Why Virologists Are NOT Our New Heroes

What is a virologist? A virologist is a professional who studies the growth, development, structure, and characteristics of different viruses. He isolates and makes cultures of significant viruses in a standard inhibitory medium. He will identify different viruses via microscopic examination of the morphological, physical, and cultural traits. He also observes the action of a particular virus upon living tissues of plants and animals. A virologist also makes chemical analyses of various substances, like acids, enzymes, and alcohol released by viruses on organic matter.

An outsider may wonder how deep a specialist must dig his hole before he realizes that he has lost sight of the horizon…

Thor Heyerdahl

What does this also mean? A virologist is not an epidemiologist, is not a clinician, has no practice in treating patients, does not know a lot about psychology and sociology. His knowledge about economics is close to zero. And his specialty is not about human interaction. His knowledge is in a way abstract and has hardly to do with everyday life.

We have given these people free reign during this COVID-19 crisis. It is a crisis, not because of the virus, but because of how we handle the virus. It is completely disconnected from real-life reality, and the consequences are devastating and may be devastating even for the following decades.

If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.

Maslow

The problem is that a virologist knows a LOT but about a very narrow field. So his knowledge about viruses is deep, but all other related things are not his specialty. This makes that this crisis is dealt with from a virologist’s point of view, and there is hardly any attention to all other consequences. Because virology is, for most people, kind of an abstract concept, I will draw a comparison with which we almost all can relate to; traumatology. A trauma surgeon is a surgeon who treats trauma patients, patients who had an accident; this can be an accident at home, in traffic, or wherever. In younger people, trauma is the most important cause of death, and trauma causes many suffering. It can leave young people disabled, and we see trauma all around the world. If we compare COVID-19 to trauma and look at lost life years and lost quality of life years, COVID-19 would be dwarfed by trauma. Unfortunately, COVID-19 now attracts all attention, and that is not going to change. But let´s imagine that trauma would get this attention. We would ask trauma surgeons to reduce trauma as much as possible, leaving no stone unturned, not having to take account of any side effects (precisely what we ask from virologists now). What would our world look like? And if we compare it to how we deal with COVID-19, how absurd would it be?

Intellectually curious men become generalists. Intellectually lazy men settle for being specialists.

Mokokoma Mokhonoana

Most accidents happen in and around the home. This can be minor stuff, but when saws, drills, and circular saws get involved, it gets nasty pretty quickly. So, there would be a ban on doing repairs at home. All tool shops would have to close and the shops selling building materials. Scissors would be banned, and also the use of glass would be illegal.

Another cause of injury is falling. When we are lucky, we only get a bruise, but we can also fracture a bone or even worse. So, to prevent injury from falling, wearing a helmet would be mandatory, also fall protection for our wrists, padding around our hips, and knee protectors. Because you also can fall at home, this would be mandatory at home and outside. To prevent us from bumping into each other, we also have to distance. The distance should be at least a body length and some extra distance for when someone would slide, so let´s put the distancing on 8 feet (2.5 meters). Also, running and jumping would be prohibited. Sports are also a cause for injury, so of course, all sports would be banned too. An exception would be made for playing chess, checkers, and bridge.

Alcohol is another cause of injury. In the evening and at night, drunk people fall, some do stupid stuff and end up in the Emergency Room, and some get aggressive and start fighting. Another problem is alcohol in traffic. So there would be a total ban on alcohol. Alcohol would be completely prohibited. And because other drugs can cause traffic accidents too, of course all other drugs would be banned too.

These forays into the real world sharpened his view that scientists needed the widest possible education. He used to say, “How can you design for people if you don’t know history and psychology? You can’t. Because your mathematical formulas may be perfect, but the people will screw it up. And if that happens, it means you screwed it up.” He peppered his lectures with quotations from Plato, Chaka Zulu, Emerson, and Chang-tzu.

But as a professor who was popular with his students — and who advocated general education — Thorne found himself swimming against the tide. The academic world was marching toward ever more specialized knowledge, expressed in ever more dense jargon. In this climate, being liked by your students was a sign of shallowness; and interest in real-world problems was proof of intellectual poverty and a distressing indifference to theory.

Michael Crichton

And now we come to one of the main sources of major injury, traffic. Traffic accidents are one of the major causes of major trauma. If you want a serious reduction in major trauma and accident deaths, traffic is the thing to look at. So to reduce all risks, driving a car would be prohibited. Also driving a bicycle, motorcycle or any other thing which makes us travel faster than we walk. Trains would not be allowed anymore; people use trains to commit suicide. Flying would be prohibited too; we all know how many people die in flying accidents.

This is not a complete list, but if you asked a trauma surgeon how to get rid of injury and trauma deaths, without any regard to other things, this would be part of the list. Absurd, isn´t it? It would wreck our personal lives, it would disrupt our social lives, and our societies. Precisely what is happening at this moment, because we gave virologists the lead in dealing with COVID-19. Virologists may be part of the solution, but they never can be the only solution. Virologists are NOT our new heroes, another BIG mistake in handling COVID-19.

Health is not merely the absence of disease but also a state of complete physical, social, mental well-being.

WHO

Interesting links:

COVID-19, It Is Not the Virus That Is Killing Us

Ausweis Bitte!!! (Pass, please!!!) Do We Really Want to Go Back There With the COVID-19 or Green Pass?

China Has Outsmarted the West, the World Is Dancing to Xi Jinping´s Tune

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