Resilient health systems for already resilient countries? Pandemic discourses in the post-COVID-19 era

Abstract

Abstract This study aimed to reconstruct and analyze the discourses of the pandemic in the post-COVID-19 era. The methodology was based on a critical review of the scientific literature on the pandemic, selecting 80 non-biomedical, clinical, or pharmacological articles published in journals indexed in Scopus or Web of Science from a sample of the 500 most cited scientific articles on the pandemic in Google Scholar. The theoretical approach was based on the debates on predictability, unpredictability, determination, and indeterminacy in the health and social sciences. As a result, six theses on the pandemic were identified and analyzed: a) the thesis of the unpredictability of pandemics; b) the thesis of pandemic denial; c) the thesis of the pandemic as a failure in predictability systems; d) the thesis of the prevention of catastrophic events with timely interventions; e) the thesis of the structural postponement of predictive care by non-developed countries; and f) the environmentalist-health thesis, of foreseeing a critical phase for the planet and humanity. We concluded on the limits of resilience as the center in preparing Latin American health systems in the post-pandemic.