{"id":108553,"date":"2020-11-11T17:06:56","date_gmt":"2020-11-12T00:06:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=108553"},"modified":"2020-11-11T17:06:56","modified_gmt":"2020-11-12T00:06:56","slug":"the-covid-pandemic-broadening-the-discourse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2020\/11\/11\/the-covid-pandemic-broadening-the-discourse\/","title":{"rendered":"The Covid pandemic: broadening the discourse"},"content":{"rendered":"

By\u00a0ASOKA BANDARAGE<\/a> Courtesy Asian Times<\/span><\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n

It is time for a more balanced way of living that respects the environment and upholds bioregionalism <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Technicians prepare for large-scale production of the University of Oxford’s Covid-19 vaccine candidate, AZD1222. Photo: AFP \/ Vincenzo Pinto<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

SARS-CoV-2, the coronavirus that causes Covid-19, has been spreading exponentially across the world over the last 10 or so months. More than a third<\/a> of the global population has been placed on lockdown. The global economy is experiencing the deepest recession<\/a> since World War II and massive numbers of people are losing their livelihoods and suffering serious effects on their physical and mental health.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The pandemic has allowed states and corporations to tighten technological surveillance and authoritarianism<\/a>, curtailing privacy and democratic protest. As virulent second and even third waves of the pandemic speed across countries, people are gripped with fear and despair over their own survival and what the future holds for humanity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The origin and prevention of the virus are mired in controversy and conflict between conventional and conspiracy\u201d theories. This unprecedented, multifaceted global crisis, however, calls for deeper exploration and broader discourse on its causes and long-term solutions. Biomedical science, social science and ecological and ethical perspectives need to be integrated to overcome this pandemic as well as other pandemics predicted in the years ahead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Controversy over origin and prevention<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Given the lack of media coverage, there is scarce public awareness of the likely laboratory origins<\/a> of previous pandemics like the H1N1 outbreak of 1977-78. Scientific and media establishments attribute the origin of Covid-19 to an animal-to-human (zoonotic) transmission at a seafood market in Wuhan, China, in December 2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While US intelligence sources also originally asserted this, they conceded in March 2020 that the pandemic may have originated in a leak from the lab at the Wuhan Institute of Virology<\/a> in China.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Wuhan Institute is linked to the US Army\u2019s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), which does research and testing involving bats and coronaviruses and gene-editing bioweapons<\/a>.\u201d The Wuhan Institute also has a close, decades-old partnership with the US Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID) in Maryland, the leading US military laboratory for biological defense<\/a>\u201d research. USAMRID is known for periodic shutdowns due to its problematic record on safety procedures.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gain-of-function research<\/a> (GOF) involves manipulating viruses in the lab to explore their potential for infecting humans.\u201d This type of research is criticized by many scientists on ethical grounds because of the risks GOF viruses pose for human health from accidental release.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Because of public health concerns, in October 2014, the US government banned all federal funding for efforts to weaponize three viruses: influenza, Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS), and severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS). In the face of this ban in the US, Dr Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), reportedly outsourced in 2015 the GOF research<\/a> on bat coronaviruses to China\u2019s Wuhan lab and licensed the lab to continue receiving US government funding.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In early 2018, US Embassy officials in China raised concerns about inadequate safety<\/a>\u201d at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. US science diplomats warned that, in part because of a lack of adequate safety personnel, the research that the lab was conducting in relation to bats represented a risk of a new SARS-like pandemic.\u201d Yet action was not taken and despite the controversies, Dr Fauci was appointed as the leading doctor in the US Coronavirus Task Force and continues to function in that position.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hollywood films like 2011\u2019s Contagion<\/a> presented eerie premonitions of the Covid-19. In 2015, billionaire and global-population-control proponent Bill Gates<\/a> warned of a huge threat of a global pandemic. A pandemic simulation called Event 201<\/a> was conducted in October 2019 by the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security<\/a> in partnership with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation<\/a>, and the World Economic Forum<\/a> projected up to 65 million deaths due to a coronavirus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, the biomedical, political and business leaders who were well aware of the impending Covid pandemic did not take the precautionary action needed to safeguard people. The United States, Europe and other regions found themselves without adequate testing kits, respirators, hospital beds and medical personnel when the virus started to spread.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A failure of leadership lies behind the massive destruction of human life, livelihoods and social life that we are experiencing today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Controversy over mitigation<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

While lockdowns, curfews and the isolation of entire communities and regions seem to be the norm, the effectiveness of this approach and its enormous negative consequences on the economy, society and mental health are coming into question. The success of the mainstream approach depends on a host of local socio-economic factors, such as the age of the population, health infrastructure, leadership, and mobilization of people, as well as just, uniform and compassionate enforcement of preventive measures.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Double standards in enforcing Covid health protocols can contribute to resentment and weaken overall conformity jeopardizing the health and safety of entire populations. Apparently, under strict guidelines in Australia<\/a>, some individuals have been prevented from visiting dying family members while at the same time VIPs and celebrities have been exempt from strict quarantine measures.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Likewise, in Sri Lanka, high-powered delegations from China<\/a> and the United States<\/a> (the latter led by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo) arrived in the midst of the worsening second wave in October, seemingly forgoing national Covid guidelines.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Many countries in the Global South such as Vietnam, Cambodia<\/a>, Senegal and Rwanda have contained the pandemic more successfully than the United States and the rich European countries. As of November 1, Rwanda and Senegal<\/a> reported 0.28 and 2.04 Covid deaths per 100,000 people<\/a> respectively, whereas the corresponding number for the US was a staggering 70.4.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The vast majority of those infected recover easily and only the elderly and those with other pre-existing illnesses are the most vulnerable. As of November 6, of the total confirmed 49,195,581 cases, 32,368,883 had recovered<\/a>. Given this reality, many epidemiologists are suggesting focused protection\u201d<\/a> of the most vulnerable groups, allowing the rest of the population to develop herd immunity,\u201d<\/a> the point at which the majority of a population becomes immune and limits the spread to those that are not immune.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sweden is the leading example of a country that went against the global norm of mandatory lockdowns, social distancing and use of face masks. Sweden experienced a much higher numbers of cases and deaths than its Scandinavian neighbors during the first wave of the pandemic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, Sweden has had relatively fewer deaths during the current second wave<\/a> while other Scandinavian and European countries that imposed strict lockdowns early in the pandemic are facing massive spikes in infections and deaths. Given the relative failures of the mainstream lockdown approach and its negative socio-economic and psychological impacts, alternative long-term<\/a> approaches like that of Sweden warrant consideration.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A report in May from the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy<\/a> in the US suggested that the Covid-19 outbreak will not end until 60% to 70% of the human population becomes immune to the virus, which could take anywhere from 18 to 24 months. Meanwhile, many virologists and global leaders argue that the only way to eradicate the virus would be with a vaccine delivered to every human being<\/a> as quickly as possible.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By\u00a0ASOKA BANDARAGE Courtesy Asian Times It is time for a more balanced way of living that respects the environment and upholds bioregionalism SARS-CoV-2, the coronavirus that causes Covid-19, has been spreading exponentially across the world over the last 10 or so months. More than a third of the global population has been placed on lockdown. The global […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[122],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-108553","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-health"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108553","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=108553"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108553\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=108553"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=108553"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=108553"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}