The Turning Point

As we reflect on the past year, and the essays we have written as the pandemic has evolved, we see how much we had to apprehend, and how much we still have to learn. 

SARS-CoV-2 is going to always be with us, at some baseline level, as we relearn the etiquette of being together, and the process of becoming unafraid unfolds in 2022.

When might we turn our attention back to the full range of illness around us, and balance the risk from Covid-19 with that from other diseases?

Why did schools stay closed when we knew that the risk of them staying closed probably outweighed the risk of them re-opening?

The stories we tell ourselves about our success and failure can be quite different, even in the face of seemingly objective data.

Recognizing that context shapes health behaviors, and that they are often driven by broad social phenomena, will help to promote healthy behavior in the future.

Public health is having its moment in the spotlight. It’s worth a pause to consider current challenges, and how to avoid overstating what we know and the confidence with which we know it.

The Covid-19 moment has taught us that public health may not have been quite ready for the harsh glare of the global media spotlight.

In the case of Covid-19, core to our thinking should be avoiding severity of disease and death. And as circumstances change that shape the risk of both, so should our thinking, our level of concern, and where we concentrate our energies.

In The Turning Point’s weekly essays, we will look backward and forward. What lessons have we absorbed during 2020, and will we learn as 2021 unfolds, that can guide us to the creation of a better, healthier world?