To fight Covid, we need to think less like doctors.
 | By Alexandra Sifferlin Senior Staff Editor, Opinion |
Is public health just individual medicine at a large scale? That's the question Aaron Carroll, a medical doctor and health policy researcher, examined in his guest essay today. |
A physician will focus on the patient in front of them and provide the best possible treatment for that person. But for people in public health, who are thinking about large populations, the focus should be less about whether a recommendation is the best for any one person than how those recommendations and policies affect the wider public. |
Both of these approaches to health are reasonable. But when it comes to navigating a pandemic, Carroll writes, leaders must adopt the latter thinking. "While it may sound counterintuitive, to heal the country and bring our Covid-19 response on the right track, we need to think less like doctors," he writes. |
Carroll is familiar with both methods. He's also the chief health officer of Indiana University, where he has to make decisions that affect the entire university. |
He argues that public health leaders need to get out of the individual-focused mind-set, which can be perfectionist and conservative. "Much of my frustration at the response to Covid is that too many officials in senior positions at the Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention seem to be thinking this way — if something isn't close to perfect or doesn't maximize the safety of each individual person, it's not worth it at all." |
This way of thinking about health and medicine, argues Carroll, is how leaders end up downplaying the benefit of rapid at-home tests or believing that people might not wear masks correctly and therefore they're not worth recommending. It's how experts end up arguing that schools should be closed. |
The response to the pandemic has evolved with the science, and it's course-corrected many times. That will continue. But as we near the third year of the pandemic, it will take a collective effort to decide what risks we live with and what risks are unacceptable. Leaders should consider what lens they are using and whether it makes the most sense in the moment. |
And it's not just policymakers. As Carroll writes, everyday Americans also need to start seeing the larger picture. Sure, healthy 20-somethings might be totally fine getting Covid while unvaccinated. But if they don't get their shots, the disruption continues for everyone — including each individual. |
Here's what we're focusing on today: |
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