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The Oxford English Dictionary recently announced that it would be adding the pidgin word “hammajang” meaning “all messed up or askew” to its dictionary.

The timing could not be better as our nation’s response to the pandemic has, indeed, been “hammajang.”

It’s “hammajang” because of the disconnect between science and policy.

It’s all “messed up” because of the lack of planning, coordination, consistent messaging, and the politicization of a global health crisis.

Our response is “askew” because of our failures to prioritize and protect vulnerable, at-risk, elderly populations with chronic conditions and increased likelihoods of catching and dying from the disease.

Our inability to manage COVID-19 and reopen businesses is because of so many moving parts, conflicting priorities, and false tradeoffs between public and economic health.  It is “hammajang” because of longstanding structural inequities and weaknesses that we stubbornly refuse to address.

Face coverings and washing hands, while essential to the current arsenal of response, are too little, too late and hardly what should’ve or could’ve been the actions of an advanced, developed, wealthy society.

We had opportunities to use technology to support early detection and tracing and tracking of the disease but the inability to reconcile public health, privacy, corporate snooping, and profiteering is “hammajang.”

We failed to integrate diversity and indigenous knowledge systems with new technologies, mobile communications, AI, Big Data and experiences from previous natural and man-made disasters into our response to the pandemic.

It’s like watching a train-wreck in slow motion.

Here are five ways to “un-hammajang” the ongoing mess of this disaster:

1. Make public health data and information more available. Too much is closely held, covered by proprietary and confidentiality clauses, which need to be addressed, but the information must be shared, analyzed and integrated into public, private, and community-based interventions.
2. Avoid the “ecological fallacy” as nations, states and cities, “don’t get sick and die;” individual people are affected and the health and economic remedies should be directed to where it matters most:  people most impacted by the disease.
3. Focus on dense populations, congregate living, multi-generational housing, low-income residents, travelers, and others at highest risk of contracting and spreading the coronavirus.
4. Until a vaccine is developed and implemented, we will need social and environmental actions including distancing, outdoor activities, lockdowns, closures, and painful restrictions which may need to be turned on and off and restarted as this public health crisis will not simply go away in the near term.
5. Invest in education, training and capacity building and use these “hammajang” times to improve individual, business, and institutional resilience so that we are better prepared to resist, absorb, and recover from future setbacks, disruptions, and calamities.

Hawaii has an opportunity to not only teach the world new words like “hammajang” but also define what it means to be a safe, sustainable, resilient and just society.