Coronavirus Contrasts

It was a great start to the day to read a piece about the behaviour of a group of parents and teachers in Madrid. Not in a Spanish paper but in the Guardian. And it’s a story that deserves to be known in other countries.

The parents recently ran a confidential survey of the whole parent body, to identify who was suffering the worst economic effects of the lockdown. Then they raised money from amongst themselves and the teachers to help out those most affected.

That included a woman who had lost her job as a cleaner and could no longer afford to feed her daughter. The help of the group meant that they could eat again. What’s more, the group supplied the daughter with a tablet, so that she could follow online teaching and therefore start following the virtual classes her school was providing.

In Britain too people are helping out
A food bank in Bury

This is by no means a unique example. Many of these groups to help the most vulnerable are emerging in response to the epidemic. And there are other examples of strangely community-related behaviour. Taking another example from Spain, I was astonished to read that Juan Roig, owner and Chief Executive of the supermarket chain Mercadona, has decided to take no salary or dividends this year, and to give 70 million Euros to relaunching the Spanish economy.

There’s nothing like a crisis to bring out the best in people. Sadly, it can also bring out the worst.

A US protestor against lockdown
Isn't freedom from fatal disease pretty essential?

There are actions that contrast starkly to this kind of community kindness and mutual support. In particular, in the US there are those groups who are turning out, sometimes heavily armed, but in thankfully small numbers, to demand lockdown restrictions be lifted. They claim to be speaking in the name of freedom. However, since they are clearly not interested in protecting vulnerable people who might be struck down by the virus, they’re only concerned with their own personal freedom.

Presumably, they calculate that they won’t fall victim to the virus.

As it happens, theirs could turn out to be a shortsighted outlook. The virus may disproportionately affect the elderly and those with underlying health conditions, but it has also killed plenty of healthy, young people. In pursuit of one kind of freedom, these protestors are jeopardising another: the freedom to live in safety from a killer disease.

So we see two profoundly different attitudes by individual people. One is community-oriented and altruistic. The other is an affirmation of individual concern and without empathy for others.

What’s true of individuals is true of governments.

The Madrid school group may well find its burden reduced before long. The Spanish government plans to start paying a minimum basic income so that, at least, no one should face homelessness or hunger as a result of the measures it has taken to combat the virus.

The German government, and with even greater success, those of South Korea and New Zealand, acted on time against the virus and applied highly intelligent measures. They seem to have brought the epidemic under control or to be close to doing so, and they have heavily limited deaths.

A nation like the UK, on the other hand, has stumbled from crisis to crisis within the pandemic. The Boris Johnson government was unforgivably slow to react to the growing signs of the scourge about to be unleashed on the nation, and hopelessly inept in its response once it finally woke up. Even today, care workers have insufficient protective equipment and testing is way behind schedule.

Now the Johnson government is trying to force citizens back to work even though little has been done to ensure the safety of workplaces. In other words, it is acting with indifference to human life and it’s no surprise that the death count there is now the highest in Europe and growing.

Worst of all, of course, is Donald Trump in the US. Utterly uncaring of the lives of his fellow citizens, he drives on towards reopening the economy for no better reason than to enhance his hope of re-election. Anyone who questions his views is dismissed as dangerously wrong and a purveyor of fake information, while the greatest disseminator of such information continues to turn his once great nation into an object of pity, and ridicule, internationally.

With the highest coronavirus death count in the world.

When this crisis is over, we shall have to start making some choices. The biggest will be between starkly opposed views of our societies.

Do we prefer the kind of community-oriented approach of the Madrid school group, and the attitude of governments that make protecting the lives of their citizens their first priority?

Or do we prefer the attitude espoused by Trump and the US protestors who place their own desires above those of the society in which they live?

If crises provide a great test of personality, that applies to all of us. Not just occasional heartwarming groups, or even governments whether heartwarming or not. Each of us will be called on to choose between two such profoundly different attitudes towards human life and collective needs.

A lot will ride on the choice we make.