Dear Community,
Most of you are aware of this recent outbreak of the coronavirus (2019 n-Cov), which is dominating the news cycle and social media. Possibly, some of you have been affected, whether it is canceled travel plans, ill relative, or otherwise.
Reflecting on my recent research project on a disease outbreak (2013-2016 Ebola epidemic in West Africa), I am concerned that the mainstream discussion in the media has some disturbing trends that we saw a few years ago. Particularly, the messaging emphasizes the death rate (which is currently lower than the seasonal flu death rate) instead of prevention, "exotic or odd cultural" practices that infer that Chinese people are "responsible" for bringing about this new virus (e.g. wet markets), and the alleged (lack) response of the international community (e.g. pushing WHO to declare this outbreak a PHEIC). On this last point, I do feel a PHEIC declaration was necessary in 2014, as the three West African countries are low-income and fragile, but China is the largest industrialized nation with a more advanced health infrastructure.
What is missing from this discussion is the highly politicized nature of disease outbreaks.
PHEICs are declared when there is a regional or global security threat (which in itself is another discussion because it is securitizing health); however, how do we determine if this is threatening the regional or global security? Travel bans most certainly will threaten a country's economy, which is why WHO rarely recommends a travel advisory (the last case was during the 2002 SARS outbreak). It puts the WHO in the awkward position of naming and shaming, which could deter countries from inviting it when there is a health problem.
Then, there are criticisms that domestic governments can't escape. If Chinese authorities implement a quarantine or isolation measure, it is too authoritarian but if people are going about their daily lives, traveling to other countries, then they are criticized for putting other people at risk. Again, similar to the West African outbreak, where locally-derived solutions to prevent Ebola were criticized by Western observers and "experts" but there was pressure to stop travel from these areas as people were afraid that "Africans were putting others at risk". These perspectives only help to racialize and stigmatize an epidemic, hence governments will respond in this way with policymaking. Instead, one must critically look at structural challenges of health inequality, asymmetric health policies, and skewed development that often leads to these public health emergencies.
https://www.health.com/condition/infectious-diseases/epidemic-vs-pandemic
Clearly a serious Public Health concern; no doubt. Yes, if you consider the likely extremely high dark figure of cases in addition to the 64.413 recognized cases as of February 14 (3 pm CET), it is an emergency and I am sure that COVID-19 will be declared a pandemic within the next few days.
Christian G Meyer You believe that WHO will declare a PHEIC, because of 'technical' reasons and not 'political' reasons (such as its failure to contain the 2014 EVD outbreak)? As, I discussed above, disease outbreaks are politicized and for international responders it is about looking good in the light of high profile incident like this. Also, I believe there is some subtle distinctions in the definitions of outbreak, epidemic, and pandemic? For example, HIV/AIDS is a pandemic because it is a global phenomemons where millions of cases exist on each continent. Based on these numbers, COVID-19 has not reached this.
https://www.health.com/condition/infectious-diseases/epidemic-vs-pandemic
- Badges
- Science topic
- Similar topics
- Public Health
- Health