Here we analyse the legitimacy of government actions during the Covid-19 pandemic (lockdowns, social distancing, and masks) and the way they restrict individual choice and derail society by appealing to the masses. Rather than focusing on scientific research on the actual virus, we focus on the set of arguments typically provided by pro-measures individuals to show that they are based on the concepts of cognitive misery, lazy option, and problem substitution. We discuss some of the most notorious slogans and provide counterarguments to show that governments, media, experts and other institutions have been led by the inertia of a confusing problem based on arbitrary and entangled grounds. Our conclusion is that governments, media, and industry are forcing “one-liners” (slogans) upon the true minority under attack: the single individual. Only when the single individual manages to become a sufficiently strong power, consideration of personal choice is granted.
Deleted research item The research item mentioned here has been deleted
Everything is failed so far. Anyone can prescribe but the reality is beyond calculation.
Thanks for the replies. The key here Ette Etuk is the claim on humanity as same, but then you say: "To me, ...", this means that it is you yourself, not humanity, that makes a decision for all including me. A decision that maybe doesn't agree with mine. It is imposed by others on me. Claiming that there is no solution is the trivial answer to a complex problem. Maybe we should try harder before saying there is no solution to invading the freedom of others. In particular, most of the worst atrocities committed by humans have invoked at the time the common good. Including slavery, that supported the common good of production. Invoking a common good is not as harmless as one thinks.
It is a "Global Pandemic" so it seems reasonable that a "global response" is indicated. This is primarily a Medical Problem, everything else is a secondary result. Health is most important, because without it, everything else fades. As far as individual freedom, people should be able to chose their treatment; but not at the expense of the rest of the globe. An individual should not be free to expose others, for example. Some countries in which the medical control has been taken over by politics, for example, the results have been disastrous. Thank you and stay safe.
WHO has declared corona virus as a pandemic. Each country is trying in the best possible way to minimize and prevent the effects of corona infection. Because nothing is more important beyond heath.
Health is wealth is wealth....rightly said.
Itishree Padhi You should see the cues of poverty have multiplied by at least 10 in Spain so far. A friend saw one of more than 200 meters when it was normally a few meters at most. The health of the poor is not taken into account too much. The hospitals are mostly for the rich. The same as the privilege of staying at home and living on your savings or wearing a mask as if this was the main problem of the standard person. For the rich of course, the best way is to wait a few years until things move on, then they can come out from their castles of wealth and find the misery they have left behind. Including the fact that they have robotized humanity.
Our reply to you is the point of the typical slogan
3.9 The virus is an isolated problem that takes priority because it kills.
Short counterargument in the paper
Any human action might kill in ways we cannot control. Even the decision of preventing Covid-19 deaths will kill in ways we cannot predict. Possibly even many more people than it saves. Claiming that preventing human deaths by radical imposition of confinements and similar does not have dangerous consequences is absurd and naïve. It has the advantage however of killing in complicated ways, so the perpetrators of the crime do not have to feel the responsibility and do not feel accountable. Even physically, what you do here with this object might have physical consequences in an object extremely far from here in ways that are almost impossible to predict and control. The global expansion of the pandemic from possibly a single individual is an example.
You can also check slogans 3.6 to 3.11
3.6 Together we will defeat the disease or “one goal, one will”.
3.7 Your freedom ends where mine starts.
3.8 It is your responsibility to protect innocent others to not get infected.
3.9 The virus is an isolated problem that takes priority because it kills.
3.10 Wearing a mask and confining yourself is not extremely bad for you.
3.11 Flattening the curve is our responsibility.
Gary Joseph Ordog why then should you decide for me? Im just asking. Is it basically about many people deciding for me? So a group of abuse just because I am one? Sounds like group vandalism to me on account of the fact that one is too small of a group. This was how nazi Germany started and the way the Spanish forced South American slavery amongst other. Gays were also being chemically castrated over 50 years ago based on the presumption that it was a sickness that could spread. Their free choice could have polluted the heterosexuals. In all counts, and whenever this type of discourse is used, the abuse of power occurs on account of being more people or having better weaponry. Other than that the misery that is now coming should be equally shared. The cues of misery and asking for food have multiplied in Spain by maybe 10 or more over the past two months. Maybe people that are scared of the virus should stay inside their houses and safe, and let people that want to live without fear live their lives? That is, the saving accounts of all should maybe be distributed equally amongst all? it sounds abusive to me that a bunch of rich people tell poor people to stop their activity and wait when that waiting means death to them and mere holidays for the rich. This is how some rich people see Covid-19, i.e. holidays.
