Thread by @RageSheen

I have several friends who are GPs, whose attitude towards Covid I’d describe as professionally negligent. Because I believe nearly all human behaviour is social behaviour, it seemed worthwhile to talk about why they may be like this. The socialisation of risk. /1

We all know this shot, part of a series from the 1930s showing construction workers in various eye-opening (from our modern standpoint) situations of extremely high risk. Apparently at least some of these were staged, as promotional photos. But the risk is there, and ignored. /2

This is what I suspect I’m seeing in the case of the GPs. Like anything that becomes a part of our everyday life, risk here has become socialised, and thereby normalised. If you’re a medical professional exposed to high risk from infection every day, a culture will develop. /3

That high-risk environment will become socialised, in some way. It’s how people get through the day, day after day. They ‘find a way’. As with the casual indifference to heights with the construction workers, I think HCWs can become fairly oblivious to infection. /4

Pre-Covid we already knew this to be true in hospitals for example, where doctors were seen to be some of the worst offenders in hygiene control, not doing even the basics like washing their hands between patients. Some of it is maybe a macho thing, a ‘fuck you’ to the risk. /5

Some of it may be the socialisation of overwork and pressure, allowing something to give so that HCWs can continue to function. Whatever the reason, risk will be socialised in some way. The airline industry is very interesting here. /6

Cavalier in so many other ways, but flight safety has been a ruthless focus for many decades. Often driven more by regulators than airlines, and now sometimes found to be wanting in some cases. But the point is risk is always socialised, in some way. /7

And with Covid, it’s alarming to me anyway how easily many HCWs have been happy to play along with the normalisation of Covid risk. My own GP masks, with a surgical mask, not because I ask them to but because it’s their practice policy. /8

By 5 minutes into a consult, it’s under their chin, like an ornament, the mouth and nose completely uncovered. We should not expect *any* profession or occupation to be immune from the dynamics of socialisation. There will always be a social reason for what they do. /9

All behaviour is led, socially. I think health care has some serious questions to answer about why casual indifference to air quality seems the majority model in this most exposed of all industries. We don’t tolerate it for manufactured kitchen benchtops. /end