From The Guardian, 5 November 2022:
When studying disease outbreaks, think like a microbe.
That’s the lesson that was drummed into Prof Catherine Bennett, chair of epidemiology at Deakin University, when she was undergoing her scientific training, and she’s never forgotten it.
“In moving through a community, where are your opportunities as a microbe?” she says. “We need to think about that in how we work, how we live, how we build those structures – physical, social and economic.”
The Covid-19 pandemic has revealed just how many opportunities there are for an adaptable microbe to emerge and thrive in the structures of today’s society. Despite being a mindless virus driven solely by evolutionary pressures, it has been remarkably effective at highlighting the weaknesses and fault lines in health workforces, aged care, public health infrastructure, health communication, social support systems, and between state and federal governments. Read more.
Bianca Nogrady 