Dying to avoid coronavirus
I cannot remember exactly how it was worded in the World War II novel Catch-22, but the main character, Yossarian, was so scared of getting killed that he resolved to do everything within his means to stay alive even if he had to die in the process. A similar irony is starkly in play right now as the country struggles mightily to avoid the coronavirus. Avoid the bug by all means, even if we starve and get dehydrated in the process.
It is perfectly all right to impose a curfew, restrict movement, and confine people to their homes. In times of crisis and emergency, strident measure are understandable. In fact, that is precisely what governments were invented for --- to provide order, stability and guidance when urgently needed. Without governments, anarchy can quickly fill in the void.
But there has to be sense in order, foundation to stability, reason to guidance. Nothing is worth having for its own sake. Thus for every order so ordered, every measure put in its appointed place, there has to be an exemption, an escape hatch, an exhaust vent. You cannot confine people for fear of catching the coronavirus and let them die in the process from hunger or dehydration.
People must be allowed out for necessities and provisions. Restricting particular age groups to their residences 24/7 works only on the assumption that they are living with other people outside their age groups. But the stark reality everywhere is that there are many school-aged young people living with parents or relatives who are already seniors.
Students living with elderly parents or relatives will die of starvation and dehydration if they are not allowed to go out and buy much-needed provisions. Of course those who go out just for the sake of going are not just in defiance of regulations but are making a mockery of earnest efforts to contain the virus and must be arrested, charged, and thrown in jail.
But there must be exemptions. A pressure cooker becomes an extremely dangerous thing without a valve to let out excess heat and steam. We cannot just expend all our energies and resources trying to avoid the virus and in so doing expose ourselves to other situations and circumstances that can kill us just the same. Let us not burn the house down to kill a rat.
There are plenty of laws that give governments ample authority and power to exact obedience and demand compliance without compromising the goal we need to accomplish in the first place. And that goal is to keep as many of us healthy and well when this is all over. Let us not leave the landscape strewn with more destruction than is necessary.
No lockdown, quarantine or curfew can be so effective and complete without allowing for exemptions that are for the general good, and without which we only get to achieve that which we are trying to achieve. Of what use is avoiding the virus if people die just the same in their homes from hunger and thirst because their government disallowed them to go buy something to eat and drink.
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