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Gordon L. Weil
“We took important and dangerous action, and inevitably some innocent people were affected,” the battle report says. It expresses regrets.
The supposedly unavoidable harm to people who were not the intended target is labeled “collateral damage.” You’re supposed to shrug it off as an inevitable price that must be paid to accomplish an essential objective.
Covid-19 has produced the same effect, not on some distant battlefield, but across this country. But it is other people, not the government, who take the action, and they express no regrets.
What has turned out to be overwhelmingly important to many people is not the fight against the coronavirus, but rather their resistance to that fight, even if it causes collateral damage to their fellow Americans.
People refuse to be vaccinated because of their opposition to the kind of government power that can require them to take action for their own good and the well-being of others. They proclaim their absolute right to freedom. It may be a case of “my rights are more important than your lives.”
Many people have been hopeful that the vaccines would allow a return to the “old normal,” allowing for travel, crowds, and restaurants. The unexpected resurgence of the virus, thanks to the Delta variant and the unvaxed, has been difficult to accept. With that reluctance may have come resistance to masks and shots.
“We don’t seem
to care that we have these really high infection rates,” a British professor
told the New York Times. “It looks like we’re just accepting it now – that this
is the price of freedom.” Living with
Covid 19 may be the “new normal” for some people.
The uncertain
messages about the effectiveness of anti-Covid19 measures have inevitably
raised doubts. The scientific community
has tried to discover how to deal with a sudden and worldwide deadly virus
using its normal methodical process.
Mandating vaccinations usually comes only after years of trial-and-error
research.
The result of
both the urgency of stemming the abrupt rise in the death rate and the amazing
speed in coming up with vaccines may be an overly optimistic hope that Covid 19
could be wiped out quickly. That would have been unprecedented. The public may now be forced unhappily to
accept the absence of an expected miracle.
In the end,
Covid 19 can be brought under control. It is possible that the new normal will
involve many people continuing to wear masks, required vaccinations, more
remote work and less business travel, and the continued growth of retail
business conducted online. It may be possible to lead something like normal
lives though with a different lifestyle.
In Maine, the state
with the oldest population, and in the U.S. as a whole, with an aging population,
the lifestyle change is occurring. Older
people are among the most vulnerable to Covid 19 because of reduced natural
immunity. Though vaccinated, many must drastically limit their social contacts
and travel.
The spread of
the coronavirus deprives retirees, who must exercise special care, of the
expected benefits of retirement, including family contacts. The activities they forfeit may never again be
possible as they age.
The effect on life
in the retirement years is part of the collateral damage of the failure to
fight Covid 19. Anti-vaxers rob
retirees.
Of course, the problems of seniors are not as serious as the increased hospitalization and deaths caused by the community spread of the virus that could be reduced if more of the population was vaccinated and wore masks. This is the greatest collateral damage.
The costs they impose on others are unheeded by those whose sole concern is their own opposition to wearing a mask or getting a shot. The high-flown assertion of their freedom looks remarkably like simple selfishness.
Making the harm even more dangerous is the political exploitation of the opposition to protective measures. The governors of Texas and Florida, both rumored to plan on presidential runs, actively oppose masks and vaccinations that would reduce health risks. They appeal to anti-vaxers for their own political gain.
Some pundits and social media multiply the effect. They exploit news of evolving research to falsely claim that vaccines, proven to work, are not effective. They promote resistance to any government vaccine, yet come up with unproven, dangerous remedies for those who contract Covid 19.
The emphasis on personal freedom, even at the expense of others, is part of a belief that rights are absolute. While it sounds good, it can be destructive. Protecting the rights of each person requires some mediating mechanism. In the U.S., that’s a freely created government.
In the end, the biggest long-term danger from Covid 19 may not be its threat to public health, but the threat posed by its opportunistic opponents to the sense of community that is essential to democracy.
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