Pandemic Preparedness

by Eric Rempel

To some extent we have all bought into the ideology of neoliberalism. The current pandemic is showing us the limitations of the neoliberal approach. The economist John Maynard Keynes, when accused of having changed his mind, is to have said “When my information changes, I alter my conclusions. What do you do?” Although pandemics are not new, we have not had to contend with one of this seriousness for 100 years, not since the Spanish Flu. We do well to closely examine new information now emerging.

According to neoliberalism, lean is good, redundancy is wasteful. It follows from this that we only need a medical system sufficiently big to handle the “normal” incidence of disease. Surge capacity is unnecessary. It is wasteful of resources. that’s the medical system we have built here in Steinbach, in Manitoba, in Canada. We have enough face masks and other protective equipment for “normal”, but when things go beyond normal, we’re in trouble. In our nursing homes we have enough staff to deal with the “normal”, but when COVID 19 invades the institution, the institution is quickly overwhelmed.

So how far do we need to go beyond normal in order to protect us from these surges? That I don’t know. We need that conversation. We need medical professionals to answer that question. Nevertheless, I’m appalled when I read that in Italy over 100 doctors have died as a result of the COVID virus. Fortunately in Canada it’s not nearly as bad, but that is because we had the warning from Italy. In Canada, fortunately, medical teams are even having opportunity to do drills on how to intubate COVID patients in a way that minimizes the risk of passing the infection to the medical team. But I’m convinced neoliberalism will not bring us to the right answer.

COVID 19 has shown us how unprepared we are for a pandemic. The economic shutdown is showing us how easily we can do without. Air travel in Europe is 20% of what it was at the beginning of March. In North America it has not been reduced to that extent, but it is still reducing. In other words, we can live just fine, we can prosper, even if we fly a fraction of what we are accustomed to. Surely it is more important that we be prepared for a pandemic than that we get on a plane at the drop of a hat.

We have long accepted that we need a military – just in case. We need to be prepared. Tanks get built, armoured vehicles get built, battleships and submarines get built, fighters and bombers get built. Even nuclear bombs mounted on inter-continental missiles get built. Thankfully, most of these will never be used for what they were intended. They will be used for practice, but never in battle. And then they are outdated and they need to be replaced. We readily accept that we need to spend money on military preparedness just in case. Why should that be more acceptable than pandemic preparedness?

Many of our priorities are a result of our unconscious buy-in to neoliberalism. I have just addressed medical pandemic preparedness. This is just one sphere in which COVID 19 is telling us we need to examine our assumptions. There are more similar spheres. Let’s hope we can learn and that the new normal will not be the old normal.