Sociology of Pandemics: Social Inequalities and Biomedical Response in Wake of COVID 19
Sociology of Pandemics: Social Inequalities and Biomedical Response in Wake of COVID 19
Farah Naz1*, Asad Umair2 and Ghazala Noureen3
ABSTRACT
Inequalities across several key domains of life, including employment and ability to earn, family life and health. The outbreak of the corona virus plunged the world in a state of chaos and uncertainty. As fear and anxiety built up, governments around the world responded to the pandemic by imposing long, nationwide lockdowns in an attempt to “flatten the curve”-a term that refers slowing down the spread of the disease in order to prevent healthcare facilities from being overwhelmed by too many new patients. However, lockdowns and related strategies designed to minimize the spread of the pandemic, like early detection, isolation of confirmed cases, and social distancing, were build and implemented on the assumption that COVID-19 is simply a health emergency that demands solutions from the life science alone. They failed to take into account structural inequalities present in societies that affect the ability of an individual to cope with this medical condition and follow the recommended strategies. As Geoffrey Rose (1992) concluded his seminal monograph ‘The strategy of preventive medicine’: Pandemics are social, economic, and biological phenomena. By taking an approach that considers not only the biological but also the sociological aspects of a pandemic, better preventative strategies could have been devised. In this review paper we look at the COVID-19 pandemic from inequalities perspective to explain why health issues and related preventive measures are hard to separate from socioeconomic gradients.
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