Let’s test the actions one by one on these principles.1. There should be one in charge! This is the first thing all teams need to do before attempting to do anything else. Agree on one person who will be the lead of this outbreak control team. Normally this person will be an epidemiologist with actual experience of outbreak control. In my own professional life I have been lead of many outbreak investigations even though I was most junior officer in many instances. Unified leadership is the critical component in any pandemic control strategy as decisions based on evolving data needs to be made on daily basis which requires understanding of epidemiology, data science and outbreak dynamics. It’s just like military operations. There should be a clear authority before you send your troops to an active fight. Everyone should know their role and responsibilities. Any ambiguity in authority cost lives in combat. Responding to a pandemic is no different. I have a simple question: who is the in charge here?
Pandemics are also local. That means pandemics do behave differently in different parts of the same country
2. Decisions should be based on health intelligence. Disease surveillance is not just a daily list of numbers of dead and sick but a step ahead to predict virus next moves based on its observed strengths and weaknesses and understanding of our own vulnerability. No combat leader will rely on computer models but get the real feedback from an ongoing battle and modify his response in real time. COVID19 pandemic is like third World War and this is high stake war of survival of our specie. Our enemy is not Nazi Germany but a microscopic foe which is stealth in infecting and killing us. We are still trying to learn about it so it become very critical that whatever health intelligence we have about SARSCOV2 (the virus which gives us COVID-19) we use it for our greatest advantage. “Are we making or evolving our decisions based on our data”?
3. Decision should be made based on science. That does not mean that political leaders should not be the final authority in the decision making. However they should get the best technical team of disciplines concerned, and listen to them before they make a decision. No doubt we all have technical committees but they don’t sit on the table when the decisions are made. This helps others to ignore their advice. Look around the world and every political leader is flanked by the country top epidemiologists and public health professionals. The technical committees in these countries are not at second or third tier of decision making but have seats in the top decision maker bodies. The simple reason is that our enemy is not a human whose actions and reactions we could predict but a microscopic virus which has evolved our billions of years. Even with top administrative professionals and military genius will need those who understand viruses and know how to manage them in an outbreak setting. “Do we have right technical experts sitting in top decision making bodies?”
4. One of the most important principles of pandemic management is that the government officials should not be seen fighting with each other in public. That confuses public and they ignore important guidelines being issued by the government because they are not sure who is right and who is wrong. “Are our government officials/ministers are being seen in public in conflict in their opinion on how to respond to an outbreak?”
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