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Politics, interdependency and solutions

One Health, according to the dedicated high level expert panel is “an integrated, unifying approach that aims to sustainably balance and optimize the health of people, animals and ecosystems. It recognizes the health of humans, domestic and wild animals, plants, and the wider environment (including ecosystems) are closely linked and inter-dependent.”

Ph: Gustavo Fring, Pexels

First, I will describe the coronavirus pandemic in a local context, in Argentina. Then I will slowly slide into a more political analysis, which does not always bring out the best in us. We also depend on an environment from which goods are extracted, because we are part of an ecosystem. An “interconnected” ecosystem that provides us with air, water, food, building materials, energy and health. The rationale for one health policies. In the last paragraph, where you can jump right in, I will talk about solutions, including for the economy.

Coronavirus in Argentina

When the COVID-19 pandemic started, it wasn't a polarised issue. In Argentina, the political parties seemed united in their decisions. China overwhelmingly helped us by providing essential supplies to hospitals. At a time when the country was violently negotiating its national debt with private interests. Later, the Chinese gave us access to the Sinopharm vaccine. From 2020 to mid 2021, while most of G20 countries where alternating periods of lockdowns, Argentina and Chili were confined most of the time. The main reason was that South America doesn't have the hospital capacities of Western countries.

A company in Argentina was soon allowed to force-produce the AstraZeneca vaccine developed in the UK. To later learn that some of the components were extremely difficult to find. Russia also agreed to sell stocks of its vaccine. In addition, as part of a partnership, Sputnik V was soon to be produced in South America. Although it now seems unlikely that this vaccine will be recognized by the WHO any time soon.

In 2023, an Argentine vaccine was tested. With a new neoliberal government at the helm, we hope that the clinical trials will continue.

Politics

Then the more general question of the origin of COVID. Was the virus 'man-made' in a laboratory? Or did it come from the destruction of its host's habitat? Either directly or through climate change, both of which are 'man-made'. Not that the question is inconsistent, but when one of the authors of the book “Viral: The Search for the Origin of Covid-19” is a self-proclaimed post-Brexiter libertarian climate denier, it is eminently political. Virologists, some environmentalists, doctors and vets were soon to be caught in a political crossfire.

Back to the question: “Why do we need One Health?” One of many reasons is that we need better pandemic preparedness. And we need to understand the impact of politicians. An example: what motivates some political wings to polarise people on vaccination? How can anyone believe that vaccination is a bad thing? All the data explains, as always, that the benefits are collectively far better than the side effects.

Scientists know that strong beliefs, including political cults, sometimes belong to the same brain area. But it is not that people are being lazy to discuss rather than making consensus. In social networks, vaccine information is radically different according to whom your follow, your political flavour. These systems are amplifying polarisations, sometimes with paid advertising campaigns. Do you remember the Brexit campaign in Facebook/Meta?

Interdependency

An important part of one - public - health is to understand and mediate the correct equilibrium between humans, animals and plants. We are interdependent. And as the zoonotic pandemics of SARS-CoV-2 and monkeypox virus show, we are always part of an ecosystem. So we need transdisciplinary teams to understand what is going on.

Transdisciplinarity, and the definition is to evolve, is the accumulation of knowledge from different disciplines: from a laboratory, the field or the streets to model reality in all its diversity. These models help us to adapt to these harsh conditions. It has to be mentioned that some One Health actors consider the public participation is an obligatory prerequisite to any serious approach.

Another example: what makes people happy when the mask mandate is over? How do we explain that immunocompromised people, elders, children and anyone with a pre-existing condition, including heart diseases and maybe even cancer, or on the long list of Long COVID symptoms, are at risk? And the same holds true depending on your ethnicity, social class, gender and where you live because the health care framework is not the same for everyone, everywhere.

In addition, we need to do a better job of explaining why new variants of SARS-CoV-2 will emerge, that they are self-generating from the astronomical number of infected people and animals.

We have no reason to believe that these two diseases will not return in animals and come back to us as dangerous new variants. Indeed, as the WHO pointed out with SARS-CoV-2, the number of virus sequences studied from animals is minuscule. And there are animal species, among them many rodents, that can trigger contagion in humans.

Solutions

Western countries have described the “Zero-Covid” strategy as “unsustainable” in China, especially with the Omicron variant. In reality, lockdowns were shorter than reported in the media, and they worked.

We are not talking about “restrictions” when it comes to stay healthy, to be in condition to earn a living or to be alive. Furthermore, “Zero-Covid” is not only about the ultimate lockdowns, it involves hygiene, protection equipments, social distancing, ventilation, being able to assess the risk individually etc.

With One Health, we have a powerful way to promote climate and biodiversity adaptation policies. Because health is concrete to people, and viruses have no frontiers. We have left the “not in my backyard” issue. In same time, we have to address knowledge gaps:

• An example with bats. Bats have a robust immune system that makes them carry a considerable number of viruses. Long-term sentinel studies have detected new viruses in bats in Argentina. One of them is close to another virus affecting humans. In China, 35 patients with fever and recent animal contact carried the same virus, most likely from bats.

