Covid-19 is one of many present-day man-made public health crises. It appears, its origin is linked to the growth in world population and the narrowing of spaces between the human and animal worlds. It is a very serious health emergency and one among so many others that don’t draw our attention: for example, there are still many millions of children who die from poor nutrition every year. And, additional millions of people die an early death every year because of air pollution. There are also other attacks on our health that as a community we decided to marginalize or repress such as the threats from excessive sugar, saturated fat, meat, inactivity, undue stress, trauma etc.
All the public health plights have one thing in common. They affect the most vulnerable among us more than the privileged. Health disparities are accentuated in any public health emergency. The corona virus overwhelms individuals and communities that are already taxed by our social failures. Social distancing, the most effective preventive measure, is a privilege. In the U.S. the most vulnerable communities are the poor and people of color. Thus, race and poverty intersect with Covid-19. The virus is not an equal opportunity killer. Very few people at the bottom of the wage distribution can work from home and in contrast most individuals at the top can. Individuals and families who live paycheck by paycheck and whose lives are constantly under some form of social threat don’t even have the privilege to panic. Let’s all remember diversity and that some of us are disadvantaged, more exposed and threatened by early death.
The current virus pandemic has thankfully mobilized the whole world in an unprecedented way. It may help us recognize that we need to come together urgently to address the biggest health and survival crisis: global warming.
Unfortunately, as communities and individuals we tend to think that if something is not an imminent threat, we can postpone dealing with it. We do that when we disregard changing our life-style habits that we know have negative health impacts. Corporations and individuals did that when they denied the role of nicotine exposure in causing lung cancer. We are still doing it as a society when we avoid addressing the most extreme public health risk: global warming.