The response of the global community in the war against covid19 pandemic is a justifiable one indeed,but in the continent of Africa,Nigeria specifically ,there is no atom of truth in the war against the phenomenon. The Nigerian government are playing politics with the pandemic, the masses are suffering as a result of the totally lock-down of the country without adequate provision of foods for the downtrodden since food is the most essential needs of human beings,according to Maslow hierarchy needs.All the monies donated by civil societies,private donors and international communities meant to be used to take cares of the poor individuals in the society are been mismanaged by the authorities who are entrusted with the money.This has witnessed the ubiquitous or unprecedented crime rate in Nigeria ranging from stealing,embezzlement and other organized criminal nativities.
Since this is a Covid-19 pandemic, as a new risk of a global character, it is necessary, from the point of view of the theory of reflexive modernization, to provide a global response of all countries, in order to prevent potential catastrophe in the global risk society. Today's risks pose a threat to the security of all the world's inhabitants, regardless of their social status, so it is necessary to invest supranational organizational efforts in overcoming them.
Itishree Padhi The corona is probably one of the things that kills least and destroys families the least globally as a disease. Why do you think powerful people have chosen this random disease to make a mess and lead millions to poverty while putting fear and anxiety in the head of most?
The response (by the governments) is precautionary, yet it is not the permanent solution to the pandemic. That has to explored and analysed on scientific grounds, and the public has to be made aware of what it really is.
Th global response to covid 19 is not yet yielding positive results as expected. The rate at which people are fallen victims of pandemic is alarming. What makes int'l organizations fail to find lasting solution this problem is lack of mutual understanding and power of supremacy. Those develop nations are not ready to come together to find solutions to the problem of covid 19.
How the issues of supremacy comes in? For instance, Magadascar prove to have herbal solution to covid 19, because it was discovered by under-nation, the herbal solution was out-rightly condemned. W.H.O is not helping the situation, what you hear from it on daily basis has not subdue the fear of this ravaging disease. If at all there is not yet concrete solutions to it, apart from social distancing, washing of hands, using of nose and face mask, etc., the little experiments carry out may be individuals or group, like taken of hot water, inhaling vapour of hot water, and more like that, why not do something or carry out little research out on them.
I believe the solution can be sorted out if W.HO and other great nations can drop their egos and come together, create a centre of research in a country, and find it. I believe something positive will come out it as solutions to covid 19.@ Olaniyi
Thanks.
Apanisile Musibau Please can you tell me why you would invest money researching to save people? Giving food to the poor would save many more lives and it needs no research. Only TRUE solidarity.
@ prof yekini Lawal
in fact, what international organizations, corporate bodies and well to do individual in our societies should embark upon now investing money on research to save lives. I think for now the greatest humanitarian gesture I can offer is to invest in research that can save lives. Ideaologies to arrive at positive results to do the needful for humanity.
Investing in research to save lives is a most not at leisure time.
Apanisile Musibau Thanks for your answer. I doubt there is a need to research to save the hunger deaths. 1/4 of the planet is overweight ( 1,696,085,875 Overweight people in the world ) while they spend a lot of money on losing weight ( $ 109,761,456 Money spent on weight loss programs in the USA today ). In the 13 hours today already (17,774 People who died of hunger today). It needs no research. Just some solidarity and good will. But good will is lacking. Technology we have too much. But it is better to put effort into research to create jobs for the reach than good will to save the poor. This is my main concern with the corona. They pretend to be solidary.
https://www.worldometers.info/
I am of the view that governments and critical stakeholders should engender economic and literacy empowerment of the citizenry, particularly the vulnerable groups in the society, as well as strengthen public health sector system for improved access to health services and its delivery to the populace for their well-being, especially in developing countries.
COVID-19 pandemic further impoverished the poor and the vulnerable groups in the society and the idea of using palliative to cushion the economic hardship is not sustainable, therefore it is imperative to mainstream diverse livelihood mechanisms, targeting the poor and vulnerable for a long - term positive impact.
Also, public health literacy awareness should be heightened to control the effects of COVID-19, as well as increased funding for research in the health sector.
