I have temporarily sidelined two articles I have penned for Slugger to instead discuss the Covid-19 epidemic and how it questions our morality and values.
I have always been hugely passionate about history and I sometimes wonder how I would have reacted to wrongdoings of the past if I was in that situation. The persecution of Jews at the hands of the Nazis, the discrimination that many black people faced (unfortunately some still do) and societies treatment of minorities including the gay community. From these examples, we can think of many infamous characters from history but there are also those who went against the grain and stood up for the persecuted. Oskar Schindler, Nicholas Winton, Nelson Mandela and Alice Nkom are a few examples of people who in extremely difficult and dangerous situations stood up for the greater good.
With lockdown being brought in across the globe to curb the spread of the Covid-19 virus, we have found our way of life completely changed and indeed restricted. As many will know I am an Orangeman and within the Institution the underlying principle is “Civil and religious liberty for all, special privileges for none”. However, in these challenging times, like many others, I am happy to temporarily give up my civil liberties for the greater good. Unfortunately, however, it has been unnerving to hear some say that this virus effectively only impacts on elderly people and or those with underlying health conditions and therefore these people should become expendable whilst the rest of us continue with our lives.
Dominic Cummings the Prime Minister’s Chief Adviser has made such assertions as has Lieutenant Governor of Texas Dan Patrick and most recently Toby Young (political commentator) said, “Even if we accept the statistical modelling of Dr Neil Ferguson’s team at Imperial College, which I’ll come to in a minute, spending £350 billion to prolong the lives of a few hundred thousand mostly elderly people is an irresponsible use of taxpayer’s money.” But these views are likely to be held more widely by some who are less vocal about them. What sort of a society does that make us if we feel certain lives are more valuable than others? How would history judge us for making such a stark choice? It’s at difficult times like this that we have an onus to protect the most vulnerable, whatever the cost.
I am a huge proponent of business and protecting businesses and the economy but as a wealthy nation we can afford to lockdown for now to protect our citizens and our economy can and will recover in time, the loss of lives can never be resurrected. We can look at similar times in history where the elderly and sick were deemed unimportant and with the benefit of retrospective analysis the decisions made to effectively exterminate them were deemed inhumane, barbaric and criminal. To neglect our elderly and vulnerable now and prematurely end the lockdown would be no less criminal.
Instead, we should be more advanced as a global society, our focus should be on stocking our hospitals with the relevant equipment from ventilators to Personal Protection Equipment (PPE), ensuring everyone in society can get tested and those on the frontline regularly tested. In addition to this, we should be able to produce drugs that can act as a cure whilst we await the vaccine. This should be our priority rather than displaying a complete lack of humanity towards the most vulnerable in society whom we should be protecting. We’ll all get old at some point and unfortunately, some of us will develop health complications. Many of us currently have family and friends who fall into these categories, think of that when you’re thinking about the economy.
Photo by Andrea Piacquadio is licensed under CC0
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