{"id":8691,"date":"2020-06-10T15:23:55","date_gmt":"2020-06-10T14:23:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cassandravoices.com\/?p=8691"},"modified":"2020-06-10T15:23:55","modified_gmt":"2020-06-10T14:23:55","slug":"covid-19-a-simple-moral-calculus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/casswp.eutonom.eu\/index.php\/2020\/06\/10\/covid-19-a-simple-moral-calculus\/","title":{"rendered":"Covid-19: A Simple Moral Calculus"},"content":{"rendered":"

Introduction<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

There are still many unresolved questions regarding the pathogenesis of this disease and especially the reasons underlying the extremely different clinical course, ranging from asymptomatic forms to severe manifestations, including the Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome (ARDS). SARS-CoV-2 showed phylogenetic similarities to both SARS-CoV and MERS-CoV viruses, and some of the clinical features are shared between COVID-19 and previously identified beta-coronavirus infections. Available evidence indicate<\/em>[s] that the so called \u201ccytokine storm\u201d an uncontrolled over-production of soluble markers of inflammation which, in turn, sustain an aberrant systemic inflammatory response, is a major <\/em>[factor] responsible for the occurrence of ARDS.
\n<\/em>Francesca Coperchinia, Luca Chiovatoab, Laura Croceab, Flavia Magriab, Mario Rotondi, \u2018The cytokine storm in COVID-19: \u2018An overview of the involvement of the chemokine\/chemokine-receptor system\u2019 (2020)[i]<\/a><\/p>\n

For the first time in the post-war history of epidemics, there is a reversal of which countries are most heavily affected by a disease pandemic. By early May, 2020, more than 90% of all reported deaths from coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) have been in the world’s richest countries; if China, Brazil, and Iran are included in this group, then that number rises to 96%.
\n<\/em>Richard Cash and Vikram Patel, \u2018Has COVID-19 subverted global health?\u2019 (2020)[ii]<\/a><\/p>\n

The evidence of Hitler\u2019s as well as Stalin\u2019s dictatorship points clearly to the fact that isolation of atomized individuals provides not only the mass basis for totalitarian rule, but is carried through to the top of the whole structure.
\n<\/em>Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism<\/em> (1951).<\/p>\n

All this hate and violence [in the world] is being facilitated by a handful of internet companies that amount to the greatest propaganda machine in history.[iii]<\/strong><\/a>
\n<\/em>Sacha Baron Cohen, speech, (2019)<\/p>\n

Comment is free, but facts are sacred.[iv]<\/strong><\/a>
\n<\/em>John Scott, editor of The Guardian, (1921)<\/p>\n

In March, 2020 a simple moral calculus seized Western consciousness. Prompted by grim epidemiological assessments<\/a><\/span>, and distressing accounts from emergency doctors in Northern Italy<\/a><\/span>, a call to #flattenthecurve resounded across social media. The global force of hashtag activism<\/a><\/span> led millions to renounce meeting friends and family in an extraordinary display of solidarity with vulnerable older people.<\/p>\n

Twitter, which had previously styled itself \u2018the free speech-wing of the free-speech party<\/a><\/span>\u2019[v]<\/sup><\/a>, allowing all manner of unmoderated content to appear on controversial subjects such as climate change \u2013 as well as hate speech from President Donald Trump \u2013 abruptly changed policy<\/a><\/span> on March 16th <\/sup>saying it would be:<\/p>\n

Broadening our definition of harm to address content that goes directly against guidance from authoritative sources of global and local public health information. Rather than reports, we will enforce this in close coordination with trusted partners, including public health authorities and governments, and continue to use and consult with information from those sources when reviewing content.[vi]<\/strong><\/sup><\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Problematically, however, there is no canonical response to the global pandemic and significant debate has occurred between authoritative sources, as different governments pursue varied policies, with mixed results. This has created potential for national authorities to impugn or disqualify reasonable criticism by grafting health warnings on accounts at variance with a particular government\u2019s guidance, or wider political objectives.<\/p>\n

Twitter has not acted alone, Google<\/a><\/span> has taken unprecedented steps to erase material that violates \u2018Community Guidelines\u2019: \u2018including content that explicitly disputes the efficacy of global or local health authority recommended guidance on social distancing that may lead others to act against that guidance.\u2019[vii]<\/a><\/p>\n

Typically, Facebook<\/a><\/span> adopted a laissez faire<\/em> approach, although users who had read, watched or shared \u2018false\u2019 coronavirus content received a pop-up alert urging them to go the World Health Organisation’s website.[viii]<\/a><\/p>\n

