Adaya Gonzalez
Madrid (EFE) that during the pandemic decisions have been made “that did not touch” with the shield of the technicians.
It is the balance “full of chiaroscuros” that Óscar Zurriaga makes to EFE of these three years, which he fears could take its toll in the future, because today “nobody thinks that a new pandemic could come” and many measures that will be necessary again are completely “discredited”.
Chiaroscuro starring those who made the decisions and those who abided by them, but also by those who supposedly motivated them, the already famous technicians like him who, many times, did not even share them.
The cracks in communication
Epidemiologists have learned that it is necessary to train “much more” in communication. “We have not been able -he acknowledges-, even if we have tried, to hit the key and present the appropriate messages or at the appropriate time”.
But they are not the only ones: those who decided gave it a “relative importance”, it is enough to remember “those first appearances full of soldiers, police… all that ruling party put people on guard.”
“Decisions -he adds- must be explained well and to everyone, although sometimes it doesn’t suit us, and we must realize that the same explanation does not work for everyone or through the same channels”.
Although “probably if we had to repeat it today it wouldn’t turn out well either”; at least the technicians have taken note that the communication should not be left “to see if there is luck”, but this “should also be revisited by the administration”.
The mask, discredited
The bad explanations have led “to the discredit of some measures that are absolutely necessary and that will be so again when we have a new pandemic.”
Like the mask: “at this moment it is very discredited and it seems that no one should wear it again, but it is very possible that we will need it again in the future”; however, the arguments about “why it has been mandatory, or imposed abroad, or its withdrawal at the wrong time”, have harmed it.
The same with vaccines: “their usefulness and how far they could go were not explained well enough, or there was talk of group immunity when it was not feasible to achieve it even theoretically…”.
Without forgetting the much-vaunted flu of the covid: “We will stop saying that it is a pandemic when the WHO says so, because it is the only one that can put and remove the qualifier”, ditch.
The shield of “the technicians say”
Zurriaga does not think that there has been politicization, but partisan positions on some decisions; and those who took them “have made many measures rest on the technicians that they did not touch”.
“The authorities in general have had to rely on the technical side and that has been good, the bad thing is that some decisions have been made under the argument ‘the technicians say’ and that is not the case.”
In them they “have shielded” even some that they did not even share. “Viral nationalism, closing borders, was useless, and the message transmitted is that it is not convenient to deal with people from that place, when sometimes we are the ones who bring them the viruses.”
The new viral landscape
If it did not work with the covid, neither with others such as Marburg, of which Equatorial Guinea declared an outbreak almost two months ago. In Spain there have been several suspicions, which have ended up being confirmed as cases of malaria.
Are viruses running amok? Zurriaga responds that what has happened is that, after years of predominance of Sars-CoV-2, the others “return to their normal channels.”
“It is not crazy that everything has gotten out of hand”, nor that there are two peaks of flu or syncytial: “it seems as if we are starting again, and in a certain way it is so because we have been without contact with these viruses for a while and there are a part of the population that does not have immunity.”
Before the covid, a major flu pandemic was expected, “the most complicated due to its extremely high mutation capacity, with the possibility of infecting people and animals, and with a recombination capacity that makes it especially dangerous.” But “we have already seen that a virus that you did not know about comes out and it makes a hole in you”.
Outbreaks of monkeypox in non-endemic countries have been unprecedented, but “what he is talking about is globalization, and that what used to be very rare to leave one place, today we have it in another continent in a short time.” ”.
Epidemiology remains invisible
Although it is in the background, we must continue to keep an eye on the covid and the rest, but it is not the only public health challenge, which it has plenty of, especially those related to primary prevention, from smoking to obesity or the multiresistant bacteria.
But what their professionals have taken away from this three-year period are “pats on the back” and that “people know how to say epidemiology without spelling it out.” “Visibility has not given us, sometimes it has been almost to put some in the crosshairs and that they cannot leave without being insulted.”
There have been clear, “the behavior of citizens in the first year above all”, and their colleagues, who “have given everything they could and much more”.
But they continue in the same precarious situation as before, which is why they ask that they be recognized as doing “necessary work”, which must be paid with dignity and that the initiatives already underway that affect their specialty, such as the future Public Health Agency, bring together more means and better conditions.
With an imminent change in Health, Zurriaga summarizes his request to the new head: “we sometimes ask you something as simple as listening and surrounding yourself with experienced people who can give you the knowledge and experience you may lack.”