With soaring COVID-19 numbers in my home state, I find myself turning to a debate I had with a couple of my friends several months ago about governmental versus personal responsibility. At time of writing, it feels particularly apt. What with many politicians trying to foist the pandemic response on the public rather than actually imposing restrictions or mandates to help ease the burden on hospitals and soothing fears. Sound familiar to many situations across the globe?
But when it was first raised, it was during the extensive lockdown from June 2021 to October 2021. And all of that misery was sparked by a limo driver shuttling air crew from the airport.
Many people on social media, and even traditional news outlets, had pinned the blame squarely on the shoulders of the unfortunate man. Particularly as they had not been vaccinated and had not properly practiced COVID safety measures such as mask wearing and completing the necessary checks. My friends, however, actually lay the blame on the government. They said that if there had been stricter requirements and controls systems in place, perhaps disaster would have been averted.
Another shining example has also been the father and son duo that spread COVID-19 into rural New South Wales because of the ‘need to inspect property.’ A lie, no doubt. But who is responsible? Some might say the government for not explicitly stating that during a lockdown, such activities should be limited. Others pin the fault on the individuals for trying to find a loophole through the restrictions: of trying to have their cake and eating it as well.
While there’s an argument for both sides, it does put into sharp contrast the way that so many governments around the world, as well as individuals that live in particular countries have reacted and responded to the necessary measures to combat the virus. Recent endeavours have seen many of the restrictions that were put in place to stop the Delta outbreak have seen cases jump astronomically high. The popular political refrain has been that it is now up to everyone’s ‘personal responsibility’ to keep cases down.
As 2020 and 2021 have showed us, however, humans are intent on their own destruction. Without government mandates or public health orders, we are revealed for the self-centred hedonistic creatures that we are. You can’t breathe with a mask but you want to seem like you care that there’s a raging pandemic? Slap a mask on your face but keep it below your nose. Feeling stifled about a government that is trying to look after the vulnerable in the community? Call them out for being a tyrannical and oppressing force, or bandying about words such as segregation and apartheid. As if the choice to get vaccinated was something you’re born with.
Spoiler alert: It’s not. And right-wing extremists don’t get to use such charged words considering the horrors people have endured because they weren’t the right skin colour.
Sure, you might not be open to getting jabbed in the arm with something experimental, but that’s your choice. Just as it is your choice to put yourself in harm’s way and not reap the benefits of a protected public. After all, how can you visit friends or work in a high-risk field if you’re on a ventilator? I mean, just look at seatbelts. Sure, you can not wear it, get caught and be fined. That’s your choice. But what if you were actually involved in an accident?
Do death and severe injury not frighten you? Psh. Of course not. You only live once, after all.
Thank you for culling the herd of humans by crashing through the windscreen and becoming a smear of human paste on the road.
You’re doing your ancestors proud.
At the very least the gene pool doesn’t have to deal with passing on your stupidity to the next generation.
Oh wait.
It probably still will because there are idiots that manage to luckily survive. Or perhaps the world will all come to a catastrophic end when someone pushes the big red button that says ‘Don’t.’ I’m putting my money on that.
Over and over again, we have seen people (and governments) look towards short term gains rather than the long term picture. Why else would humans be at two minutes to midnight and still dawdle on the subject of climate change?
Beyond that, we’ve had to deal with several years of misinformation and conspiracy theories. COVID-19 has always been the flu. The pandemic is a worldwide conspiracy hatched by the elite. Vaccines are actually a way for global governments to insert tracking devices into humans (as if that’s needed. If you have a mobile phone, they could have been tracking you ever since you got it).
Now, while I understand being vaccine hesitant – I, too, was concerned about possibly getting an AstraZeneca jab after the Delta outbreak in Sydney and with Pfizer so limited. The possibility of developing a blood clot had me paralysed. Thankfully, one of my work colleagues was quick to disabuse me of how special I was.
Yet, in the end, there was a shipment from Poland and I, a twenty-something-year-old and supposedly a person in the age group that is mixing and mingling with others and totally getting COVID-19 and spreading it to others in my household, was finally able to feel a modicum of safety. It’s still a while to go before I’m eligible for a booster, but already I feel the weight of judgement despite my very introverted ways and hatred for the outside world.
On the other hand, we are not mindless drones. The social contract we share means that there are also several freedoms that we, as democratic countries, get to enjoy. And while many governments have seen the challenges that COVID has brought, they’ve also tried to place some trust in those that they govern. Masks. Public service announcements to wash one’s hands properly. To wear a mask in high-risk environments such as on public transport. Staff to be vaccinated, particularly if they work in hospitals or aged-care facilities.
But even reasonable requests have been looked at with ire. Just look at the protests all around Australia. Look even overseas to the United States of America and Europe.
However, I ask you this. How willing would you be to attend a hospital if the leading surgeon was known to believe that blood transfusions was the work of the devil and that cancer was God’s way of testing you? Would you feel safe in the hands of nurses that were coughing and spluttering, unprotected, as you were wheeled into ER after a horrific car crash? Would there be such a focus on the ‘economy’ if there were brain-eating zombies roaming the streets?
It isn’t as if Western governments have shot people for breaking curfew. There are no checkpoints or armed defence personnel patrolling the streets. The secret police haven’t kidnapped anyone and tortured them to reveal other anti-vaxx sympathisers.
Beyond that, and in the example of the father and son duo, governments are not as omniscient as we all believe. They are fallible. Like humans. And there will be the occasional hole in the measures that they’ve put in place that individuals will take advantage of. Is that a responsibility of the government to come up with incredibly stringent rules and mandates or does part of the blame also lie in the individual for trying to bend them?
Nothing is ever clear cut.
As the saying goes: where there’s a will, there’s a way.
People will constantly be trying to test boundaries. Perhaps governments should have been more specific about exemptions, or perhaps they shouldn’t. There’s also something to be said about personal responsibility. Western countries have always elevated the individual over the community, but maybe it’s time to flip that script and time to put some emphasis on why individuals should prize the whole over the one.
After all, it should be noted that masks are better served in protecting those around us, should that individual be carrying the virus, than the other way round.
I know this may be heavy stuff to read, but it’s been something that’s been sitting on my mind for a while now. 2022 is now here and I’m afraid that so many of us have not learnt the lessons that the previous years have taught us. Here’s hoping for some actual light at the end of the tunnel.
The Writing Corner 