The COVID-19 pandemic: a health crisis managed, or a panic response with disastrous future consequences

Abstract

In one year the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) spread rapidly across the globe affecting all societies and most age groups. It has taken not only a toll of human lives (approaching 220 million people infected with 4, 4.5 million reported deaths at time of writing), but has also decimated every economy, as countries struggle to control infection rates from airborne infection and personal contact, by introducing draconian lockdown and social distancing measures. The consequence of this has been to bring great suffering, well beyond the medical effect of the disease. A parallel pandemic has resulted in a deluge of information emanating from both scientific as well as international news media including social media platforms. Fact and fiction, reality and perception, lies and truth, have become entangled; the only realistic solution, both medically as well as politically, is concerted global vaccination to reduce further infection and introduce universal immunity. With several vaccines recently approved and being administered to general populations, a solution seems to be charted. Yet public controversy rages due to widespread apprehension regarding necessity, immediate risks and long-term safety of what is perceived as a ‘fast-tracked’ medication. While some concerns may be justified, much is also due to misconception and misunderstanding. This review highlights some of the issues concerning the handling of the COVID-19 crisis by governments worldwide, the medical and scientific communities and both the international and social media and how this may have laid the foundations for a far greater medical, social and economic burden in the coming years. We present comparative data to challenge the current conceptions of this disease in the more general context of human health, to provide a perspective that seems to have been lost in the general panic. Our aim is to re-align thinking about more rational approaches to the handling a disease which is unlikely to disappear from our spectrum of afflictions even after the magnifying glass has been removed from it.