To think about Covid and its myths – 11/12/2022

On the skin surface Marcellus Pakman, discusses many myths that have come to life during the Covid pandemic, some of them ancient. That of confinement, for example, which left the virus “outside” as something alien and “evil”, forgetting something essential for life: the action of that natural barrier called the “immune system”, and which only works by interacting with all the viruses surrounding her. This allows it to update itself and “recognize” the foreign element when it tries to enter the body, and thus neutralize it. A task that has been facilitated by vaccines, which have told that barrier how to recognize the Covid virus. The first attitude, that of confinement and the invisible wall, is a narrow vision of life, one that “forgets that we are biological entities and that the disease manifests itself as a product of the encounter with the virus and not a war against the virus, ” He says. the author. He understands that all the answers that human beings have given to the virus are tinged with myths because, in the Homeric definition, they are the spoken expression of origins and destinations. The myth that best defines human behavior during the pandemic is that of the Minotaur and Theseus, with the hidden Minotaur representing magical and irrational thinking, and the young Athenian attacking Theseus, representing rationality. According to Pakman, during the pandemic we were all the Minotaur and we were also Theseus. But there are, in this wonderful booklet of just 96 pages, other warnings. These myths have had a projection in the political and social sphere, generating different experiences in inclusive and exclusive public health policies. It also deals with the rituals of dealing with death, the covens painted by Goya after the Black Death (14th century), and projects them into the present in the death of George Floyd in 2020, showing a stunning parallel with those of Goya’s covens. Pakman’s book unmasks dangerous prejudices that are also projected towards democratic coexistence. Little is known about the origin and when the Covid virus (and its virulence) will mutate again, but much is known about how human defenses work. Therein lies the key to future pandemics. (Gedissa)