Study the role of hubris in nations' COVID-19 response
As an anthropologist who has studied disease outbreaks in Vietnam, I’ve been moved by the contrast between the experience of COVID-19 there and in the United States. By late April, my friends in Hanoi were posting pictures of celebrations and joyfully announcing “Social distancing is over!” I’m relieved that infection rates in Vietnam remain low, but their posts seem to come from a parallel universe as I and my family and friends in the United States continue to shelter in place.
Just last year, the United States was considered one of the countries best equipped to confront a virus such as SARS-CoV-2. Others included the United Kingdom, Brazil and Chile — nations ranked by the comprehensive Global Health Security (GHS) Index as being among the world’s most prepared. Yet since the pandemic began, these countries have delivered some of the worst outcomes. The United States leads the world in both total cases and total deaths; Brazil’s fatalities are second. Chile’s per-capita cumulative case rate is the second-highest in Latin America, and the United Kingdom has the highest rate of COVID-19 deaths per capita of all the G7 countries. What might explain these staggering failures?
One thing these countries have in common is ‘exceptionalism’ — a view of themselves as outliers, in some way distinct from other nations. Their COVID-19 responses suggest that exceptionalist world views can be associated with worse public-health outcomes. Researching this association could help in redefining preparedness and allow more accurate prediction of pandemic successes and failures.
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In Greek myth, hubris is punished by the goddess Nemesis; in disease control, a hubristic world view risks a particularly vengeful nemesis. Overconfidence in national specialness has led to lack of preparedness, prevented collaboration with global health agencies and limited opportunities to learn from the experience of other countries. By identifying a missing variable in pandemic preparedness — the way nations see themselves — scholars could help to develop a more accurate metric for national readiness to fight disease.
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-02596-8
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