• A quick survey shows only a few publications on the ecosystem service provided by bats. Understanding ecosystem services is the only way to know how other animals spread these emerging diseases. As ecosystemic services are affected by climate change and biodiversity loss, a permanent monitoring system should be able to prevent emerging diseases.

• Although a later study highlights that climate change may have been a driver for the emerging of SARS-CoV and SARS-CoV-2, more studies are required. But one have to bear in mind that it is now proven that emerging diseases increase with climate change, not only biodiversity erosion.

The health of people at risk is the majority of the population, regardless of the country's income. The One-Health quadripartite alliance should gather more social scientists to understand our polarised world. And more economists, including from the World Trade Organisation and the International Monetary Fund, to better include the value of life into costs, including humans.

Since international treaties have a minimal impact when they disconnect from the economy. Global South countries need to have One Health Sovereign Debts Relief. In other cases, this instrument is called a debt-for-nature swap. Otherwise, they will not develop their health care infrastructures.

As there are green or sustainability bonds, why not call them One Health Bonds? States can emit these bonds on financial markets. To allow them to create projects that positively impact social and ecological pillars. One of the most famous players in the financial sector, BlackRock, is correlating the UN's Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) with its investments, thanks to Carole Crozat and her team. They have probably upgraded the effect of a pandemic on both the SDGs and the economy [I think this team must feel very alone in this company].

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The impact of a pandemic can be very different depending on who you are and where you live. And government policies have a strong impact on public health. Sometimes beyond our understanding. This interdependence between us, animals like bats and the plants we eat is a balance that needs to be studied. And monitored if we are to avoid worst-case scenarios. The solutions therefore lie in bridging the knowledge gap in a transdisciplinary way. By including, for example, the social sciences, economics and indigenous knowledge. What's more, we must collectively find a way of including the cost of this lifestyle, to avoid an economic collapse.

To go further, as an autistic person, I'm used to the “I'll let you make your own accommodations”. This is more or less how public health treats everyone now. Ever since officials “believe” that vaccines alone can stop a pandemic. As a consequence of these “necropolitics”, a lot more of people are dying, or the way they used to live or even work is now affected. I am not sure that this kind of public health is ready for One Health, at least in what we have recently called the “non-endemic” countries. The One Health actors need to be aware of this.

Mastodon, about the writer

I read today that meditation is a way of disconnecting ourselves from our habits, by distracting them with new habits.

I find that this description only applies to a Western vision, i.e. to what is known as the state of mindfulness. While meditation cannot be described as a solely spiritual dimension either, what interests me is that it can lead to a state of flow (where thoughts and actions flow together without constraint) or a state of cohesion (mainly focused on thoughts and how everything within our reach is connected). To find out more, read Jorn Betting's excellent article on holotropism.

From an autistic point of view, I know that habits are much more complicated than controlling a given behaviour, such as walking or riding an elephant. Javier Benacer and Jose Ignacio Murillo describe habits as non-conscious actions that guide or enhance conscious actions. Most habits are acquired through the repetitive performance of tasks, and a parallel can easily be drawn with long-term memory. In simple terms, a reflex is a kind of habit, but no 'brain' neurons are needed to trigger it; it simply passes through the spinal cord. Emotions, once considered innate, are sometimes not so diverse in some people. Some even describe them as mainly acquired.

The way in which autistic people sometimes perceive their environment also shows that sensations can be reinforced (or attenuated) by habits. Some of us experience sound or touch as pain, which is described as a tuning mechanism that does not de-amplify our sensitive system.

So unless someone meditates with a strobe light, heavy metal music and a cannon firing tennis balls, we're unlikely to 'replace' our habits! As a runner, after half an hour I finally start to free my mind. Unsurprisingly, running becomes less tiring after this limit.

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I've been keeping a journal about my experiences with Covid-19 since March 27, 2020. I certainly didn't expect to still be writing about it in 2023. My frustrations were already coming through in my writings, even on that first day:

“Today I'm feeling more hopeless about Covid-19 than I think I ever have. We've tried to do everything right.”

“[Husband] went for a drive a couple days ago, and was alarmed to see so many people out.”

“Hospitals are already overwhelmed. They're talking about blanket Do Not Resuscitate orders for people with the virus. They're prioritizing saving young people. They're talking about hooking up multiple people to single ventilators. And still our idiot president is saying he wants people back to work by Easter.”

“I'm worried about all the people who bought guns. There were lines around the block at gun stores.”

“We had 3.3 million people file for unemployment yesterday...they are giving money to businesses instead of giving money to people so that they can survive and wait out the virus.”

“My friend [who is a healthcare worker at a walk-in clinic] has a single mask to use. She keeps it in a baggy and only uses it when she absolutely has to. Which I would think is all the time now, but I can see that she has to prioritize. She said there have been a lot of stupid people, people who were told by their doctor to go to the ER, but they 'didn't feel like going there' so they went to the walk-in clinic instead. And then she has to send them to the ER anyway.”

