Obzvláště zajímavá je pátá kapitola. [1] Zde se nachází klíčová Hortonova teze (s níž se ztotožňuji):
„The response of governments to COVID-19 represents the greatest
political failure of Western democracies since the Second World War. A
government’s first reponsibility is its duty to care to citizens. Early
government inaction led to the avoidable deaths of thousands of those
citizens.“ (s.84)
Selhání byla mnohá.
(1) Části vědeckých elit
„failure of technical advice … despite possessing some of the world's most talented scientists, nations such as the US, Italy, Spain, France and the UK were unable to harness their knowledge and skills to deliver timely recommendations“
… zčásti je to kognitivní bias v tom, že byla očekávána nová verze chřipky.
„Did those scientis read and také seriously the early reports of Covid-19 coming from China …? Did they seek guidance from doctors and scientists in countries that first experience the effects of Covid-19? If not, why not?“ (s. 85)
(2) Politického procesu
… a failure of political process after receiveing advice from the scientists
(3) Části politiků
"Egregious failure of political leadersing. … „They failed to buidl trust and confience among their publics. They failed to act decisively. And they failed to listenc, to show humility and to learn from failure.“ (s. 85)
(4) Materiální nepřipravenost
Catastrophic failure in prepraedness, „Despite the evidence from Wuhan, political leaders failed to acquire the necessary supplies of personal protective eqipment … failed to protect other health servicies so that usual care could still be offered to thos who needed it“ (s. 85)
(5) Implementace (opatření nebyla přijatá v čas, v dostatečné míře, v rámci plánu, ale reakčně ad hoc).
(6) Selhání v komunikaci: „the messages delivered to the public were often too little, too late“ (s. 86)
Závěrem tedy nutno říci, že selhání došlo v rámci západních zemíc a nelze např. přenášet zodpovědnost na WHO či ČLR či kohokoli jiného:
„Together, these failure constituted an extreme example of state negligence – a failure of governments to exercise their duty of care by ignoring evidence of possible dange, thereby expossing poeple to the risk of sever, somethinge fatal, harm. The evidence shows that governments could reasonably have been expectd to know the risky posed by this new virus. … It was within the power of governments to have prevented this human crisis. They failed to prevent. They omitted to save. … Governments were cuasally complicit and responsible for thse failures.“ (s. 86)
„This message of gross inkompetence is not welcome in Western political, medical or even media circles. It conflucts with a geopolitical narraative that casts China as a negative and dstructive influence in intenational affairs. Instean, the prefecenre has been to blame China and WHO. The claim is that China hid the facto f Covid—19. The claim is that WHO colluded with China in a cover-up of enormous proportinons. … There are many reasons to be critical of contemporary China … [But] In the case of Covid.-19, China’s sicentist and physicians acted decisively and reponsibly to protect the health of the Chinese people within this historical context. They warned their government, theri government warned WHO, and WHO warned the world. Wetstern democracies failed to listen to those warnings. There are questions for the Chinese government and WHO to answer. But to blame China and WHO for this global pandemic si to rewrite the history of Covid-19 and to marginalize the failings of Western nations.“ (s.87-8).
„It is understandable that Western countries would prefer to diminish their own responsibility. Their governments are facing difficult quiestion about what they kenw and when they knew it. …Placing responsibility for the pandemic on a country already distrusted by many citizens and an international agency that most people had barely heard of were easy diversions. It seems to wrok. Anti-China sentiment grew. And, alhtough WHO received support from many European capitals after Persident Trumps’s decision to withdraw funding from the agency, there was little direct opposition to the U.S. government’s aggressive stance.“ s. 89
„Globalism, international solidarity and cooperation between states were sacrificed in favour of unilateralism, nationalism and populist self-interest. It was a sad and dissappointing contrast to the unanimity among nations following the SARS outbreak in 2002-3. … The war against WHO was an unexcpected twist in the story of COVID-19.“
Horton sám byl aktivní v poukazu na nebezpečí přicházející epidemie, s. 94-5 The Lancet publikoval důležité příspěvky a na Twitteru mj. Horton poukázal na potřebu vyhlásit PHEIC 26. ledna. Britská vláda tyto příspěvky ignorovala a 10. kvetna Johson tvrdil „We didn’t fully understand its effects“ (s. 95) Snahy nkterých britských médií Horton označuje za „Kremlinesque in its audacity“ a stejně výrzaně mluvý i o „mašinérii vládní desinformace“ (the machine of goeverment disinformation), s. 95. Britská vláda např. různým způsobem censurovala informace o úmrtí, s. 96.
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Covid-19 is not a crisis about health. It is someting much worse. (s. 96) Je to svým způsobem „crisis of life itself“ (s. 96) Vir ukázal na hybris našeho druhu a jeho vlivu na tuto planetu (s. 96).
V závěru se odvolává na práce Didiera Fassina (Life, 2018). Tato nemoc není jen biologická, ale má svůj sociální a politický aspekt. (s. 98)
Poznámky
[1] Uvedena citátem: „… health professionals of the 21st century will
find that they have entered what must become politicised professions.
There is nowhere else to go.“ Julian Tudor Hart, The Political Economy
of Health Care (2006)
[2] Horton se zde odvolává na Ellulovu knihu Propaganda, 1965.
[3] V kapitole je ještě pekná pasáž k infodemice, patrně spíše vhodná spíše do jiné části knihy: „I have already discussed the many strange stories of disinformation –
the infodemic – that emerged during the crisis of COVID-19. What was
even more surprising and unexpected was that governments themselves
resorted to political desinformation campaigns in order to defend their
own roles in managin the outbreak. These efforts to rewrite the
narrative of COVID-19 are important to document. Just as there has been a
struggle to contain the outbreak, so there is a struggle to control the
was the public views government management of the outbreak. In the UK,
for example, ministers have claimed they did not pursue a policty of
herd immunity early in the epidemic. The statements from politicians and
science advisors clearly prove the opposite.“ (p. 92)
