Frank's Musings

We’ve forgotten this kind of lesson before.  The Black Death killed 20% of the world’s people in the fourteenth century.  Surely, its causes were a political issue.  The medical cause of the Black Death was not known at the time; if it had been, one would  hope that pest control measures would have been taken.

Today, not only do we know the cause, its sources, and also how to minimize the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, through vaccination, anti-viral medication, and social distancing.  These have made the severity of the pandemic a personal issue—How to behave when faced with a wildly infectious disease.  These measures would definitely have improved the demographic survival rate in the fourteenth century, had they only been known.  We don’t have the same excuse this time.  And yet, we tend to discount the urgency of warnings from those who caution against disregarding the behavior changes which minimize the likely spread of infectious disease particularly in the belief that they could harm business or social interactions. 

As my daughter pointed out, it is rational to risk succumbing to the disease by associating with friends when taking the precautions available to an individual, such as vaccination, testing, antiviral medication, and social distancing, including masking.  It is not only unreasonable and dangerous, but reckless for an informed person to put others who may not have access to these precautions at risk of incurring the pandemic disease. Moreover, it is insulting for those who ignore those precautions to offer compensation to those who may have suffered the consequences of their recklessness.

Of course, as you must know, sometimes occasional recklessness is an attractive characteristic that makes friendships valuable. Therefore, in order to anticipate even desirable recklessness, keeping friends with that risky trait is another reason to act responsibly during a pandemic and to guard against unthinking personal behavior that threatens the welfare of others.