Trying to make sense out of chaos: science, politics and the COVID-19 pandemic

Abstract

This essay discusses the proliferation of discourses about the COVID-19 pandemic, presenting the challenges both to science and public policies that such an information overload present, having Collins' sociology of expertise as a theoretical framework. Science; Communications Media; Internet; Social Media ENSAIO ESSAYThis article is published in Open Access under the Creative Commons Attribution license, which allows use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, without restrictions, as long as the original work is correctly cited.Camargo Jr. KR 2 Cad. Saúde Pública 2020; 36(5):e00088120The past as prologue "What experience and history teach is this -that peoples and governments have never learned anything from history, or acted on principles deduced from it" (Georg Hegel). Addressing the UN General Assembly in 1987, Jonathan Mann, then director of the Special Programme on AIDS, made the historical remark about the three epidemics 1 : first the propagation of the virus itself, then the irruption of the disease, and finally the social, cultural, economic and political reactions. Mutatis mutandis, this is a reference framework that could be applied to the current pandemic, albeit the second epidemic is not so distant from the first as it was with HIV and AIDS.In this essay, the focus is on the third epidemic, an epidemic of meaning, borrowing from the analysis made by Paula Treichler in the heart of the storm, in her aptly titled book How to Have Theory in an Epidemic 2 . She pointed out how the social dimensions of the AIDS epidemic were far more relevant than one might think, even when acknowledging the central role of biomedicine in the response of that other pandemic. Treichler at one point lists 38 different meanings attributed to AIDS, ranging from the absurd to the outrageous, many of which could apply to the present situation 2 . Leveraged to support discrimination, used as a sort of pedagogic resource to put forward moral theses, and rife with conspiracy theories, those were ideas that circulated wildly in the media then. Similar cultural and mediatic processes are taking place now with COVID-19, the biggest difference with the present is, obviously, the massive presence of Internet-mediated social networks, which were still in its infancy back then.The proliferation of narratives creates a crowded field, making much harder the task of making sense of the prevailing cacophony and finding trustworthy guidelines for action. This is an attempt to reflect about this situation, albeit having in mind a caveat about the risk of bringing critical reflections to such an unstable landscape, as pointed out in a quite satirical piece recently published in the academic blog Somatosphere: "in the haste to manufacture mental personal protective equipment against the Coronascene, it is all too easy to make mistakes, to mass produce instead fatuity, guesswork, and irrelevance" 3 .

Sentidos e significados atribuídos por homens ao vivido na pandemia da Covid-19

“…para a Enfermagem na medida em que elucida as práticas de cuidado masculino, muitas vezes sutis, encobertas e até mesmo invisíveis em outros cenários, possibilitando que enfermeiras e sua equipe acolham, valorizem, investiguem e teçam intervenções sobre esse cuidado. Implicações valiosas dessas ressignificações são reconhecidas para o processo de trabalho e a produção do cuidado em saúde pública, que, por meio dessas evidências, podem reconhecer de maneira mais acurada os fenômenos geradores de repercussões negativas e as significações positivas presentes nas vivências dos homens, principalmente em tempos em que se buscam explicações para o caos (29) . Nesse sentido, é importante reconhecer que grupos de homens circunscritos em contextos de vulnerabilidades sociais, atravessados por barreiras de classe social, minoria de gênero, sexualidade e raça/cor, poderão enfrentar situações distintas no contexto pandêmico da Covid-19, o que requer uma atenção de Enfermagem específica e compatível com as demandas emergidas desses atravessamentos macroestruturais e interseccionais.…”

Crafting Crisis Narratives

“…This erosion of government ability to craft authoritative narratives was exacerbated by different experts saying different things, a logical and usually desirable result of the institutional fragmentation of scientific expertise. In open societies, anyone with medical or science credentials could find platforms on which to question the evidence base underpinning official narratives about testing, rules and practices of social distancing, the effectiveness of lockdowns and facemasks, the wisdom of school closures, and the expected timing and safety of vaccines (Camargo, 2020;Reiss & Bhakdi, 2020).…”

An analysis of the experiences based on experimental marketing: pandemic COVID-19 quarantine

“…Of course, people have to filter some of the information they receive, because, according to Camargo (2020), a large set (avalanche) of erroneous information and research publications about COVID-19 did appear in the media that overloaded the information volume and compromised public debate and the possibility of adopting sound policies. Reynolds et al .…”

“…(2008) also report that in 2003, in Canada, at the beginning of quarantine for those presenting symptoms consistent with the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) outbreak, information on the causative agent was limited and sometimes contradictory. With this evidence, it should be noted that the speed of politics far exceeds science, which means that decisions often need to be made without scientific evidence (Camargo, 2020).…”