Over the weekend, I read an insightful five-part on-line series of articles on the coronavirus pandemic by Prof. Maximilian C. Forte of Concordia University in Montreal, Quebec, on his Zero Anthropology Project web site.
He doesn’t think the pandemic is a temporary emergency that will soon blow over. He thinks it is a major turning point in history. So do I. Of course we both could be wrong, but I don’t think we are.
Here is an excerpt from the first article. Links to the full five-part series are below.
Max C. Forte
The plain fact of the matter is that until a vaccine is developed, and everyone on Earth has been vaccinated, the struggle against the virus will not truly be won.
Anything less than that is merely a temporary, selective and fragmentary means of approximating an end—something that is better than nothing, with each decrease in lives lost being something that is heroically gained by front line workers risking their own health.
Otherwise, anything short of total vaccination boils down to a way of indirectly apportioning the virus to some, while managing it for everyone else.
Unnecessary deaths will not be rendered any less unnecessary, they will simply be confined and reduced in number, for a while. In other words, without vaccination it is absolutely inevitable that what comes next will be worse.
The main issue now for public officials appears to be how to ensure that what comes next will not be as bad as it could be—making worse less worse.
To be clear, the most recent estimates are that a vaccine for COVID-19, which has not yet been invented, would—to be optimistic—become available within the next year to 18 months.
Not only has a vaccine never been invented for any prior coronavirus (with previous research prematurely shut down), even discovering a vaccine before five years would be a record-breaking pace when compared with other vaccines.
Experts think it would be unprecedented. Plus the coronavirus is apparently mutating profusely, which complicates efforts to develop a vaccine.
Without a vaccine or effective therapy, the assessment from Harvard University’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health is that “prolonged or intermittent social distancing may be necessary into 2022,” and that there could be a resurgence of the outbreak as late as 2024.
Instead, from the UK to the US and Quebec, an understanding that is prevalent among officials involves foggy, even dangerous ideas about “herd immunity,” which assumes—with little conclusive evidence and despite some contrary evidence—that (a) immunity against COVID-19 can be acquired and (b) that the immunity is permanent or long-term.
To make matters worse, some researchers think a vaccine for COVID-19 may never be found and that the virus is likely not to be containable.
No matter which decisions governments take—whether to continue mass confinement and a closure of most of the economy, or to gradually reopen economic activity (though it was never fully closed) and loosen restrictions—it will seem like the wrong decision will have been taken.
It’s not even a matter of choice between the “economy” versus “health.” Without health, there can be no economy. Without production, distribution, and consumption, health may be undermined.
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