Since I penned my column for the February 2020 issue of SciTech our world has changed dramatically. At that time we expected to have a Board Meeting at the end of April in Chicago, combined with the annual Ecumenical Round Table of science and faith organizations like PASTCF in various denominations. Both took place, but in abbreviated form, online. We were also preparing for our annual meeting and booth at the 224th General Assembly in June. That is not going to happen, either, in that form: no in-person GA, no booth, no luncheon. We intend to have an online annual meeting near the end of summer, with the planned talk. And, as was the case with the ERT’s traditional Public Lecture, this is not necessarily all bad news: an online meeting and talk will allow more members to attend and participate. More news on that will follow; watch your email inboxes.
In the intervening three months the novel coronavirus 2019 and ensuing COVID-19 (CoronaVirus Disease 2019, in full) pandemic has changed our lives in a fundamental way. A little over a year ago I had read Emily St John Mandel’s Station Eleven. If an author can evoke a catastrophic pandemic in a convincing way, one would have hoped that a government as well resourced as the US federal government could do the same (some in the government did) and plan accordingly (it did not). Dealing with the pandemic in an effective way involves science, as well as moral and ethical considerations; in other words: science and faith both play a role. It is fitting for the PASTCF to be involved in the discussions.
There are three areas involved in the response:
- The scientific information: demystifying the disease and the pandemic
- The scientific, moral, and ethical consideration on which to base the response
- The way forward to the future
Demystifying the pandemic. A catastrophic development like the CoViD-19 pandemic can strike terror in people’s hearts and lead to panic and irresponsible behavior. To counter that it is imperative that the basics are understood. There are still many details that are unclear and many secondary factors are unknown or partially known, but the basic mechanisms driving the pandemic are known. These are: the disease is highly contagious; there is significant percentage of infected people that need hospitalization and intensive care; and the mortality rate among the latter is significant, too. The high infection rate means that herd immunity is high – well over 50%, probably over 70%, though still not precisely known. It also means that, absent a vaccine and a cure, one can multiply the herd immunity percentage, the percentage hospitalized, and the mortality rate of those hospitalized to arrive at the percentage of the population that will die in this pandemic. Social (more properly: physical) distancing reduces the infection rate and will draw out the process over a longer period. Why not get it done and over with as soon as possible (like the UK and Sweden were contemplating initially)? For two reasons: “flattening the curve” attempts to prevent the number of hospitalizations to exceed the capacity of the healthcare system – for a number of good reasons, but especially because that would increase the mortality rate and lead to unnecessary deaths – and by moving many infections further into the future there is a chance that lives can be saved once there is a vaccine and/or a cure – though the timescale for those is still probably somewhere in 2021. There are a number of other factors that affect the progress of the pandemic, such as population density, medical history, genetic factors, ethnic, cultural, or professional habits, mutation of the virus, etc. But the basic process to fight the pandemic does not change: slow down the progress of infections and work on vaccines and pharmaceutical cures. And it also makes it clear that once we allow the infection rate to go back up (by easing physical distance restrictions), the number of new cases will flare up again.
Moral, ethical, and political considerations. This is where faith, religious and humanitarian convictions, but also very practical considerations come into play. Whereas there may be an instinctive reaction of self-centered self-preservation, it is not only faith – or some basic human decency conviction – that tells us that compassion and love for all humanity are what should drive us. Even a cool rational assessment tells us that, if I alone am saved, it doesn’t do me much good, since I can’t really manage on my own. The protection of all of society, of all of humanity is paramount, because it offers the only path to overcoming the challenges posed by CoViD-19 – at the local level, the state level, the national level, and the global level. This is rather a challenge in the current political climate.
There were many societal ills in the 1940s, especially those rooted in racial relations. But there was a willingness to sacrifice for the good of society, a willingness to pull all together in the same direction. It came out of the Great Depression and World War II: Social Security, the GI bill, the Marshall Plan, investment in infrastructure. Few remember that at that point in history the top income tax rate was 92%. It lasted well into the 1960s with the Kennedy presidency and the Civil Rights Act (even though the cold war threw its shadow), but in the 1970s it began to falter, during the Vietnam war. In the 1980s under Reagan the big reversal came: the push to scale back taxes that supported society for all of its members, including the most vulnerable, was started in earnest and greed became respectable. The heritage of that era is that over almost four decades now extreme individualism has gained near absolute prominence at the expense of care for society as a community of fellow human beings. During the past three-plus years it has culminated in an administration that is attempting to dismantle the last vestiges of a social safety net, that corruptly squanders resources for short term gain, that serves the rich and hollows out the rule of law, that has provided support for white nationalist and fascist elements, and that has no interest in any form of global collaboration. In that atmosphere we should not be surprised by people insisting on exercising what they call “their constitutional right” to go to crowded bars and do anything they wish; and, indeed, have packed worship services – rather than participate in an effort to curtail the spread of the virus.
What we desperately need at this time, is a return to a fundamental sense of community. I think what my rant in the previous paragraph indicates is that, however logical such a change may seem, it will require a massive change in societal attitude and it will not be easy. It requires a very conscious effort. We need to reclaim the sense that what benefits all, ultimately benefits each and every member of society, even (or maybe especially) those who need to make a sacrifice in order to make it happen. True freedom for each individual lies in respecting the freedom of others. Prophetic witness is in order, here, to exchange the sense of self-importance for the sense of community. After all, we are a community of faith.
Toward the future. I think it is clear that the post-CoViD-19 world will not be a copy of the pre-CoViD-19 world. In general, of course, one would hope that there will be a greater sense of urgency attached to pandemic preparedness. But we will probably change the way large events will be held. Having experienced online worship services may well result in a gradual evolution of our services afterward. And the bill for the trillions spent to support society in these months will need to be paid. I hope that the projects of kindness that have sprung up at this time to help those who need help, will not just disappear, but evolve into a kinder society; that, having seen the inequalities in stark relief, we reverse the trend of widening the income gap, pay each worker equitably (remember the parable of the workers in the vineyard), finally take seriously wiping out racial and ethnic discrimination, strengthen the democracy, and get serious about a truly affordable health care system for all. And I hope that we will enthusiastically embrace a new internationalism, in the realization that individuals and individual nations only prosper if all of humanity prospers; that good stewardship of this earth and its resources is something that requires all of humanity and all nations to commit to that task.
