[COVID-19: Special Challenges for Theoretical and Practical Public Health].

The COVID 19 crisis offers unique opportunities and poses special challenges for practical and theoretical public health. Management of the pandemic was initially dominated by virologists, supported by epidemiologists who did not always exercise the necessary scientific rigour. Expertise in interdisciplinary health sciences and complex considerations from a broader public health perspective, however, did not have noticeable impact on the COVID 19 debate and even less on the strategies for containing the pandemic. Public health is universal and more than health security or health protection. As an explicitly political discipline, public health takes a far-reaching socio-political approach and must not be reduced to biomedical aspects. Medical and biotechnological solutions alone will not meet the challenges of the corona crisis. The analysis of the political, economic, social and ecological determinants that led to the crisis is indispensable for the sustainable management of the pandemic. In order to improve population health and reduce the risk of future outbreaks of dangerous infections, a comprehensive policy is needed that also addresses hegemonies and power relations. Thieme. All rights reserved.