How can we bridge the divide between the public and public health? Raj Bhopal argues for a strong but supportive pandemic response.

Raj Bhopal, CBE DSc, BSc MD, MPH, MBChB, FRCP, FFPHM, is professor emeritus of public health at the University of Edinburgh, Scotland. He held the chair of Public Health in the university until his retirement in 2018.

Bhopal is also the author of Concepts of Epidemiology: Integrating the Ideas, Theories, Principles, and Methods of Epidemiology.

Bhopal’s recent article, COVID-19 zugzwang: Potential public health moves towards population immunity, was published in Public Health in Practice.

The article argues that scientific appraisal of the various SARS-CoV-2 interventions introduced in the initial wave of COVID-19 has been stifled by fear based responses to the complex competing ethical priorities societies face, alongside politicization of scientific concepts like population immunity.

In addition, Bhopal uses his background in public health to point toward ways supportive measures could accomplish more than punitive or overly-regulatory ones.