Thinking in a Pandemic: The Crisis of Science and Policy in the Age of COVID-19

by Boston Review (Editor)

Leading scientists, epidemiologists, and philosophers explore the unfolding Covid-19 pandemic and argue for the necessity of scientific reasoning and collective responsibility.

Genres: Nonfiction

172 pages, Paperback

Published December 1, 2020

Reviews

[Bryan · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very good compendium of essays about the conflicts in science, policy, communications, etc. surrounding COVID-19. The middle third of the book is an interesting call and response about the conflict between Evidence Based Medicine (relies almost exclusively on randomized controlled trials) epidemiology and public health epidemiology, which is more flexible and incorporates other types of science beyond the gold standard RCT. This was an informative debate that I think carries well into other fields.

The last essay of the book was particularly interesting — it was about the racial bias of pulse oximeters due to skin pigment affecting the measurement. Of course these were originally designed for people with white skin, and so they overestimate blood oxygen readings for people of color and Black people especially — which can lead to further racial bias in our already racially biased healthcare system.

[Karolina Omenzetter · Rating 2 out of 5]

Really great collection of essays and as a medical student I found the section about EBM particularly interesting as it's always heralded as the gold standard, which is obviously the case in a general clinical health scenario, but less so for a public health crisis!
I did however find that there was a lot of repetition between some essays which with some editing could have been fixed.
My favourite essay had to be the first which focused on the history of public health interventions, the second essay which discussed EBM and the final essay which discussed structural racial bias in medicine from the perspective of the typical equipment and guidelines used in clinical care.