When asked how long they’ve known each other, they laughed and said it’s been more than 50 years. but not. They laugh again and clarify the misunderstanding. “It was the pandemic that brought us together,” said Felipe Froes, 61, a pulmonologist, intensifier and former coordinator of the crisis office for Covid-19 of the Portuguese Medical Association. “We met in October 2020, at a session at the Literary Syndicate on the pandemic,” adds Patricia Exeter, 51, a jurist who specializes in intellectual property, particularly in copyright, artificial intelligence and human rights. Philip identifies: “I gave a lecture at Grémio, was invited by a former thoracic surgeon from my hospital, Dr. Pinto Marques, and in the end Patrícia asked me a series of questions about the epidemic.” Patricia laughs and admits: “I almost asked him questions.”
The conversation begins, Saturday morning, like this, informal, at leisure, and without fixed phrases. The goal was to report on the other side of the pandemic, which also touched and brought them, as well as knowledge, satisfaction and personal recognition. And this aspect, for Patricia Exeter and Felipe Froes, was the journey through writing, in the style of historiography, in the pages of Diário de Notícias, with “total freedom to choose subjects and even deadlines – in 18 months we published 33 December 2020 to June 2022,” the doctor comments.
A journey they embark on unexpectedly, not knowing where it will end. “We were only supposed to write one history, but then we carried on and we are already 40,” highlights Patricia, who has single-handedly written facts on law and the epidemic for the economics newspaper Dinheiro Vivo. “It was Philip who had the idea of writing a log with four hands,” to combine the knowledge and power of the law with the knowledge of health.
The book The Epidemic That Uncovered Other Epidemics: Contributions to Knowledge was released today, with an introduction by Admiral Gouveia E. Mello, and distributed free of charge tomorrow, Wednesday and Thursday with the paperback edition of DN. Admiral Juvia e Mello’s work also bears the DN seal of the Portuguese Society of Pulmonology, “which proves the objectivity and scientific evidence with which we dealt with subjects,” they agree, sponsoring the Bial Lab.
Gradually one of them will trace the path he took to the end, up to the book, of about 100 pages, which will be launched today in a session where it all began, Grémio Literário, in Lisbon, at 16:00, and titled The Epidemic That Uncovered Other Epidemics: Contributions to knowledge. The foreword is by Admiral Juvia e Mello, and the work also bears the DN seal of the Portuguese Society of Pulmonology, “which proves the objectivity and scientific evidence with which we have dealt with subjects,” they agree, curated by Biel’s lab.
Make a book – which will be distributed free with the hard copy of DN tomorrow, Wednesday and Thursday – which they believe will remain for future memory, as a “small legacy”, and because the goal of each new record has always been “to enlighten the population – whether it is about disease or the frequency of vaccines or about how The suitability of the new tools to fight hunger in law, without violating fundamental rights. “Not only did we explain, we went further and suggested, and made recommendations, not through criticism, but with constructive insight,” Al-Faqih says.
When they look back, they have no doubt that in the midst of much of the inconvenience brought about by the pandemic, if there were winners, it was science and human rights. “Science has been the big winner, both in terms of organization and planning, and in terms of the solution through a vaccine and even through non-pharmaceutical intervention measures, which have been critical in saving time and saving lives until a solution is found,” says Filipe. Complimentary
Patricia Exeter considers that in law, although there is another dimension, “there has also been a victory in the Western world in terms of privacy, it has been observed that there are many technological applications that cannot be implemented as expected, because they will lead to interference with the privacy of people, And we were able to work to prevent that from happening – the case of the digital certificate. This was a victory in terms of fundamental rights,” adding that “this was one of the best legally applied situations that helped control the disease.”
From a personal point of view, they both agree that this journey through writing was an “integration of knowledge”. The knowledge of both fields in such different fields has compelled them, in the case of Philip Fross, to “think and rethink certain situations and confront them with the opinion of a jurist”.
In the case of Patricia, who says she’s never been “a passive being, I’ve always been a critical soul, I like to think things through and wonder. What happens today can undo days, months, or years from now. The most important thing is to formulate important questions and I think that’s what Felipe and I have achieved in this work, both in relation to the health issues we have raised and in relation to the economic, social and legal aspect.”
The first record was published on December 26, 2020, titled: “The year of immunization 2021. For a few dollars and 13% of the world’s population,” followed by others about the human rights to get vaccinated, such as “For the virus there are neither Israelis nor Palestinians , but only sources of infection”, or about vaccine hesitancy, misinformation, coming from many quarters, even from world leaders, punitive damages or about the politicization of health discourse and freedom of the press.
In other words, they say, they “intercepted democracy,” out of their own fears, “in my case, he was the first to think about how to integrate the right to intellectual property with universal access to a vaccine.”“, confirms Al-Faqih, to explain to the population with evidence and inference on the reality in which he was living.” After selecting the topics, writing was fast. We even wrote two dates in a week,” the doctor says, explaining that what he did was “anticipate situations and doubts that arose as the disease progressed.”
When it came time to choose the author of the introduction, there was no hesitation. For Patricia, “He had to be someone we admired, with manners and an unbiased voice, as committed to home as we hadn’t seen in a long time.” For Filipe Froes: “He should have been the one who brought back the national honor and splendor to vaccinate the Portuguese people.” The person is Admiral Juvia E. Melo, the former coordinator of the vaccination task force, who said it was “an honor” to be involved in the work.
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