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Balance of a pandemic

2021-09-20T12:30:35.117Z


The behavior of institutions and citizens before the covid has contradicted the most apocalyptic forecasts


A group of citizens walks through the streets of Bilbao.Miguel Toña / EFE

Faced with the catastrophic forecasts that loomed over our heads, Spanish society discovers at the dawn of autumn that the balance of damage from a ferocious pandemic deserves a consideration away from the bellowing of the networks and the most hyperventilated press.

There are not too many reasons to practice that ugly vice so common among us of self-flagellation: the apocalypse is usually announced by the political adversary in the face of the neat nature of his good intentions.

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The reality has been different. The numbers of deaths and infections, unemployment, economic losses and the psychological impact caused by the pandemic have coexisted with a collective and multilateral response capable of mitigating the most dramatic effects and promoting the resumption of a normalcy that will never be as it was. until March 2020. Nothing will change substantially, but nothing will remain exactly the same: lost opportunities, postponed desires, crooked projects will continue to be there, in the intimate memory of people and, above all, the deceased, the sick with sequelae of long duration, late diagnoses of other diseases, operations that could not be performed and so many other stories of suffering.

The pandemic has also acted as a very tough stress test on social structures. The main one has been the relevance of equity in the face of an extreme and complex emergency. The massive compliance among the population of the harsh restrictions imposed would not have been possible with a for himself (or simply neoliberal) approach. The policy of protecting the most vulnerable was imposed and this has reinforced social cohesion, despite the problems in the allocation, for example, of the minimum vital income. The priority criteria in the care and in the administration of vaccines have been scrupulously respected and Spain is today, with more than 75% of the population with the complete schedule, among the countries with the highest vaccination rate.

Employment protection has found an effective instrument in ERTEs. Although public health came to the test undercapitalized by the cuts imposed by previous conservative governments, it has been a fundamental pillar in the response to the pandemic. Also distance teaching and the distribution of computers to the most disadvantaged students should allow a qualitative leap in digitization that reduces the social gap in access to new technologies.

The coordination of the autonomous communities with the Government has activated without any stridency a federal model of operation and has shown a productive way to deal with conflicts: consensual and multilateral (that is, federal). But there are still multiple ambiguities in the allocation of responsibilities to achieve a more effective coordinated management. The creation of a powerful state-level public health agency, made up of community representatives and with the power to make binding decisions, is another urgent need. This pandemic has not ended yet and its trail has been and is dramatic, but we are gazing into a new normal without the dire omens that the doomsayers sowed by land, sea and air have been fulfilled.


Source: elparis

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