Apr
26
For Your Quarantined Consideration…
“I just don’t think that we really need to make a projection when it’s such a moving target that you could so easily be wrong and mislead people.” — Dr. Anthony Fauci in New York Magazine‘s Intelligencer
Today, I present to you three articles I thought were pretty good reads regarding the COVID-19 situation. First is this one (from Uncommon Descent), which is itself a “roundup” of three other articles. The first concerns “the dangers of certainty in science and blind trust in experts”. Here is a brief quote:
“We know for sure that the input data in the run-up to lockdown was extremely poor. For example, it’s highly likely that a large majority of Covid-19 cases have not even been detected – and most of those that were identified were in hospitals, and therefore the most severe cases. Because of this, the WHO initially suggested a case fatality rate (CFR) of 3.4 per cent, which would have been genuinely awful. But as new evidence comes in the predictions of the models change accordingly. A paper from Imperial [College, London] on 10 February suggested CFR of 0.9 per cent, a more recent one on 30 March 0.66 per cent (both based on Chinese figures, the reliability of which many doubt).”
The second part of the roundup takes a further look at the fact that epidemic models are notorious for overestimating mortality rates, while the third part addresses the issue of COVID-19 deaths having a higher percentage among those with medical conditions associated with obesity. (Yet another reason not to overindulge in the food department during quarantine — or, really, ever — though that isn’t the only cause of obesity.)
The next article I’d like to point you to continues along these lines and into the public square. It is Ben Peterson’s “Experts, Politicians, and the Public: The Science and Art of Collective Decision-Making in a Free Society” at the Public Discourse journal.
“The coronavirus pandemic has confronted communities and governments around the world with coordination and mobilization challenges similar to, though distinct from, those in wartime. It also confronts us with difficult policy challenges involving tradeoffs and uncertainty. All this raises the question of how decision-making occurs in a free, healthy society, both in normal times and in periods of crisis. For simplicity, let’s say three orders compose a free and healthy society: experts, politicians, and the public. Each has a role to play in the decision-making processes….
In a free society, each of us must discharge the functions of our orders and offices well. As we know, experts, politicians, and the public can all do this with varying degrees of perspicacity and integrity. Experts can overreach, politicians can be corrupted, and common sense can deteriorate into popular delusion.”
Finally, Scott Klusendorf (of Life Training Institute) continues the examination, asking the question(s) “Do Pro-life Principles Require A Sustained Shut Down of the Economy? Who Decides?” over at the Christian Research Journal. Here are a couple paragraphs to give you an idea:
““Life above profits” fails to account for this complexity in the precautionary principle and thus presents a false choice. Pro-life advocates concerned about the economy are not callously choosing money over people. They’re asking how we can save lives and preserve the common good given the pandemic we’ve been dealt. Is an indefinite shutdown of an entire society the best way to do that? Doctors don’t hold a trump card on that question. And yet that is precisely the danger we face. Medical professionals who would never allow experimental cures until they are fully tested are quite willing to step outside their field of expertise and demand untested and draconian economic policies that harm vulnerable Americans and impoverish the nation. Profits lift millions out of poverty and give us the resources to fight disease in the first place. Indeed, our economy is delicate and interconnected in ways not subject to central planners who unilaterally dictate what is and is not “essential.” As philosopher Lydia McGrew points out, “A ban on the sale of garden mulch affects (ultimately) a hospital’s ability to provide pay to a doctor treating Covid19 patients.” A failure to recognize this interconnectedness is a danger to human life.
Absent a fuller understanding of the precautionary principle, “life over profits” is a slogan, not an argument. It’s application to the real world results in absurdity. Should we ban driving to work because we value life over profits? After all, 38,000 Americans die each year in car wrecks. Staying home is almost always safer than venturing out to provide for my family. If “pro-life” means we never do anything economically that risks human life, we can never end the current shutdown. No matter where we ease economic restrictions, we will, at that point, unintentionally put certain vulnerable people at risk. But the long-term alternative is worse.”
The articles by Peterson and Klusendorf are on the longish side but well worth reading, as is the roundup at UD, of course. (Not to mention the linked articles in said roundup, if you’re so inclined.) They provide good information, ask fair questions, make great points, and I found each more interesting than the last. Hope you do, too.
