For over a decade, my job has been to look at disease numbers, systems which generate these numbers, identify their strengths and weaknesses to ensure they could pick on a new outbreak quickly. Globally these systems were flattering before Covid-19 and last year multiple epidemiologists and public health experts including myself raised serious questions about their capacities to quickly detect and respond to outbreaks. But finding inconsistencies in official numbers is not received well. But when administrative officers and political leaders start making public health decisions they don’t want big numbers. We need to avoid costly mistakes of other countries and refocus on public health.

Source: The Express Tribune November 11, 2020 03:33 UTC