24 August

HIV is a nice example I think of how treating disease as a medical thing means losing control of it. Look at the HIV stats for Australia. Strong public health action from the 1980s through to the mid-1990s pushed HIV infection rates right down. Introduction of drugs to treat HIV in the mid-1990s pushed the infection numbers back up again, as the social approach was replaced with a medical approach. The same danger is happening with Covid-19, where we regularly hear 'only a vaccine will stop this virus'. Rubbish, we could have eliminated Covid-19 already if we'd actually tried, with basic public health thinking.