Pandemic permutations

Walking around San Francisco, it feels as if COVID is over. More and more people have shed masks, especially in the more affluent areas. An amazing number of small restaurants have reopened; how did they survive, one wonders? But we're mostly happy, if a little dazed.

But we need to remember, for most of the people of the planet, it's NOT over.

Globally, more people died of the coronavirus in the first half of this year than in all of last year—an astounding fact, given the emergence of the vaccines. The tragic truth is that, for much of the world, the vaccines may as well not exist. On the one hand, the U.S. is vaccinating children as young as twelve; on the other hand, health-care workers, elderly people, and cancer patients in many other countries remain defenseless. Three-quarters of COVID-vaccine shots have been administered in just ten countries, whereas the poorest nations have received less than one half of one per cent of the supply. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the W.H.O. director-general, has called this a “scandalous inequity.” ...

In a sense, Delta is the first post-vaccination variant. Pockets of the human race—perhaps five hundred million people out of 7.6 billion—are protected against it, despite its transmissibility; for them, the pandemic’s newest chapter is something of an epilogue, since the main story has, in effect, already concluded. But, for those who remain unvaccinated, by choice or by chance, Delta represents the latest installment in an ongoing series of horrors. It’s a threat more sinister than any other—one that imperils whatever precarious equilibrium has taken root. In a partially vaccinated world, Delta exposes the duality in which we now live and die.

Indeed, Australia -- a relatively rich, effectively governed, island nation -- has gone into lockdown in the last few days because of the spread of the Delta variant. Australia's vaccination program had only innoculated 5% of the population.

Michael Tomasky has applied his understanding of democratic (small "d") ethical philosophy to the refusal by many citizens of this country to avail themselves of vaccines. HIs argument is an enraged call-out of Republican-governed states, counties, and individuals who claim to be upholding "freedom" by not taking their shots.

Historically, freedom has a pretty precise meaning. As I wrote in a column in The New York Times last October, it comes to us chiefly from John Stuart Mill—a man whom conservatives used to revere. In “On Liberty,” Mill wrote that freedom (or liberty) means “doing as we like, subject to such consequences as may follow, without impediment from our fellow creatures, as long as what we do does not harm them even though they should think our conduct foolish, perverse or wrong.”

Notice that “as long as what we do does not harm them” part. That’s crucial to the entire enterprise, and it has always been broadly accepted in democracies by left and right as a crucial part of the definition. If I want to dump some garbage on my lawn, that’s my business, distressing though it may be to my neighbors. But I can’t go dumping garbage on my neighbor’s lawn. And I can swing my fist around in the air to my heart’s content, but my right to do as I please with my fist ends where your jaw begins.

Today’s Republicans are making a different and more dangerous set of claims about freedom that would horrify Mill. To their mind, they can dump garbage on their neighbors’ lawns and swing their fists wherever they please. Aren’t those morally equivalent to refusing to get vaccinated and helping to spread a deadly disease? There is no doubt. It’s the same principle at play: doing as one likes even if it does harm to others.

Modern Republicans are upholding the principle that they can go ahead and dump garbage on their neighbors' lawns. And spread the bug. And also fry the planet for their own convenience. 

This is suicidal species behavior.