The problem with Covid-19
It’s not just a pandemic. It isn’t also just a very deadly virus depending on certain risk factors. Covid-19 is a critique of human life, and I mean this in the most serious way. From the point of view of nature, humanity is an oddity. We’re able to make tools out of it and build entire structures from its raw materials. Further still, we’re able to make our own materials using mixtures and components that should only be accessible on the microscopic level, beyond our primitive grasp.
Yet, humanity is disarmed, as a social species, when it comes to social distancing incurred by needing to avoid propagation of a virus that is airborne (as of 29th of July 2020). Part of our survival for so many millions of years has been our ability to band together against adversity. We are still doing that today, even in front of a threatening malady, except with mitigated results. The problem with our inherent sociability is that it becomes our greatest weakness, when a virus depends on rapid transmission to evolve. This virus can become something we weren’t expecting in a matter of moments, simply because it replicates exponentially. For sure, the stats don’t seem to show that it kills nearly as many people as we thought it would… for now.
But that’s not all a virus is
We often seem to think of a virus contingently, that is as being a thing in itself whose impact is that of who it infects and kills. That’s not the whole story, though. When a virus like the Coronavirus hits a country, it doesn’t simply infect a lot of people. It stops everyday life; forces people to stay indoors as much as possible, resulting in a life where we know other people are around us, but we can’t see them nor talk to them. Humanity cannot abide this, and as such we’ve seen over the past months that we are unable to simply stay put and wait the storm out. Is that a good or a bad thing? I think I’m not at liberty to say. Conceptually, for a virus, this is a very good thing. Because a virus needs a teeming pool of hosts to replicate itself. The less victims it has to infect, the less it mutates. That’s how viruses are so quick to spread and infect hosts that should be immune to it, via vaccines for example.
This is why governments have pushed so much for us to remain indoors and avoid travelling as much as we used to; avoid going out as much as we used to and gather with friends and family. However, politics seem to get in the way of all of that. A virus is a very apolitical thing and it doesn’t care for human rights or liberties. Actually, it most likely wants those things to exist, so people will gather in greater numbers to protest its impacts. We humans desire, more often than not, this social interaction. We wish to see faces and talk face to face. All the things that the virus needs to once again, spread itself as far and wide as possible.
Doing away with human rights to preserve human lives?
It seems to be the main dilemma here that politicians and governments are struggling with. Do I force people to stay inside until the virus is over or do I let them run amok and brace myself for the crisis that follows? Either way, humanity will muck something up. Governments have either abused their authority or been so lacking that they might as well have never been there since the beginning. Other governments have been able to preserve humanity’s… humanity while also putting in strict social regulations. These didn’t work in a uniform fashion across the globe, but a few things come to mind about how governments managed to make things work: They had citizens that were properly educated on the situation at hand, they acted quickly and efficiently, and they remained abreast of developments regarding the situation, whether internally or externally. So, the key here was foresight and a proper management of government resources to ensure a lack of administration chaos.
These unfortunately came with increased government overreach and reduced civil liberties. Strong governments were thus required to ensure citizens would follow the processes therein and reduce civil unrest as well as exposure to the virus. Certainly, things are not black and white and it is likely that abuses occurred within these parameters or that they will. What can be said thus far is that aggressively and somewhat prematurely seeking isolation has helped reduce the spread.
Consequentially, it appears that governments who had a lacking response and failed to set proper expectations in their citizens were less successful: Quarantine measures were not respected and people protested much more easily, due to the strong belief that government should not impinge on the people’s rights and liberties. This, coupled with other civil unrest has led to increased infection rates in those countries that did not prepare adequately.
What are rights good for?
That is, during a pandemic. We’ve heard the issue spoken of as “the cure being worse than the virus”, which with all things taken into consideration, is a worthy concern! A government could be using a pandemic to reinforce itself and thus even quell any opposition to its rule, especially if it is being contested. Fear becomes a catalyst with which to stifle human rights, and this is something that the people should be weary of. Yes, to social distancing, no to giving a government absolute power to do as it sees fit. There is a real risk for governments to turn into full-on dictatorships. People in a country that has a government which makes it a habit to lie and cover up the lies are particularly vulnerable. Even more so when the people who should be safeguarding truth are participating in its erosion.
Human rights are good for this alone, and plenty of other things: A government should not force its population to take an unproven medication simply because of early clinical trials showing some promise. If there is something I strongly believe in, it is the right to self-determination from the people, even if in a lot of cases, the people gladly do away with any form of independence in the face of fear. This, whether that fear is justified or not. So, even if we should think of ways to prevent people from messing up quarantine measures, these measures should not include suppressing civil liberties or giving undue power to existing governing bodies.
Conclusion
It is my opinion that, in closing, human rights do pose a threat in the sense that an irrational belief that social distancing could be worse than the virus, does lead to an increase in infection and deaths. However, this does not mean that measures should include the destruction of valuable human rights, such as the ability to question the government’s decisions and maybe even protest them. So, the solution would not be to temporarily suspend human rights, but rather invest in a cultural shift from the people, to understand that a virus will kill as many humans as it can, to remain in activity. Without needing the government to coerce us, we should be able to respond, as citizens, in a way as to promote our current lifestyle, yet make sure we are not forced to live like rats in a cage, simply because we could not accept having our freedoms and rights restricted.
Adaptability is the history of the human race and this pandemic should cause us to think about the things that make use particularly exposed and weak, in front of such an event.
Wisdom and Society 