The pandemic of COVID-19 has hit the world and for more than six months now, there has been a global fear about an invisible enemy that threatens any country either rich or poor (I prefer empovrished) with no consideration to the usual devides of North and South. The USA, Italy, Spain, France were those whose suffered the most of the pandemic despite the availability of a more efficient health system than those of the weakened countries of the global South. Nevertheless, the hit of the COVID affected more the rich than the others. In this context, two French doctors suggested that the vaccine in preparation (or that some people think it is already produced) be sent to Africa to cure Africans from COVID-19 while there hadn’t been any critical amount of victims on the continent. But because with the help of global media, one can listen or read anything happening in a Northern country almost instantaneously, there have been huge protests both in France and in Africa. These led to an excuse from the two doctors. More than that, this event has awakened the normal people and brought them to question health policies that have been implemented by African countries with the supposed aid of the developed countries. Further while every country was trying to find a solution to this global enemy, the World Health Organization has not always provided encouraging declaration.
At the date of March 24th for instance, several western countries were affected with thousands of death. Italy and France were holding the macabre leadership while African countries were still ‘’unaffected’’ by the terrible virus. But Surprisingly, brainstorming about the curing of the pandemic, two French doctors suggested that the vaccine to be put in place (the vaccine that some people, based on some secret information, think it was probably ready before the pandemic) will be sent to Africa to cure African people who not yet ill at the time while thousands of Europeans were killed despite the sophisticated health system put in place since at least the end of the World War II. Unsurprisingly, Africans on the continents and those in the diaspora, especially those in France reacted collectively and vigorously against. Most people realized that there was a coup behind this strange philanthropy towards Africans. Eventually, the two French doctors apologized for this policy-based mistake. Till to date, there are remarkably low numbers of cases in most African countries. While even in July, some Western countries are expecting a second vague of infected and probably death, the situation has not worsened in Africa. Based on the latter, could we envisage a global solution while to problem is not globalized?
Before answering the question, I need to say a few words about the situation in Africa and how Africans relate to health and illness.
Most of people in the West were reasonably or not scared for the case of Africa when the pandemic was killing elsewhere. They were expecting or even planning a huge number of dead. But people have not taken into account the specificity of the relation of Africans or the 70% of Africans who don’t have access to the western or westernized medicine. They mostly rely on traditional medicines. Herbalists have success in many countries. In the 1980s in Republic of Benin for instance, there was a well organised association of traditional practitioners (including healers, herbalists, etc.) put in place by the ministry of public health. Some of them are practicing till to date not only in private but also (maybe informally) at Centre National Hospitalier et Universitaire (CNHU) attached to the Faculté des Sciences de la Santé (FSS) in Cotonou and at Centre Hospitalier Départemental de l’Ouémé in Porto-Novo, the two state-own hospitals in Benin. They intervene in hospitals to supplement weternized doctors. In Ghana there is a national registration that is the umbrella organization of herbalists, etc. Besides, there are families where every single day the members including have to drink their infusion before having their breakfast. In those families, things are organized in the way that, if you don’t drink yours, you cannot go beyond the gate. So health is an issue of daily precaution. When you grow is such a family, not only your immune system is strengthened but also you care about your personal health. This is what I term as African medicality, meaning a particular relations Africans have with health, being a daily basis issue and illness as a manifestation of disequilibrium that need to be addressed holistically (meaning physically and spiritually).
Beyond that, when the pandemic burst, several initiatives popped-up in Africa. Though the most known is the remedy put in place by Malagasy and superbly advertised by the President Andry Rajoelina, there have been the remedy of my compatriot Valentin Agon. He is an inventor with several trade-marked products like API-Palu against malaria and received several price and international recognitions. There is also a product developed by a team of professors of the Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences of Ahmadu Bello University (ABU) of Zaria in Nigeria (https://www.theabusites.com/abu-develop-covid-19-cure/). I think that surely there are more than those mentioned here.
The strange thing in the Western media when these products were announced was that most of them were ostracized. For instance some people thought that it was not the role of President of Malagasy to stand and sell the Artemisia in the media. A few days later, a representative of the Academy of sciences in the country reacted by saying the product needed to be tested although there had been some prior to the announcement. Even the World Health Organization made a negative remark on the cure developed in Malagasy.
