Reflections on the Covid pandemic, year 2

When I wrote in this column about the origin of SARS-CoV-2 (April 2, 2020), and pleaded that “we should give public health a chance” (Dec 18, 2020), I did not anticipate that, a year later, I would return to this topic. How can we, humans who count among ourselves Da Vinci, Pasteur, Einstein and Desmond Tutu, be brought to our knees by an invisible, brainless organism whose “raison d’être” is doing nothing but making more of its RNA?

What the pandemic has done is to reveal the fragility of our social fabric and the weaknesses of our institutions, here and globally. It exposes, and worsens, our socio-economic inequalities that have existed for decades: Wall Street investors and large corporations taking in large profits and benefiting from tax loopholes, while blue collar workers are earning less than livable wages under inflation; the meritocratic elite comfortably “working from home”, while “essential” front-line workers risk their lives, their children having unreliable access to online education and healthy activities;  worsening access and affordability of healthcare, resulting in higher rates of mental illnesses, and disproportionate disease morbidity and mortality for the underprivileged.

Inequality feeds anxiety, anger and despair, and invites distrust in the government and democratic institutions. We see increases in gun sales, senseless crimes, drug use and suicides, racial and class tensions; opportunities for extremists at both ends of the ideologic political spectrum to ride on righteous vitriols and mutual loathing, fabricating theories and narratives aimed at nothing less than fracturing our social fabric to its core – cracks and fractures through which Covid-19 can easily spread.

So, how can we respond? First, I would urge everyone to continue to “give public health a chance”. With Covid-19 being a fast-moving target, public health officials have to continuously adjust their recommendations based on new, albeit temporary scientific data. This gives rise to some degree of public frustration and distrust.  Medical sciences, despite their remarkable achievements (in vaccine, testing and treatment) are always embedded in some degree of uncertainty, but legitimate debates on their risks/costs/benefits to individuals and society should not be sensed as systemic incompetence, nor lead to dis-information campaigns.

All over the world, public health and medical experts are now drawing up plans on how to prevent and control the next pandemic(s), and I am sure that on paper they will do well. Some already have heralded in the “Golden Age of Medicine and Bio-tech”, giving us interventions that will quickly be claimed as “miracle drugs”, true or not. But vaccines and drugs, lockdowns and face masks will not work unless we also address the social determinants of health.

As Americans, we all cherish the same values - justice, patriotism, freedom, and the pursuit of happiness, but we now live in separate emotional matrices and mental realities, where the understanding of science, the empathy for others, the concern for our common future is filtered through the prisms of our own prejudices, fears and self-interests. Until we give up the language of degradation and violence that defines our culture wars, and the identity politics that separate “us vs them”, we cannot heal our national self-inflicted wounds. The vast majority of Americans are reasonable, caring and generous people. We cannot allow extremist fringes of our society speak for us and determine our common fate. 

Pandemics come and go, but medical and public health interventions alone will not prevent nor mitigate their damages unless we also face our social inequities, reform the faulty socio-economic structures of our nation and call an end to our tribal wars. Easier said than done, but perhaps worth a try, and it starts with you and me.

(Modified version of an essay submitted Dec 31, 2021 and published Jan 9, 2022 in the Gazette Times, Corvallis, OR)