Our vulnerability is not only due to our unpreparedness and lack of foresight but due to our systemic violence. These were the gateways that led to the entries of the flood-water of the pandemic.
The phenomena of unhealthful conditions in the slums, disparity, disenfranchised migrant workers, illiteracy, regionally disparate development, corruption, underrated mental and social health awareness have left us vulnerable to the pandemic.
Public Health needs a multi-angled approach not only on part of world governments and non- governmental organizations, but also on part of the citizens who are no more just citizens now but are world citizens, whether they like or accept it or not. This is because living beings are interconnected with the environment, and globalization has only made this connection stronger. It has reduced the distances and the time gap between causes and consequences. Global citizenship is now a de-facto relationship.
Understanding and implementing this concept of a relationship with the entire world is not just morally sound but also scientifically sound. The spread of Covid-19 due to a rapidly forming chain is an example to elucidate this point. Thus, sound Public Health is a Human Right and their relationship to each other has never been clearer.
After making this relationship between the citizen and the world an active and obvious reality in the psyche and the actions on ground, there is a need for systemic reprogramming in order to correct the aforementioned systemic violence.
In the field of Public Health the underlying causes may be quite indirect as seen above. Hence, social justice is the answer for building resilient public health.
The culture of our global village needs to be intimate, just, warm and accepting. After the fall of the Berlin wall and the opening up of Chinese economy, the pandemic has essentially asked us to dislodge the separation between “us” and “they” which nature did not see.
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