il aborde la question des matériaux et des méthodes historiques, et souligne le rôle de la parole et de la modélisation de l’expert, comme vérité quasi révélée et preuve irréfutable du caractère inédit d’une catastrophe. En pratique, une telle posture conduit souvent à une impréparation face à la catastrophe à venir et à une forme de gestion routinière du risque, comme en témoignent les risques d’inondation à Paris, la tempête Xynthia de 2010 et la crise du Covid 19. Ces faiblesses démontrées, d’autres horizons à même de réduire la vulnérabilité sont proposés.