This is the first of a three-part series that makes the case for leaving key health choices to individuals rather than relying on protective measures imposed by the state.
It is nowadays taken as axiomatic that we should be muzzled, masked, locked down, curfewed and jabbed by force of law in order to stop the Covid-19 pandemic. But as a matter of practicality, do these measures work?
And here the question is not so much whether social distancing, masks and vaccines are medically effective as prophylactic measures against infection and death.
The question is rather whether state-mandated lockdowns, masks and vaccinations are more effective than the alternative, namely private people deciding for themselves.
Most readers would probably think that that alternative would turn any pandemic into pandemonium.
The two deemed advantages of government that supposedly make it the best agent to manage the “public good” of health, are its authority and its ability to co-ordinate joint action. It seems so obvious, doesn’t it? The idea probably owes its origin in part to multiple government campaigns framed as “wars” to fight real and imagined social evils, such as “the war on poverty”, “the war on drugs” and “the war on pollution”, as if fighting a pandemic requires the trappings of a military exercise.
The idea that only central state authority can co-ordinate national behaviour is a fundamental fallacy. We should reexamine our basic premises.
The first premise to consider is that there is much uncertainty about the science surrounding the pandemic, and that is an important part of the problem. To make things worse, mutations and variations of the coronavirus potentially change everything: the risk of infection and death, as well as the medical interventions required.
Two examples will make the point:
The one continent in the world that has had practically no lockdowns, no effective mask mandates, negligibly low vaccination rates and very little effective social distancing, is Africa. And yet Africa is the continent with by far the lowest infection and mortality rates from Covid-19. Does the mainstream narrative of “the science” in any way coherently account for this? No, it does not.
Second example: The following graph is a fair sample of South Asian countries that, having had varying rates of vaccination, all had significantly higher vaccination coverage than countries in Africa. Compared to African rates of about 30, these countries’ vaccination figures vary between 60 and 170.
Few regions demonstrate how much uncertainty there is around Covid as clearly as these South Asian countries. Whereas before the vaccination era they had virtually no daily deaths, suddenly after the commencement of vaccination, their Covid-19 mortality rose sharply.
The simple point is that the narrative conveyed to the public by government authorities and agencies, namely that vaccines would protect takers against death from Covid-19, has not been borne out by statistics and news. Indeed, it has been contradicted. What the public has seen is that countries that engaged in intensive rates of vaccination have had high and escalating caseloads, and many of them had high and escalating death rates. By contrast, countries with low vaccination rates have had low and declining case- and morbidity rates.
In addition, we must understand the idea of trade-offs. Thomas Sowell famously said: “There are no solutions. There are only trade-offs.” There is no anti-Covid measure that does not have trade-offs in terms of human life, health and well-being. Lockdowns and business closures cause poverty. They impact on schools and they result in disease and death, as routine medical procedures such as cancer screenings, dialysis and Aids and TB testing are neglected. There is no medical treatment that does not pose risks and have side effects. The question is how those trade-offs should best be made, that is, most cost-effectively in terms of human life and life quality.
Health services offer economic value. Like all economic value, it exists only because consumers value it enough to give up other forms of economic value in exchange. Firstly, they will pay for it. But they will also sacrifice other values for it. For example: to what extent is the consumer prepared to give up the opportunity to earn an income in order to achieve a certain degree of safety from Covid-19? To what extent is she prepared to forgo or compromise on the education of her children in order to be safe from infection? To what extent is the consumer prepared to risk possible myocarditis, high blood pressure or strokes, so as to be 100%, 80% or 50% safe from the virus?
Trade-offs like these are essential, have been made by ordinary people for millennia, and are still made on a daily basis. Importantly, each person’s trade-off problems are unique and distinct, because of his or her individual circumstances, and so result in different choices.
But trade-offs we must make. There is no choice, if a pun can be permitted.
[Image: https://pixabay.com/photos/lockdown-virus-self-quarantine-5041623/]
The views of the writer are not necessarily the views of the Daily Friend or the IRR
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