In the case of Benin, it is worth mentioning that Mr. Ago studied in Burkina Faso and has strong connections with scientists there, where he first tested and cured his first patients including high rank staff members in the Ministry of Scientific Research. An authoritative scientist even made testimonies that he was cured with the remedy of Mr. Ago. But suddenly after a couple of days that the video has circulated on the net and through watsapp, counter-propaganda started even in Benin. These media messages and counter-messages show that the illness or at least the development of the cure is a matter of the money involved and the benefit the laboratories will earn out of it if the remedy developed in Africa was adopted by African states.
On the basis of this development, is a global response to COVID-19 worth or should countries in their singleness develop individually their cure? Two options of solution can be imagined. The first option is that, under the World Health Organization a cure be developed for the whole world. In the past, there would be no worries about that option. But given the legitimate reactions of Africans both in the diaspora and on the continent after the decision of the Organization to neglect the efficacy of (tentative) cures developed in Africa on the ground that there has not been enough tests (while there are records of proved tests of cures that caused thousands of death in Europe), anyone could suspect a plot against Africa that the vaccine is supposed to be sent to.
Given the number of death caused by that the pandemic, it is worth that any global solution be tested in the most affected countries and that the generalization to the world shows that the molecules in the product used for patients in the West is the same with those sent to Africa.
The second option is that each country develops its own solution. And some nations like Malagasy, Nigeria have already proved their capability of achieving such a goal. But to increase the relevancy of such a project, it could even be possible to develop one by a continental consortium under the leadership of African Union. But what will be the most productive, resources-generating and somehow decolonizing pharmaceutical and medical practices and studies in that process is that herbalists in regional consortia (the difference of sub-climates in Africa may have an impact on plants available and their active principals) develop different cures. In West Africa, the network of Ghanaian herbalists could take the lead with their colleagues in other West African countries like Nigeria, Benin, Togo, Liberia and Sierra Leone. Another consortium could be organized around South Africa or/and Zimbabwe to include areas like Lesotho, Malawi, Swaziland, etc. Others could be with the countries in the Horn of Africa in one side, etc.
In my opinion, this is the way forward for African pharmaceutical and medical organizations if we want to achieve national sovereignty in public health sector and preserve Traditional medicine for future generations.
Following link may be useful;
https://www.theregreview.org/2020/04/20/comparing-nations-responses-covid-19/
To answer this question and to discuss the new normal please see our new project: https://newnormers.com/.
All the best,
Tobias Köllner
It is indeed clear that now the scientists, medical staff and the good citizens can make an effort to help those in need. It would be terrible to not help others when they need it.
Yet, let us consider this. How are we spending money when things go “well” and in the normality of the normal situation? Football, cinema and entertainment, maybe also alcohol, tobacco and the manufacturing of other machinery. We dedicate ourselves to the demand of what is demanded. This is presumably because the market tells us to work where there are jobs and to sell where we can sell. Indeed there are introductions to papers, and in fact most of them, that claim to work for the good of humanity. Meanwhile many people witness the manifestation of the most brutal aspects of society, when they are told that if they do not have an income, food, money, or can pay for electricity or clothes, it is their problem to solve. The others see this done to others and blink to move on with their normal life. This is because, normally, we must fight our way into the market and nobody will give us anything for free. We must earn it. The repetition of these words to the amount of people that find themselves in a dead end situation, where they hardly find the means to survive, and are simply hoping that tomorrow there will be food, water and a toilet and shower, must not be too different to those that are now looking for a bottle of oxygen and a bed. Claiming that one situation is worse than the other is simply a misinterpretation of what it means to be human. The desperate and selfish fight for goods, just in the attempt to get to the goods before others, has been witnessed, to our embarrassment, by all of us: the toilet paper issue.
