As one of the more cautious and even fearful people regarding COVID, I routinely am overestimating the risk to myself personally. But I don’t think I’m overestimating risk to the community. I have repeatedly heard the stories of people absolutely persuaded that their behavior leads to no transmission of the virus, and yet we have nearly 700,000 Americans dead from COVID. The problem, in my view, is in the disconnect between people’s general awareness of the community risk and the total unwillingness to make adjustments to their behavior. Risk assessment for the individual is so different from the risk assessment for the community.
I like to say that there are 700,000 murderers walking about America today. 700,000 people who were the last chain of virus transmission to the person who died. And yet nearly all of them are wholly unaware that they are the cause. For certain, you have certain people who do know that they killed their grandma or their aunt, or at least they should know. And for certain nearly all of them will justify their actions with the idea that they didn’t know and couldn’t have done any better.
Everyone can do better. I’m no exception. I’ve made several decisions in the past year to ignore the virus and do what I want to do. That my decisions are substantially more cautious than average doesn’t change the fact that I have compromised on safety because I really wanted to go and do something at some particular time.
At times, I am incredibly judgmental about the decisions that others make on their behavior. I’m not talking about getting vaccinated – for me that is an absolute no-brainer that if you aren’t doing it you are personally a moron (on that decision) and very socially irresponsible (again, on that decision). I AM talking about the compromises that nearly everyone is willing to make. Those compromises have lead to 700,000 American deaths.
The main argument against this point is that people have to live, and I myself am coming to this conclusion. But what goes hand in hand with that is that people then have to die so that others can live. I find this absolutely repulsive as a moral decision, but it is one that everyone has made to some extent. I intend to get back out there quite a bit more in the coming months, barring an absolute catastrophe or increase in the cases from here.
One of the main criticisms of politicians, the rich, and corporate executives is that they create moral or legal rules that they themselves then proceed to ignore. But I’d suggest that everyone does this. It’s a human failing and one that should inform policy decisions. We have to pursue very firm safety, but we also have to compromise in areas where people really need to live (again, so that others may die). Otherwise, society breaks down.
