Читать книгу COVID-19 and Risk - Alaszewski Andy - Страница 25

In early 2020, COVID-​19 was a new disease so policy makers could not use evidence from the past outbreaks of the disease to identify and manage its risks. They had to use the next best thing: framing COVID-​19 in terms of an existing disease. Policy makers in the western Pacific Rim tended to frame COVID-​19 in terms of SARS and adopt the public health responses that had worked effectively with SARS. This approach worked well and generally these countries managed to restrict the spread of and deaths from COVID-​19. In the preface to this book, I noted that one of my reasons for writing it was to try and understand why policy makers in the UK delayed taking effective action. The answer is clear. The UK was well prepared for a flu or flu-​like disease pandemic. COVID-​19 was very different from flu and by the time policy makers in the UK realised this, it was too late to implement public health measures to stop the spread of the disease. The only option to prevent an unacceptably high death rate was a lockdown. A similar process took place in the US. The former President, Barack Obama, described the pandemic as ‘the classic example of reality biting back’ (Obama, 2020).