Three Health-related Paradoxes in the COVID 19 Pandemic

Health is enigmatic in nature, in the sense that people pay attention to it when they have lost it. This enigmatic nature of health is the context for expressing health-related paradoxes. The paradoxes of digitalization, isolation, and prevention that have become prominent in the COVID 19 pandemic are elaborated in this article. The digitalization paradox demonstrates that we have procrastinated in digitalizing daily life, but have the digital tools to communicate with others and share information in quarantine. The isolation paradox means that "social distancing" is required to prevent infection, but loneliness can make us sick. The "paradox of prevention" arises when reducing the risk of persons in medium-risk to low-risk groups has a greater impact on the overall risk in the population than only reducing the risk of persons in high-risk groups. All three paradoxes reflect the complexity and uncertainty of circumstances in a pandemic and the need for medical humanities.