Taking care of yourself in the society between pandemics

December 14

Expert seminar in which care in times of pandemic was addressed from the perspective of public health. Caring means "putting diligence, attention and solicitude into the execution of something", or "assisting, saving or conserving"; but it is also an intransitive verb when used, for example, when saying "take care of children". Without forgetting its uses such as "looking for one's own health, giving oneself a good life" or "living with warning about something".

Care can be understood, then, as the quality of interdependence between people, essential for human groups to be viable from the simplest: prehistoric bands and clans, to the most complex societies. This implies, for individuals, taking certain risks, insecurities and uncertainties. Among which those that involve epidemics. Risks worth preventing, avoiding or at least alleviating, provided that the undesirable effects of preventive measures are acceptable. Hence the interest in reflecting together on the potential negative consequences of isolation and quarantine; of the supposed moral superiority of the health value and of the dilemmas that arise when intervening healthily in a situation such as that of residences for the elderly more or less dependent.

Co-organized with the Spanish Society of Public Health and Health Policy. In collaboration with Fundació "La Caixa".