Corona Saga: Lock Dowm - 16th Day

Twas the 16th Day of the Lock Down. Twas also the day when the Cult of the Shepherd King commemorated his unjust trial and brutal execution on the orders of the uber villain, Pontius Pilate. Pilate was a cynical man, to say the least, so far gone that at one point of the trial he asked: "What is truth?"

4.7 million members of the  All Black Tribe, settling in for what was effectively a siege, had time to begin reflecting on their situation and the many questions it raised. Everybody understood the broad question of the hour, namely when was the day and the hour when they would be caught up in the rapture of the post Level 4 Lock Down world without going forth to damnation by disease? 

In every age, there is a great question that defines the Zeitgeist of the period, simultaneously unifying everybody around one point of reference and dividing everybody into different parties regarding the answer. Already the Great Question of the Age was creating the Various Views of the Age.

The Vaccine View held that it was criminally negligent to relax restrictions on the population until a vaccine had been found, tested and mass produced. Purely scientific and logical, the Vaccine View appealed to medical scientists and humanists, but ignored two problems. Firstly, until the vast amount of data being generated by intensive and extensive research was processed, scientific opionion of Covid-19 was not strictly speaking, scientific. Secondly, continuing draconian restrictions on the freedoms of over seven billion people for fear that some would die from disease was all very well in temrs of humanist situation ethics, but was ultimately inhumane. The business of life cease, and many began to wonder how long before lives began to cease.

Cessation of lives because the cessation of business was propounded by the Economic View. And in truth, if the economy declined past a certain point, death by non-Covid-19 means was inevitable via suicides, lack of resources and tax revenue, and political strife arising from economic distress. The Economic View also had flaws. Firstly, much of the damage was already done, because the shock of the previous 6 weeks had crushed sections of the economy and suppressed demand for years to come. Secondly, the downstream effect of the shock could and probably would create an economic depression that would have life of its own, irrespective of what measures were employed to fight the Conroavirus Monster.

The Herd Immunity View occupied the middle ground between the first two views. The Herd Immunity View argued for a graduated lifting of restrictions so that most of the population could return to work, on the rationale that those who got sick could be managed while the bulk of the population developed and 'herd immunity'. Those judged to be vulnerable, namely the old and sickly, would remain at home until a vaccine was available.

The Herd Immunity View also had flaws. Firstly,  it was a situation ethics calculation - the benefits of allowing people to go back to work would outweigh the cost of those who died. Secondly, it effectively turned the bulk of the population into human laboratory rats in a gigantic medical experiment. Admittedly, many considered the urban lifestyle of the human race to be a 'rat race' but that was beside the point.

Policy makers would have choose one of these views sooner or later, and whatever they chose, many would condemn as them as uber villains. "What is truth?" Cone Man wondered ...