What is the role of cultural and medical anthropology during the COVID-19 pandemic (at the beginning of the pandemic, over the last two years, and/or today)? What is the role of cultural anthropology in a public health concern?

Discussion #4

What is the role of cultural and medical anthropology during the COVID-19 pandemic (at the beginning of the pandemic, over the last two years, and/or today)? What is the role of cultural anthropology in a public health concern?

Write a 300 word response (minimum). Next, write two meaningful responses to two of your peers, 200 words minimum each.

response #1
Alleyna Rohde
Jan 25 1:38pm
Last reply Jan 28 11:32am

Reply from Alleyna Rohde
COVID-19 had affected everybody differently. Over the past two years of covid, people believed that it was going to be the end of the world, and some thought that it was just another type of cold, that it was just “no big deal”. There have been many different pandemics over the years, and this one I feel like was taken very lightly. I was taking the situation very lightly as it began. My mom had made me stay home since the night I came home from school and found out the next day we weren’t allowed to come back. It was a week before spring break, so you could say my spring break was very boring. To top it off my birthday was during spring break, so I felt stuck not being able to do anything. As the pandemic went on an online school came about people close to me and my family were impacted by covid. I had a few family members who had lost their lives due to the virus. The whole world had pretty much stopped. School stopped for a few weeks before we transitioned to online, people lost their jobs, the restaurant I worked in got shut down, and of course every other restaurant around the united states. It was a big deal. I grew to understand just how much of a “big deal” this virus and every pandemic is.

We were told we needed two vaccines and boosters every 6 months so we don’t get the virus. Like every other vaccine, you can still get it, and depending on the person it can still be just as bad. This is where I got confused. Why is everyone so pressured into getting vaccines when they don’t always work?

The role of cultural and medical anthropology during the COVID-19 pandemic was an important piece according to Van Doren. He emphasized the importance of biocultural anthropology to public health, specifically in how a focus on temporal depth and population health dynamics can contribute to understanding the social determinants of health. Medical anthropologists stated, “Trostle and Sommerfeld discussed trends in the intersections between cultural and medical anthropology and epidemiology from a history characterized as “benign neglect” to interdisciplinary borrowing and collaboration on topics such as a culture change and stress, behavior, illness classification, and social stratification.”

Sources:

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/ajpa.24517

Resonse #2
Kayla Wheeler
Jan 27 7:07pm

Reply from Kayla Wheeler
Back in March of 2020 there were a lot of unknowns regarding Covid-19. I remember sitting in my high school gymnasium and getting told we had an extra week of spring break because of this thing called Coronavirus. Soon later that extra week of spring break turned into the rest of the school year. And I walked down my high school hallways as a senior for the last time on March 13th. At the being of the pandemic everyone all over the world was scared. The world shut down, schools, grocery stores, businesses, restaurants, etc. We were told to social distance and wear our masks. In the beginning everyone pretty much followed the rules and regulations, this was the best way to keep yourself from getting sick.

Between cultural and medical anthropology, I think medical anthropology played the biggest role in regard to the Covid 19 pandemic. Medical anthropology is the study of how health and sickness is experienced and documented throughout history and different cultures. Back in 2020 when there were so many unknowns about the pandemic most cultures did what they needed to, to stay safe. As the pandemic went on, people slowly started to lean away from all the rules and regulations. Some cultures relied on heard immunity to keep the spread under control.

In regard to vaccines, I think medical anthropologists continue to play a big role when it comes to this subject. When the covid vaccines first came out people were extremely eager to get them, they thought that the world would open back up like it had before. They’d be able to go back and live their every day to day lives and get to travel again. But that was not the case for everyone. It took a little more conniving and time for some cultures to be willing to get the vaccine. So now in today’s world you have the people that continue to get their boosters and keep up with all the covid regulations. And you have some that just got their initial vaccinations and that was good enough for them. I will say working in health care, it is quite obvious that older generations continue to stay up to date with their boosters, this is because in most cultures it was known and visible that the elderly suffered from Covid 19 worse then the younger generation.