Amesh Adalja, en läkare och erkänd expert på infektionssjukdomar, ger sin syn på saken i en medium-artikel som jag rekommenderar i sin helhet.

Jag vill dock citera ett par stycken då de tar upp ett bortglömt perspektiv. Och det är att den generella tvångsisoleringen är extremt destruktiv för individens livskvalité.

Livskvalité, och speciellt då individens livskvalité, är—på grund av altruismens och kollektivismens oerhört destruktiva inverkan på vår kultur—en underskattad och ofta förbisedd faktor i nästan alla diskussioner. Därför är det värdefullt att Adalja påminner om denna aspekt i debatten om hur vi ska gå vidare efter coronakrisen:

Plans of prolonged, enforced confinement aimed at preserving life at any cost are premised on a misunderstanding of human life and what makes it worth living. When discussing treatment options with a patient, I often invoke the concept of “quality of life”. Patients regularly choose to take on some risk to their longevity in order to preserve or enhance their quality of life. Individual preferences and shared decision-making with physicians guide medical decision making and also should apply to each individual’s decision regarding the degree of social distancing that is appropriate for them.

A degraded quality of life, particularly over time, itself generates its own risks of death. If the lockdown is prolonged, we can expect increases in deaths from cancer, cardiovascular disease, stroke, mental illness, and substance abuse. How many cancers will metastasize while colonoscopies or biopsies deemed “elective” will be postponed?

Quality of life consists largely in the ability to engage in the activities that make up our lives, and central to these activities is work. Most of us need to work to support ourselves, and many people, including myself, derive meaning from their work. Moreover, humans, as a species, survive by productive work. Jobs cannot be easily parsed into “life-sustaining” and “non-life-sustaining” enterprises. All work consists in the creating of something we need to sustain human life physically and psychologically. Some of these needs are more acute than others, but all contribute to our ability and will to live. Stopping people from working is like depriving a limb of blood flow. Though action is sometimes necessary in an emergency, irreparable and irreversible harm will occur if it is prolonged. A prolonged freeze of the economy — even in the face of a deadly pandemic — will cause a long-term damage far greater than any purported benefit.

Amen!

Adalja gör så många rationella poänger i sin artikel. Så klicka här och läs.