Evidence, rationality, and ignorance: Agnotological issues in COVID-19 science

On the genealogy of the global health justice movement

In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, it is clear that the struggle for global health justice must be our highest priority. To understand the challenges that such a priority faces, we must recognise that this struggle has a long history, and to analyse current challenges within this historical perspective. This commentary explores the gradual construction of the global health justice movement during different historical periods (tropical/colonial medicine, international health, and global health) in the history of approaches to health worldwide. It examines the changing relationship between the political economy of capitalism, colonialism, and racism. It analyses attempts to confront injustice through both human rights and social justice movements in seeking to address stigma and discrimination as well as poverty and social exclusion. It highlights emerging battlegrounds such as access to medical treatments and healthcare services as well as the ways in which private interests continue to undercut such efforts. But it also points to windows of opportunity for defending principles such as solidarity and social inclusion, for building advocacy/analysis alliances and toolkits to inform social movements, and possibilities to reconstruct global health 'governance' mechanisms and institutions in accord with the most basic principles of health justice.

COVID-19 Medical and Pharmacological Management in the European Countries Compared to Italy: An Overview

(1) Background: Italy accounts for more than 150,000 deaths due to the COVID-19 pandemic, leading the top rank in SARS-CoV-2-caused deceases in Europe. A survey on the different ways by which the COVID-19 pandemic emergency was managed in the foreign European countries compared to Italy is the purpose of this paper. (2) Methods: A literature search and various mathematical algorithms to approach a rank scoring scale were used to describe in detail the different approaches used by European countries to manage the COVID-19 pandemic emergency. (3) Results: The study showed that Italy stands at the bottom ranking for COVID-19 management due to its high mortality rate. Possible causes of the observed huge numbers of hospitalization and deaths were (a) the demographic composition of the European country; (b) its decentralized healthcare system organization; (c) the role of correct pharmacology in the early stages before hospitalization. Post-mortem examinations were of paramount importance to elucidate the etiopathogenesis of COVID-19 and to tailor a suitable and proper therapy in the early symptomatic stages of COVID-19, preventing hospitalization. (4) Conclusions: Factors such as the significant impact on elderly people, the public health organization prevalently state-owned and represented mainly by hospitals, and criticism of the home therapy approach toward SARS-CoV-2-infected people, may have concurred in increasing the number of COVID-19 deaths in Italy.