- Click to share on Facebook (Opens in a new window)
- Click to share on Twitter (Opens in a new window)
- Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in a new window)
- Click to email a friend (Opens in a new window)
Editor's Note: Roberto Izurieta is Director of Latin American Projects at George Washington University. He has worked in political campaigns in several countries in Latin America and Spain and has been an adviser to Presidents Alejandro Toledo of Peru, Vicente Fox of Mexico and Alvaro Colom of Guatemala. Izurieta is also a political analyst on CNN en Español.
(CNN Spanish) - I would have liked the title of this article to be “the day after”, but as I wrote in my first series of four articles, this virus will come in waves (and I maintain that each one will be more manageable than the previous one) . So the important thing is to know what comes after this first wave.
In my first article on the coronavirus, I mentioned that the most likely thing about this epidemic is that it will not completely resolve until you have a vaccine. And that, at best, it could be available in several months, depending on whether or not the eligible vaccines are given an authorization for urgent use, as has already been done for the serum of convalescent patients, the tests of laboratory and an antiviral. Recall that there are several possible vaccine projects, but from there to having the vaccine available in our pharmacies and health centers is another much longer story, which includes the ability to produce a huge quantity, whether or not there are country restrictions producer to export, cost, etc. So, unfortunately, a second wave of the epidemic is very likely to await us.
The last article focused on the debate, which has become much more political than scientific, on how to reopen the economy. The economic and political pressure to open the economies of our countries is enormous. Unemployment, especially among workers who already received the minimum wage, is the highest since the Great Depression of the 1930s. This increases pressure on the political level, especially in the election year.
The epidemic seems like a wave current that devastates countries and large population centers (China, Italy, Spain, USA) with devastating force. In these weeks, it is feared that it will reach its maximum strength in Mexico and Brazil, unless, as President Andrés Manuel López Obrador says, he has already tamed the epidemic. Argentina and Chile were the first to react responsibly, and have consequently had few confirmed deaths, but the cold winter months are coming, and we must observe how this influences the behavior of the virus.
When their pockets or their health are acutely affected, the public is not very tolerant and, as we are seeing, the pandemic cannot be stopped with speeches that hide the truth, nor with convenient lies, but with facts. Full opening may bring some economic benefits, but the price to pay can be a wave of contagion, tragically expressed in thousands of hospitalized and many dead. The opposite is also true, if the economy does not open there will be fewer deaths but more unemployed, more poverty and more hunger. Where's the balance? Well, finding the best balance is a political decision, but if this decision is made using correct information, the consequences will be less painful.
To make this decision, the politician (even the populist) must surround himself with people who understand science and use this science to understand reality; Only then, well informed, can you take appropriate political action. The tragic dilemma for the politician is to decide in what currency to pay the price (in the currency of unemployment and hunger or in the currency of the dead). For although cases can be hidden relatively easily (it is enough not to have much evidence available), hiding the dead or the poor for a long time is almost impossible in a modern and progressive democracy.
Politics is moved by emotions and the strongest of all is fear: the anguish of the fear of death (especially in a tragic way). The pandemic is that invisible ghost that nobody knows who it will take tomorrow. Therefore, as we learn about the behavior of this virus, that fear (typical of our nature as the terrifying ghost of our childhood), is moving away and the realistic calculation of the risk that we are willing to take as individuals, families and communities. Then, and only then, the individual will be able to choose with free will. Only there some will prefer the risk A of getting sick in exchange for being in a supermarket checkout and earning a salary B. The politician will face the same tragic dilemma and will have to decide based on science and not fear of the ghost. The key is that there is NO perfect answer, but there are consequences to pay. This is once again when the "fake news", manipulation and demagoguery are useless; on the contrary, they are very harmful.
The main thing in these months is that promising treatments are already appearing to combat the pandemic, and in this era of an interconnected world, that curve, that of discovering treatments, accelerates as the weeks go by. As I said on March 14 in the first article in this series, the most accessible treatment for poor countries is the donation of serum (plasma) from patients who have already passed the disease and created antibodies. This serum does not have a patent and is therefore accessible to all countries.
I think that with the knowledge that we are acquiring it will diminish the anguish and it will help us to concentrate, as families, cities and societies, on solving economic challenges. Let's hope to do it responsibly, prudently. If the anguish lessens, so does the political pressure. This does not mean that the most radical policies to combat the epidemic will continue to be popular. There will be a kind of political dance (informed, I hope, by science).
The next wave of this pandemic in the northern hemisphere will find us more prepared (treatments, contingency plans, states that no longer have to fight for tests and respirators). The engine will be less anguish and more information. Each city will have to take the necessary measures to move things forward. As they say in some countries: we will move to a "smart" quarantine, a name they are using in Paraguay. This phrase reminds me of what we said in the campaigns: that the best way to fight crime is not with force but with "intelligence". And I agree.
How will politicians react in these new stages? Without a doubt and by definition, with more politics. The most irresponsible will continue to blatantly lie, manipulate and hope that the boreal summer will end their problems so that the economy recovers before November, and can declare a false political victory.
Great realities force great changes. Sometimes that change does not even depend on the alternative offered (if not, ask Bolsonaro). Faced with the crisis, the discourse and argument of political continuity weakens and gives way to the need for change. But the politician must remember that a real crisis well managed, with openness, appropriate scientific information and regularly transmitted, is rewarded. For example, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo is known for using science in his decisions even though his city has the highest death toll in the United States. He has shared those decisions honestly and daily with his fellow citizens and has apologized when he was wrong.
I said it in my last interview on CNN. When people are bad (due to health, financial or security problems), they demand change. For this reason, the astute politician will be informed by science before making decisions and perhaps even learn to value it in the future. I have sustained it in all my classes, conferences and campaigns, I put it in writing in my first article published in 2001: political communication is not a substitute for reality.
coronavirus