COVID & Personal Sovereignty

Last week I posted a few articles about COVID which caused some controversy on my Facebook feed. Some people appreciated and agreed with my conclusions and others disagreed and felt I was being irresponsible and misleading. I’m grateful for the long and sometimes heated discussion that took place, as it was amongst my friends and it was mostly civil and respectful.

I found these resources suggested by my friends most helpful in updating and refining my understanding of COVID:

• The Risks — Know Them — Avoid Them (Even though it’s two months old and newer data should taken into account, the concepts and thought process outlined are robust and critical to understanding your actual risks).
• COVID Symptoms Study which suggests a range of symptoms to look for, not just fever and dry cough.
• Anne Insights Videos (here & here) and it seems like she’s doing updates regularly, so worth subscribing.
• COVID Survival Calculator uses AI to predict your risk of infection and mortality based on a number of factors you provide.

In terms of my beliefs about the scientific reality of COVID, several things shifted in me as a result:

1. I have much more fear/respect for COVID’s long-term bodily damage for people who survive, even those with mild symptoms. I.e. it’s not just about your chances of dying, which I was too focused on before.
2. Because of this, I am going to be more cautious about becoming infected, seeing as how the longer we can hold off on being infected, the more likelihood of both better treatments and vaccine. Prior to the FB discussion I was sympathetic to the argument for getting exposed early since I felt I have a very high likelihood of surviving and I would then be immune. While I wasn’t being cavalier about becoming infected, I wasn’t focusing enough attention on avoiding it, given the non-fatal health risks.
3. I’m going to get myself a pulse oximeter and check me and my family on a daily basis.
4. I’m going to stop focusing on fever & dry cough as the main symptom to look for, and be more alert to loss of smell/taste.
5. More generally, I’m going to be hypervigilant about any abnormal symptoms and consider getting tested and seeking treatment even if the symptoms are mild.

And this is where it gets interesting…. I came away believing that from an individual choice perspective, masks are ineffective and possibly harmful. I suggest you watch the videos above and draw your own conclusions. That said, for the purposes of my argument about masks, here’s my summary of the relevant points from the videos:

• The #1 thing you can do to avoid becoming infected is stay away from high density indoor areas and so-called superspreader events.
• Being healthy seems more protective than being young.

Why wearing a mask MAY be an unhealthy choice for you

There is epidemiological evidence that mask wearing is very effective at stoping the spread at the societal level. However, based on other evidence, I believe this is correlation and not causation. In other words, I suspect that people who are more likely to wear masks are also more likely to avoid high density indoor areas, and they are more likely to wash their hands, both of which are proven at the individual level to halt the spread of the virus.

In one of the videos above you will find evidence that not even medical masks (let alone cloth) can stop the aerosolized small droplets containing COVID from getting you as you linger in close quarters with infected people. Wearing a mask in these situations will not stop infection unless they cough or sneeze on you (large droplets, not aerosolized).

Wearing a mask and being indoors for extended periods MAY give you a false sense of security. To be clear, if you visit a relative in their house who is sick with COVID and you are wearing a mask, it will not protect you.

On the other hand, if you are thinking clearly about how to avoid being in close quarters with people you are not sure are COVID negative, you will stop worrying about masks and start worrying about airflow. And you will stay outside because sunlight kills COVID. And you will stop fiddling with your mask because it puts your hands in contact with your face. And maybe, like me, you will only wear a mask when required to do so or when not doing so would cause more social angst than I’m willing to foment.

Individualism vs. Sovereignty

I’ve come to the tentative conclusion that the core American value of Individualism is a double-edged sword. On the one hand, many people justify irresponsible and irrational/stupid behavior because “hey, this is America, I’m free to believe and do what I want, you can’t take away my rights!” And as a result, we are suffering from high infection and mortality rates. And as a result of that, those who see the behaviors as stupid and irresponsible want to address the crisis with top-down force (legally and social pressure) to have everyone comply with their more scientific understanding of COVID. On the other hand, this top-down approach has lots of collateral costs as well (economic, social justice, civil liberties, non-COVID health, mental/emotional wellbeing, and so on). And when the science is not at all clear (as with COVID) then the moral authority of those who would shame or quell dissent from the top down becomes questionable.

I would like to suggest that Individualism is a building block for the more powerful and mature value of Sovereignty, which includes not only individual rights, but individual responsibilities.

Responsibility to think for oneself, and not rely on other people’s opinions or summaries, whether that’s experts or your friends.

Responsibility for your actions 100%, not passing the buck or blindly following rules, or making excuses like the authorities told me to do it or the experts gave me bad advice. The sovereign individual is always and exactly where the buck stops.

Responsibility for speaking up when you want to question the truth as being told by someone else or when you believe strongly in something or you hold different values. Silence and doing nothing are both actions, for which the sovereign individual is 100% responsible.

Responsibility for the wellbeing of others, recognizing that we do not exist in a vaccum, and more than ever we need each other to survive and thrive. Individualism doesn’t get us here, but neither does paternalism (“I’m smarter and more scientific than you so you should do what I say”) or authoritarianism (“I have power over you so you should do what I say or there will be consequences”).

The sovereign individual shows their care for the other by first taking responsibility for their own thinking, actions and exercising their right to free speech, and then following that up with a respect for the other’s sovereignty and choices.

As a final thought, I like to remind myself that the strength of the American experiment lies in our ability to hold conflicting values and beliefs and yet remain in constructive dialogue, be that at the political level or the social level. The erosion of that ability at the political level has been apparent for a while. And now COVID is revealing that same erosion at the small group and invididual levels.

To me, the greatest opportunity of COVID is as a corrective to this erosion of civil society, and the possibility of maturing from a collection of individuals to a society of sovereigns.