Whatever one\u2019s view on the importance of social distancing, our readers<\/span> may recall Ronald Dworkin<\/a><\/span>\u2019s pronouncement that \u2018free speech is a condition of legitimate government.\u2019 He argues that the universality of speech as a mode of rational discourse and scientific inquiry could act as truth-seeking counterweight to mass hysteria, negating unreason and prejudice.[ix]<\/a><\/p>\n

Moreover, Stephen Sedley, the great English judge, called freedom of expression \u2018the lifeblood of democracy;[x]<\/a> or as George Orwell put it in the introduction to Animal Farm (1945): \u2018If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.\u2019<\/p>\n

Accepting Covid-19 represents an extraordinary challenge requiring a concerted response, censorship by Big Data in such a blanket form, including of recognised academic authorities, surely only lends credence to conspiracy theories, fomented by the far-right in particular. Disregard for freedom of expression casts doubt over the integrity of scientific inquiry and inhibits rational debate.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Reappraisal <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The English-speaking world was led to believe in early March that Covid-19 had a mortality rate of between 2% and 3%<\/a><\/span> [xi]<\/a>, and that its spread would be exponential, with a reproductive (R) value of 3 (i.e. one person would infect another three), compared to an R value of 1.28 for seasonal influenza<\/a><\/span>.[xii]<\/sup><\/a> Moreover, based on Lombardy\u2019s experience, it seemed the death toll would include hundreds or even thousands of health service workers tending to the sick.<\/p>\n

As the weeks passed the assessment of the mortality rate was scaled back to 1.4%<\/a><\/span>,[xiii]<\/sup><\/a> but by then the virus seemed to be moving through Europe like a forest fire at the height of summer. Soon the number of daily mortalities from the disease was dominating news headlines.<\/p>\n

Insofar as possible, most reasonable citizens abided by the popular injunction to #staythefuckathome, entrusting governments with emergency powers to guard against errant behaviour.<\/p>\n

As time passed, however, we learnt that early projections on the infection fatality rate seem to have been significantly wide of the mark<\/a><\/span>. Lone Simonsen professor of population health sciences at Roskilde University in Denmark recently said she expected a infection fatality rate \u2018possibly as low as 0.2% or 0.3%\u2019, while Professor Emeritus at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm Professor Johan Giesecke has suggested an even lower figure of 0.1%.[xiv]<\/sup><\/a> The U.S. Centre for Disease Control\u2019s best estimate implies a COVID-19 infection fatality rate below 0.3%<\/a><\/span>.[xv]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

Sunetra Gupta, Professor of Theoretical Epidemiology at the University of Oxford has gone lower still estimating an infection fatality rate of between 0.1% and 0.01%<\/a><\/span>.[xvi]<\/a> She bases this on an assumption the virus has been in circulation far longer than initially assumed, an argument gaining traction, with satellite data<\/a><\/span> suggesting the pandemic hit Wuhan in China a far back as October,[xvii]<\/a> while France\u2019s \u2018first known case\u2019 was in December<\/a><\/span>.[xviii]<\/a> In truth, however, the infection fatality rate appears to depend hugely on the nature of any society, and not simply its age profile, for reasons to be discussed.<\/p>\n

An aggravated perception of danger is also likely to have occurred through media reports juxtaposing confirmed cases, with mortalities. Thus The Guardian<\/em> reported<\/a><\/span> on May 16th<\/sup> that, \u2018According to the Johns Hopkins University tracker there are 4,531,811 confirmed cases worldwide. The number of people who have lost their lives is 307,001 according to official tolls, but the true number is likely to be much higher.\u2019[xix]<\/strong><\/sup><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

On a cursory examination, one might assume a infection fatality rate of 6-7%, or \u201cmuch higher\u201d. Little wonder then that people have been jumping out of the way of one another on footpaths.<\/p>\n

This infection fatality rate may well prove to be considerably higher than a seasonal flu mortality rate of 0.04%, but it is instructive that during one such outbreak in 2017-2018 that there were 61,000 influenza-associated deaths in the United States alone<\/a><\/span>.[xx]<\/sup><\/a> Yet these preventable deaths hardly registered on the national consciousness, unlike like the victims of Covid-19.<\/p>\n

\n

100,000 people have now died in the U.S. from the coronavirus.<\/p>\n

We highlighted 1,000 of them this week \u2014 their names and their stories. https:\/\/t.co\/PILnDapjLI<\/a><\/p>\n

— The New York Times (@nytimes) May 27, 2020<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n