Covid 19 and Public Health

"Covid 19" 

                        A year or so ago we experienced a new viral disease among us. We have called it Covid 19 and have seen that it is contagious. It has spread among us by droplets of a variety of sizes, many to small to be seen with our unaided eyes. Speaking of eyes it seems probable that Covy, (Covid is affectionately called Covy in my part of Colombia) may enter our system though our eyes. 

                    Covid can be transmitted to us as aerosols and so is a bit airborne, but seems to travel most effectively in a bit of water and the weight of that moisture bears it down. That being the case, its distance of travel is limited. There are disease vectors which much more effectively airborne to which we are subjected.

Other Vectors

                    I do not know how many disease arise or are revived on Earth each day. I am pretty sure that there are more of them than there are of us.

                    A fully airborne virus or other vector could infect a larger number of humans than can Covid. I know of no reason why it could not be more virulent.

Such a situation would be better handled by a co-operative and effective public response. We know much about how to co-operate, but to be effective we need practiced organization. I believe that it is to our benefit and that of our children and youth to create and maintain a more generally organized response that is more organize than any we have practiced. That is a much greater portion of the public may need to better understand the workings of our public heath system so as to make sure it is working well and that it is well worked. We might hear the call for organized understanding co-operation.

                    There are other disease vectors out there and new ones come. They come with the change of season and with climate changes. There are milder vectors than Covid and those which are more disabling. We can call them germs, fungi, bacteria, or something else, but we have dealt with them throughout our history and know that they have come to kill nearly half of us in a couple of years. 

We know that sanitation, excellent food, appropriate clothing and housing and enough physical exercise is good protection and an excellent defense when we do them well.

                        

Systematic Public Health

                    With the help of our public education system and our public health system we can know that we have excellent food and that it is available, the same for appropriate activity, clothing, housing, and sanitation. It is up to us to see that our public heath and education systems are well set up and working.

                    We are the public and the ones responsible for our health and education systems. It is up to see that we are appropriately organized. We are in this together. Nobody has to do it all alone, but it helps if a lot of us keep up on what is going on.

                    We have been reminded that a health public health system is one which the public is well acquainted with. We once had a better corps of well educated public health journalists than we have now and even then we needed a better one. Public health learning is an ongoing activity. The quality of food, water, and air change new germs come along. We need appropriate language to pass along the needed information. A good journalist can write to us or speak to us in language we can understand and that we can act on. The Journalist that we had passed on the word mostly in a newspaper column and sometimes on the radio. Now the word is passed from journal to professional journal by professionals to professionals in a language that even their own husband or wife may not understand.

                    The idea of public systems was that they be of, by, and for the public. But, the people working the system daily had to be clear about what the public wanted and needed, so that means an honest ongoing conversations with many. In a PHS they also need to know or have very good access to health knowledge and information and especially public health knowledge and information. That means a public which is willing to learn a bit and to speak up about their needs wants, and understandings. Having a good number of persons doing the work of  good public health journalists could be of great help.

                    With our help, the help of system professionals and bureaucrats, media people and others we could train and pay good men and women to make the public health word  available to all, bureaucrats, professional's, citizens, interested in public health. With a little more support and co-operation from us the people of our public health system would stand with us effectively in many ways. They could help get those public journalist trained, paid, and keep us well informed in language well understood by all.

                    Nearly all the men and women specializing in public health journalism have been fired and new ones not educated to the trade they need to be more than reporters and we need more than many hundreds of them. We need them at the city, state, county, and federal level. We also need them at several more specialized areas. They need to tells all they can of that we need to know about our use of and our support of our Public Health System in a language we can easily understand.

                      We may want to work out a way to teach ourselves to better support are public heath systems so that our personal health gets better support. We can learn enough and do enough. We are many and we are enough.

                    Thank you for reading.

                                                                                                    rcs