How is the current situation different then? If I am a medical doctor, why should I give my time and freedom for others now? We might be tempted to claim that it is because this issue and situation demands it. Yet how many people find no job, have no place to stay, have no money for food on a daily basis and we simply say “it is their problem and they should do what they can to get a job”? Not long ago, I saw a security guard calling a 12 year old "thief" when he was attempting to take a few muffins form the supermarket. We typically claim that while there is food in the supermarket, it is their problem to go into the market, make money and fight for the available food supplies. This is the right way. The fight to get to the supplies, and the fight to get to those supplies before or with more money than others, is what we call normal life. Can we now simply say to the people that need a bed and oxygen that it is their problem and they should do what they can to get a bed and oxygen? They should have saved money and now fight for available supplies. However terrible this sounds, this is indeed the state of things and any attempt to go against it by simple invoking a “state of exception” tells us this: “helping others for nothing is only exceptional”. The people living a normal life fighting for money on a daily basis, i.e. most of us, trying to get the job that others won't by competition (job interviews), live the same situation that a person is now living when asking for a bottle of oxygen. Certainly we won't see this person that we just outdid die immediately if they don't get the job we got, but the suffering of that person remains unimportant in general. They must simply try their best and fight their way through. This is independently of whether they are sick or can't cope with life any longer. My question is: why should I get the old get a bottle of oxygen or leave my job and entertainment to make something so they survive? Answering that it is because "you are good" has more to do with the television and media than reality.
The problem of hospitals in Spain is as follows. If on average 1 person of every 1000 people in Spain are expected to die monthly, we should account for at least 2 or 3 beads per 1000 people. If we had 2 or 3 good exceptional beds per 1000 persons, we would be prepared for any pandemic. In Spain we hardly have 1, I think the number is in fact quite inferior to this, per every 1000 people. If we now dedicate ourselves to make beds on the spot and make machines on the spot we are simply accepting this fact: “we are happy enough watching films while others need help and when things need to be done for others. Then we are prepared to act exceptionally when things indeed go very bad to some selected ones and as long as the government says we should”.
This is the type of lie that society wants to maintain out of view. How many people are now unconsciously very scared of getting back to the “normal” situation, i.e. one where when you need help people tell you to get into the market and find your way? Sad as it sounds if a company makes beds and oxygen supplies, they now must sell it as expensively as they can only to the people that can afford it. Why is this so? How can we legitimately say that this situation is different form the situation of people dying in the streets in the cold when there are shops full of clothes that will not give these guys clothes because they do not have the money? This is simply the market, a market that we congratulate each other to enjoy and entertain by, for example, getting certificates and an education to make our way through. This means simply this: I want to get your job so I can get the better house and the best medical care. For this, I am willing to sacrifice years of my life for an education in order to compete with you for this job, and ultimately, for the best bed in the best hospital.
Let us take the case of the President of Lombardy. Recently (March/2020) he claimed: “They tried to scam us by buying material. It is full of bandits.” Then he said:
"It wasn't nice going around the world looking for gear and respirators, I guarantee it. There are more bandits than you can imagine: people who speculated and tried to scam us, some who said they had what they could not provide. We have found an incredible lack of humanity." Attilio Fontana - March 2020
Yet this was simply the market. Someone was trying to make a sale. You might say: yes but they should consider the exceptional situation. My question here is: why so? What makes this situation so special? It is simply an exceptional state of affairs? What about the exceptional situation of the children making coca? Or the exceptional situation of people finding themselves in the streets because they just couldn't cope with life for whatever reason? If we now claim that this (the corona) is different, we are falling in the very same trap of the corrupted and misled society that we are attempting to save. We are only fooling ourselves. This exceptional state of affairs is doing what it always does, decide in advance who they want to help and how. After this, everything can return to “normality” where the person exploited and the person that simply wants a place and food must fight to survive. The truce is over. In this situation of normality, I am supposed to find a job in the market where the market dictates what there is. The demand is freely floating in terms of the needs of many people, for example those that can hardly eat or pay their bills or sustain their contract with the electric company. This is in fact the situation of normality that we want to return to when the exceptional situation is over. Spain will continue to manufacture weapons and sell them to Yemen and other countries in conflict. Of course we can in those cases make formal excuses and never attempt to stop "the market". We can then all go back to developing the machinery and technology to which we typically dedicate ourselves, naturally, and in the normal situation that we are used to.
So for those that think that they are helping humanity now by assisting with the corona, while some lives might indeed be saved, what they are fundamentally doing is allowing for the situation of normality to continue, where, on a daily basis, the horrendous conditions of many humans are simply ignored to satisfy a market. If you have already forgotten what this means think of this: if I have a bottle of oxygen, I will sell it as expensively as I can to whoever can pay for it. Trying to make up for this with the claim that you, as a scientist, are attempting to work for “the good of humanity” is simply a misinterpretation of the terms “good” and “humanity”.
I explained this situation in a paper: "Should humans work?". You can find it here:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0308596120300021