I started this journal as a Notepad text file. I labeled it “Journal-Corona.txt”. This year, I changed the name of the file to add “2020-2022” and then I started a new text file for 2023. It's been much harder to motivate myself to keep it going this year.

This year's entries still express frustration, but now it's different.

March 14, 2023: “I completely don't get it. Maybe it's my own neurodivergent brain. I don't understand how people can ignore the studies and information on covid. How do you shrug off a disease that destroys every organ in your body? How can you not want to avoid that at all costs?? How do you allow your children to catch it over and over??”

The knots into which a person will tie themselves, who wants nothing more than for SARS-CoV-2 to be a thing of the past.

The ol' gishgallop

If it's not one convenient, specious argument, it's another. In my experience at least, it's exceedingly rare to find a denier who understands much less can expound upon the various theories they regurgitate. How could they? Peel back a layer or two and it's all obvious nonsense, even to them. They just don't look. It doesn't matter, as long as anyone who inflames their cognitive dissonance remains distracted or deranged.

Decision-based evidence-making

It's not like you [or me or so many others] aren't doing/saying 'enough' or 'the right thing'. Deniers frame it as a lack of proof and put the onus on anyone but themselves – yet another illegitimate form of downloading 'pErSoNaL rEsPoNSiBiLiTy' – when really it's a choice they made and continue to make. Some may even double-down in the face of opposition, their resolve strengthened as they encounter contradictory information. But, until each of them is willing to make a different choice, we'll continue to be confronted with Decision-Based Evidence-Making in EBDM clothing.

Manufactured consent

Why is anyone making this choice? Why don't they 'want' to believe so many things that seem all too clear to so many others? I infer a good chunk of it is manufactured consent. Of course it would come to pass in this era, wherein we've made it easier than ever to tell people what they want, that doing so is the wrecking ball destroying our civilization. The very thing that's enabled, nay prompted deniers to deny is what would need to be reversed or overwhelmed, like for like... like+1, really.

Planck's Principle

Short of wresting control over all avenues of messaging+media away from the oligarchs and plutocrats – the feudal lords who no longer fear being found out – the only thing I can think of that has ever overcome this much lying is results-over-time: people who live according to the 'new' reality and who don't suffer the same consequences. Humanity has always found a way to reject this kind of “proof” though, until most if not all of the holders-on have gone to their graves; aka Planck's Principle. Pity, then that the lords are all too keenly aware of this vulnerability and have laid siege to every one of us who's refusing to comply, in hopes of outwaiting/outlasting any and all who remain part of the control group.

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keep running, don't look back

Hello! I'm excited to have this space to write. :) I enjoy writing, and hope to post often!

No, wait: Hello, world!

This post will be my sandbox test page for writefreely

Expect many meaningless updates :–)

Thanks!

Testing this out! Looks like it could be a very useful tool.

Thanks for setting this up!

I remember a few years ago, before #COVID, a German colleague told me this worrying thing about #flu: “The state has allowed the flu virus to progress with little mitigation, so that older people are dying and not getting their pensions.” At the time, I thought Daniel was exaggerating, how could those in charge of #PublicHealth do such a thing?

Today, I've come to my senses: the people in charge of #PublicHealth will let any virus spread, as long as it doesn't openly make the headlines. Business must go on. This is where I came back to that interesting subject of mass psychology: social psychology.

You've probably all heard of those students who inflict electric shocks on their fellow students. The idea was to simulate the way in which people are likely to follow orders, in wartime, with the Nazi regime in mind.

As part of this science, you've probably heard about how 'engaging communication' can be used to manipulate. If you hand someone a piece of paper in the underground, or better still, shake their hand, you're more likely to get money in return.

But this science is somewhat limited to the study of individuals and large groups. It assumes that coercion (so well explained by Byul-Chung Han), bio-normativity (Michel Foucault) and neuro-normativity belong to another field, philosophy.

However, the influence of minority groups is well studied, and as far as the issue of #COVID and #LongCOVID is concerned, we can assume that we are a minority that wants to survive this current #pandemic in a healthy way, alive.

Actually writing it, based on this stuff about social psychology

The #ZeroesCAWrite beta is now open! It's based on WriteFreely, which is a longform blogging platform similar to Medium or Substack that uses ActivityPub to natively hook into the fediverse

If you'd like to try it out, feel free to login/sign-up using your existing zeroes.ca credentials — you'll need to re-up your email address the first time you use it

• Currently, it allows one character-unlimited, CSS-customizable blog per account
• Blogs can be private, password-protected, unlisted, or public
• Posts can be composed in plain text, markdown, or html
• New posts are automatically saved as drafts while composing; when you're ready to publish a draft, you can move it to your blog
• Images can be linked to directly, or by first uploading them to https://img.zeroes.ca
• Anyone with a fediverse account (eg, Mastodon, Calckey/Firefish, Kbin, Lemmy, etc) can follow your @write.zeroes.ca account
• When you post, the title and a link to the original post on write.zeroes.ca is pushed out to your followers to like, boost, and comment on

For more details, the official documentation is located here: https://writefreely.org/docs/latest/writer

If you have any questions, find any bugs, etc, please don't hesitate to get in touch

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