Thread by @GorwayGlobal

I'm afraid this attempt at allaying popular anxieties about #Covid19 and #Coronavirus by the head of a major #Pharma major in #India might achieve precisely the opposite.

For someone who had mild Covid19 illness - in my taxonomy this would mount to a Grade 2-3 Coronavirus infection - this write up seems to be advocating a horrendous amount of #Overdiagnosis.

Clearly she has at her beck and call the most expensive specialists from the best hospitals, a platoon of biochemists, immunologists and virologist using the latest laboratory assays. This is a response to her position from people who want to please, not to her clinical need

Never has more diagnostic technology and resource been deployed at one individual for an illness suffered by so many. That is privilege and none can have any quarrel with it per se. What one can take issue with though is the privileged pontificating to the people at the other end

In terms of simple clinical need all that was needed, as I know because I had it too, was fluids, paracetamol, frequent small meals (bec my taste had gone) and rest (fatigue, body ache, chills). And time. Most cases recover. Spontaneously.

I wrote earlier of the unnecessary over-use of scarce hospital facilities by the rich, powerful and privileged, sending a message out of sync with the publicly promoted reassurances that most cases are mild. newslaundry.com/2020/08/05/min…

This article is an example of the privileged writing boastfully of the diagnostic resources they can command, when they fall ill. Writing about it an instance of the #ConspicuousConsumption of healthcare. It does not serve the #publichealth needs of the majority of the people