Paul Rosenberg - Don’t panic:: Public health expert on the common sense that will save lives // When will a coronavirus vaccine be ready?
Having written about global warming since the 1990s, I’m accustomed
to scientists warning us of dire things to come, while politicians and the
media ignore them. So I certainly didn’t want to do that myself.
But this time felt different. COVID-19 is a horrific public health threat. It’s
entirely possible that hundreds of thousands of people will die, conceivably
millions. But at the same time, China’s infection rate has been plummeting, and nations like Taiwan and Singapore never saw an infection spike to begin
with. South Korea’s infection rate was declining as well. Here in the U.S., the
Trump administration’s bungling has been disastrous, but local public health
responses have been vigorous...
So I wanted to get a
sober assessment from a knowledgeable expert — not to dismiss worst-case fears,
but to help put them into perspective, and shed light on how we might best
avoid both the very real dangers of the virus itself, and additional dangers
from over- or under-responding in various different ways. So, I reached out to
Dr. Timothy Brewer, at UCLA’s Fielding School of Public Health, who currently
serves as chair of the board of directors for the Consortium of Universities
for Global Health. The interview was conducted by phone on March 12, and has
been edited for clarity and length.
A recent comment in
The Lancet began by stating that governments won’t be able to minimize both
deaths from COVID-19 and economic impacts. Keeping mortality low will be
the highest priority for individuals; so governments must look at measures to
address or ameliorate the economic downturn. What’s your view from a public health perspective?
It’s not that the
public health response and economic response to an outbreak are antagonistic.
In fact, they’re synergistic. The things we do to contain the outbreak will
also minimize the economic impact. If the government responds in a way that
generates panic and anxiety, for example, not only will that probably
facilitate the spread of whatever the pathogen is, it will certainly facilitate
the economic consequences as well. However, if the government and public health
agencies are able to respond in ways that help communities to calmly and
rationally deal with the outbreak, and provide the necessary knowledge, that
will not only minimize morbidity and mortality, it will minimize the economic
effects as well..... https://www.alternet.org/2020/03/dont-panic-public-health-expert-breaks-down-the-common-sense-approach-to-pandemics-that-will-literally-save-lives/
