If we had a better public health system in America, would the pandemic have been as bad? Would as many people have died? Was the real point of entry for the virus not just our bodies — but a system of public health that in a sense dared the pathogen to attack us?
With the omicron variant coming at us, this week on the WhoWhatWhy podcast we talk with Dr. Sandro Galea. He is the Robert A. Knox professor and dean of the Boston University School of Public Health, and has been named an “epidemiology innovator” and one of the “world’s most influential scientific minds.”
At the core of our problem, according to Galea, is that we don’t focus on real health care in America. Instead we have sick care. We spend more, almost 40 percent more, on medical care, and get less for it than any other industrial nation, with a lower life expectancy. This explains, says Galea, why we were sitting ducks for the COVID-19 virus.
If we had been a healthier nation to start with, he says, we would have had a very different pandemic. We are overinvested in treating conditions of aging in those over 70, and underinvested in the forces that keep us healthy from a young age.
Galea reminds us that the pandemic is not a singular event that exists in a vacuum. It has exploded, in part, because of 40-plus years of bad public health policy. Still, he thinks this could be a teachable moment.