Opinion | Fight against the coronavirus is embroiled in a ‘fog of war’, with the poor becoming collateral damage
- The divergences in testing targets, reliability and reporting across countries mean the data is often misleading
- Meanwhile, the poor suffer disproportionately during lockdowns and their living conditions make them vulnerable to the disease
“War is too important to be left to the generals,” remarked a prime minister concerned about keeping field commanders from seeking small victories at massive cost. Likewise, leaders today must listen to and question not only the virologists and epidemiologists, but also the economists, unions and employer groups, social workers and ordinary people who have their own risk/reward calculations. Only then can they make decisions on behalf of the societies they govern.
The expert views are sometimes contradictory, and constantly changing as new facts emerge. Much weight is placed on data, which is often unreliable. Differences from country to country are so extreme that they cannot be measuring the same thing to the same extent.
“The fog of war” applies to the Covid-19 pandemic as much as to any military conflict.