COVID-19 Pandemic: a Litmus Test of Trust in the Health System

Abstract

The pandemic caused by the SARS-CoV2 novel coronavirus is creating a global crisis. There is a global ambience of uncertainty and anxiety. In addition, nations have imposed strict and restrictive public health measures including lockdowns. In this heightened time of vulnerability, public cooperation to preventive measures depends on trust and confidence in the health system. Trust is the optimistic acceptance of the vulnerability in the belief that the health system has best intentions. On the other hand, confidence is assessed based on previous experiences with the health system. Trust and confidence in the health system motivate people to accept the public health interventions and cooperate with them. Building trust and confidence therefore becomes an ethical imperative. This article analyses the COVID-19 pandemic in the south Indian state of Tamil Nadu and the state's response to this pandemic. Further, it applies the Trust-Confidence-Cooperation framework of risk management to analyse the influence of public trust and confidence on the Tamil Nadu health system in the context of the preventive strategies adopted by the state. Finally, the article proposes a six-pronged strategy to build trust and confidence in health system functions to improve cooperation to pandemic containment measures.

Epistemic Ignorance, Poverty and the COVID-19 Pandemic

“…One cannot expect that members of groups who have been historically discriminated against will be immediately interested in cooperating. Distrust in the good intentions of governments is abundant (Baum et al 2009;Gopichandran et al 2020). Many groups have a long-time mistrust when it comes to relying on their governments to watch over their safety and well-being.…”

“…An efficient cooperative society is characterized by its ability to pool knowledge and information from diverse sources and therefore needs to guarantee freedom and build capacities so all can share freely valuable information (Harari 2020). Inclusiveness in decision-making also leads to higher decision ownership, which increases compliance with commonly agreed public health measures (Gopichandran et al 2020).…”

“It was God’s will”: Continuing pregnancy after perinatal infection by Zika virus

“…In turn, religiosity and religious beliefs turn into a coping mechanism in the face of difficult situations and soften the effects of stress on life, increasing selfesteem or the sense of self-efficacy and openness to social support (32) .…”

Arab Spring and COVID-19: Ex post facto examination of the Lebanese banking sector (the contemporary stakeholder analysis)

“…These differences are due to existing structural disparities based on individual education level, family income status, political affiliations, sector-level employment, and community/city size. People evalu-ate the country, the government, and its strategy during the crises based on the past performance in similar situations (Gopichandran et al, 2020). During the pandemic, the narrative of 'defensive pessimism' dominates, but the persistence of low public risk perceptions and low levels of compliance with government risk management measures bring to light the paradox of trust (Wong & Jensen, 2020).…”