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CHRONICLE. GAI1-240202501-AA4-EV01.

Chronicle covid 19

The emergence of the SARS-COV-2 coronavirus in just a few months has placed the world at

a crossroads, causing some 300,000 deaths so far and infecting more than 4.5 million

people, in addition to causing an unparalleled economic crisis and change human

relationships, introducing new forms of work and socialization.

This profound impact and the transformations that it has implied, however, should not be

surprising because they had been noticed over the years, recalled Professor José Ramón

Acosta Sariego, master's degree in bioethics and doctor of philosophical sciences, who directs

the master's degree in bioethics of the University of Havana.

“It is a chronicle of something that was announced. For some years now, the forecasting

models predicted catastrophic events of a global scope, there was even talk of the

possibility of global epidemics ”, said the specialist in an interview with UN News. SARS 2,

which appeared in 2002, and the H1N1 flu (2009), were harbingers of what could come,

he added.

But these warnings did not have an echo in the preparation of the countries to face what

could come and health systems, far from being strengthened, in many cases were dismantled.

Dr. Acosta cited the study published last October by John Hopkins University in which the

Global Index on Healthcare Systems Safety was presented, which analyzes the capacity of

countries to respond to a health emergency and affirms that “none are prepared to face an

epidemic or pandemic ”and that“ everyone has important gaps to fill ”.

"National health security is basically weak around the world," is the main conclusion of the

document.

The index shows that the United States is the country with the greatest capacity to take care

of the health of its citizens and face a surprise event of great proportions; However, he adds

that despite this ability, he does not have the necessary preparation to do so. It is currently

the country hardest hit by the pandemic with figures that exceed 1.5 million infected and

90,000 deaths.
In his opinion, the present of the world is very compromised because "we know that we

are going to leave but under what conditions we are going to leave, it is still uncertain." “It

is a reality that the economic and social model that was imposed after the end of the cold

war and its strict application of neoliberal precepts were dismantling the social care

systems, within them the health systems, even those that had reached the industrial

societies. Health systems were already insufficient to solve daily health problems, much

less were they prepared to face a disaster situation that, in any case, goes beyond the

health field. There has to be a forecast about what a society can do in a disaster situation

”, he emphasized.

Professor Acosta referred to the case of Spain, "which came to have one of the best health

systems in the world", but which was dismantled in the 1990s and which "was unable to face

the pandemic in a first moment".