Friday 5 February 2021

Don't be a Social Murderer

Public health has grown and uplifted the quality of life everywhere in the world! The war against covid with everything in the swiss cheese model, from masks to vaccines are the wonders which are saving uncountable lives including us and our families. Having a central focus of doing the best possible for humanity as a collective good, it always ignores the individual's good to some extent and one brutal example of that was the quarantine strategy as an early step against the pandemic when it began. Being an archaic idea also called draconian measure against protection from diseases with high negative effects. It was impactful and still impactful now (all geographies for covid and any upcoming pandemic) but we also saw equally dangerous exaggerated negative effects too.

But 

a key point to note "the conditions created by privileged classes inevitably led to premature and “unnatural” death among the poorest classes." 

Ref- Covid-19: Social murder, they wrote—elected, unaccountable, and unrepentant. -Kamran Abbasi, executive editor https://www.bmj.com/content/372/bmj.n314

In this pandemic, I myself along with nearly all in the data science as well as public health and medical communities and labs were finding Quarantine to be a promising strategy (and it is to a great extent https://www.pslhub.org/learn/coronavirus-covid19/tips/the-swiss-cheese-respiratory-virus-pandemic-defence-r3379/ ) but the terrible adverse effects got exaggerated too and I saw many migrant workers walking even barefoot, hungry, since days, from 1000+ kilometres, with kids and sick elderly, and whatnot, and even after all the struggle had to face quarantine outside home town, or blocked entry due to stigma, etc. It's impossible to imagine the extent of sufferings.

Other than my real experience which is common for everyone worldwide, and cluelessness on what could have been a good enough strategy to prevent the disaster. Clueless even when I tried and still trying to follow some of the ocean of evidence ranging from minimalists to maximalists. The cluelessness of Uncertainty.


Calculation below is based on heavy approximation from non-precise non-latest data for my own understanding.

Annually deaths are 7 per thousand, and if we take approximate 2 million died in a year due to covid then death due to covid is 2.6 per 10 thousand which is around 3.7% of total deaths per annum which is around lowest among top 10 killers. Top 10 killers is a deadly number and that is just the mortality from the direct impact of covid as disease and not the indirect effects like missed treatment, missed essential services, lost jobs and stresses etc. and the morbidity of severe and mild covid sickness. Also, a worrying aspect of covid is the high-risk (age and comorbidities) group where most of the mortality is concentrated. 


Suggestion - 

1) Do not fear, do not help spread infodemic. Learn, educate, and practise basic safety measures, care plan (isolation, quarantine, home care, telecare, etc). Help, guide and promote all for following safety measures. Follow all this even when you are vaccinated. Follow all this to save INDIVIDUAL  LIVES.

2) Covid-19 is not ending anytime soon and can even take years, also vaccines are useful but they are not magic bullets. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-02278-5 

3) Its stressful year for all and there is no end to troubles yet, be nice and reduce covid stigma.

4) For all in power, "Don't be a social murderer."





PS- Public health ignores individual good to some extent based on the probabilities of risks and the catch is, the uncertainty of an individual lying into population saved group or individuals harmed group which we never know until its too late. Public health is good, follow it.

Question- What could have been good enough effort/strategy to be not considered a social murderer for those in power?

Looking forward to your answers in comments.


(I do not intend to justify the lack of good enough efforts, I specifically wish to discuss scientifically that when we are 1+ year into the pandemic, what do we know/learnt about strategising in way that could have been better and also may be good enough)

5 comments:

  1. Quoting from your write up

    "...ocean of evidence ranging from minimalists to maximalists...the cluelessness of Uncertainty."

    Wonder if minimalism is a strategy to keep the cluelessness and uncertainty to the minimum? 🙂

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    Replies
    1. It may be, specially a minimalism of only doing good research because it's common that hotter a research area is more the chances or bad/wrong research publications.

      And then even maximalism may be productively useful by giving pluralistic inputs.

      Balanced correct use of both.

      Delete
    2. correct = collectively critically appraised

      Delete
  2. My answer to the question - We never know the results when making the strategy, but we can have results and KPIs from other strategies or same strategies used in other context, and KPIs for ongoing implementation of the current strategy to help tweak as per the need. We can have same done better in hope for the best outcomes, probably that's a good enough effort. This process will also have bias, errors, failure to reach consensus, etc. minimizing these negative factors will cost lesser human lives and opposite is also true.

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  3. A relevant article - What went wrong in the global governance of covid-19? https://www.bmj.com/content/372/bmj.n303

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