🎧 The Life of Dr Norman Swan (Conversations)
How a boy from Glasgow named Norman Swirsky grew up to become Australia’s most famous doctor
With the release of So You Think You Know What’s Good for You, Norman Swan speaks with Sarah Kanowski about his upbringing in Glasgow, a failed drama career, coming to Australia, the stress of his daughter’s Italian accident, and his role with Coronacast. Although I heard much of this before in his interview with Barrie Cassidy on One Plus One, one thing that I had not heard him speak about was his thoughts on the coronavirus as a political pandemic. He argues that it would not have happened ten years ago and that it has been in part caused by political ineptitude to get on top of it early, as well as respond to it once it was out.
I finally got around to reading (or listening to) Albert Camus’ The Plague. What stood out to me about Camus’ account was the way in which he captures the everyday. As Matthew Sharpe captures:
Another interesting point was the idea that ‘the plague’ is as much about a disease as it is about politics and life itself. As Tarrou asserts, “each of us has the plague within him; no one, no one on earth is free from it.” This reminds me of Norman Swan’s discussion of COVID-19 being a political pandemic.
This lengthy piece unpacking why it took the World Health Organisation so long to recognise that COVID is airborne is a demonstration of how this is very much a political pandemic.