Viral pandemics do not follow Newtonian laws of linear motion.

“A two track pandemic: A handful of countries that have procured large quantities of vaccines are acting like COVID19 is over -Others are experiencing serious spikes of hospitalisations and deaths. Vaccine Equity is the only way to save all livelihoods.” – Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director General of WHO, May 26, 2021.

Dear Editor,

Bhadoria et al.[1] publish their overview of viral pandemics in the last two decades in August 2021 issue of the Journal. They chronicle important pandemics of 21st century, recollect their important milestones, compile lessons learnt, and suggest ways to prevent emergence of newer ones in future. In our times, we need to share more such information, discuss and argue merits of our approaches, near misses of those viral illnesses which could not engulf the globe and reasons for that as well as the role of pure luck in what we recall as our triumph of the microbial world.

Under the heading of pandemic 2: Influenza A H1N1 2009 (Swine Flu) Pandemic, the authors write in the second paragraph that N(for that one) an effective antiviral treatment was also available. This is an example of a myth created by pharma companies that persists in collective memory of the scientific community for long. When Roche Company brought its antiviral drug in limelight, the world was initially enchanted into the charisma. But later on, when The BMJ and others ran a campaign to look into primary data of the drug, few studies tumbled out stating that the effects were overstated, benefits were hyped, limited utility was overrated and much was deliberately done so as to hike sales of the product.[2]

Conclusion we draw from the epoch is that when business takes control on accelerator of a vehicle, the first casualty is scientific reasoning and procedure.

Fast forward to Covid times, and now we find ourselves in the same precarious situation as before when unscrupulous scientists faked study results, manufactured their own trials whose primary data could never be accessed by anyone as none existed in the first place and top-of-the-rank Journals were easily fooled.[3] New England Journal of Medicine and Lancet retracted research papers stating that veracity of primary data of published studies could not be established of some drugs which were intended for use in the treatment of Covid-19. A lesson we need to learn by heart is that when a pandemic spreads around the globe, few entities see an opportunity to construct a nefarious design to earn unprecedented profit and personal gains even at the cost of the values we hold most dear. By the time the deceit comes under lens; precious time is lost, science has already taken a wrong turn, course correction costs time and we begin a journey afresh from behind square zero.

Later on, under Pandemic 4: The Ebola virus pandemic, the authors underscore in the third paragraph that this pandemic (aforementioned) finally got constrained by strict containment measures that were taken; very efficient contact tracing and community surveillance. But reality is that team of the World Health Organization faced stiff resistance, violent attacks, and a few members got even killed-in-action there.[4] Conspiracy theories were fueled by shrewd politicians and religious leaders and followers believed them blindly.[5]

Even nowadays, tens of millions of Americans are unvaccinated, and many of them will remain so despite no shortage of vaccines there.[6] Similar saga of conspiracy theories is running amok on the land of the most powerful nation, the world has ever seen. Several other nations at the opposite end of the spectrum face vaccine shortage while their counterparts are busy hoarding as many doses as possible. Vaccine- nationalism, vaccine racism, and anti-vaxxers are a few terms that appear frequently in our daily conversation.

Therefore, what we observe is that control of a pandemic does not occur in a linear fashion; setbacks occur; the course takes a detour many a times irregularly; disruptions are not uncommon; failures do happen; despite political support, few outliers try to derail the system and sometimes mainstream politicians and policy-makers fail to grasp the severity of an evolving catastrophe early on in the course. In addition, social media is weaponized to spread misinformation speedily.

When we presume our control efforts to take a linear -motion of success, we discover that black holes dot the space unpredictably. If we truly want to understand the grand -design of the universe, understanding its fundamental nature demands a different dimension of wits. Designing a unifying theory, taking into consideration all such events, may lead us to a world with better control of diseases. In addition, such a theory may help us to navigate unchartered territories in the future efficiently.

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