Knackjournalist Dirk Draulans is occasionally asked why, as an evolutionary biologist, he does not advocate ‘natural selection’: allowing the corona virus to run its course.
Sometimes you are shocked by the directness with which people confront you with their vision of a crisis, in this case the corona crisis. Many people are not willing to give up their daily routine and their social contacts in a social attempt to contain the spread of the corona virus. I was recently in a hospital where some nurses complained that they are getting so tired of telling people about the need to wear a face mask. A doctor said she was abused when she kindly pointed out to two ladies that they were wearing their mask incorrectly.
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Sometimes you are shocked by the directness with which people confront you with their vision of a crisis, in this case the corona crisis. Many people are not willing to give up their daily routine and their social contacts in a social attempt to contain the spread of the corona virus. I was recently in a hospital where some nurses complained that they are getting so tired of telling people about the need to wear a face mask. A doctor said she was abused when she kindly pointed out to two ladies that they were wearing their mask incorrectly. In some circles, resistance to the measures to combat the corona virus is great. Quite a few people don’t want to make an effort – the burden will be on the others anyway. In their conviction, the unruly ones are fed by doubters in the media, genre health economist Lieven Annemans (UGent), who is gradually starting to calculate how much his soothing demarches about the virus will cost our health and economy. perverse suggestions. A number of times I have been asked explicitly why, as a patented evolutionary biologist, I am not advocating for the coronavirus to take its course, so that ‘nature’ can do its work. The underlying idea is that it would wreak havoc in our system for a while, but that only the ‘worst adapted’ would not survive, which would lead to a kind of ‘remediation’ of humanity. The burdens of this approach would not outweigh the benefits, because a large part of the population could just continue to do their thing, because they experience little physical discomfort from the virus. Even as a Darwinist at heart, I think this is a chilling thought . Apparently, many people still do not realize what the consequences would be if the virus were allowed to proceed, although this has already been explained regularly. Our healthcare system would crash, with dire consequences for patients other than corona patients (unless you consider that as an evolutionary asset). Worldwide, the number of deaths would be six to ten times higher than is already the case. The number of people who would struggle with chronic health problems from a corona infection throughout their lives would shoot into the zenith. The terrible images from northern Italy from the beginning of the corona crisis, where health care effectively collapsed, would become the rule in the world. People should not be warned by the authorities to stay in their shed, they would crawl into it themselves in fear. Society would automatically go into a kind of ‘lockdown light’. Because nobody knows whether or not he / she is extra sensitive to the corona virus, let alone whether it applies to family and friends. It seems to me a very heavy psychological cost that we would have to pay for such a “ natural ” event. Moreover, even as an avid evolutionary biologist, I believe that we should continue to cherish the moral human being. What sets us apart from most other animals is that we have developed values such as ethical reflection, legal justice and extreme caring, no matter how much they have come under pressure in recent years by the reprobated so-called social media that chases everyone with their heels in the sand and contribute to strong polarization in many areas. My mother is almost 88 years old. It no longer contributes to the functioning of society, unless by maintaining the home care sector a little bit. But she likes to see her children and grandchildren, she is happy that she still lives at home, she enjoys the birds in her garden and hopes to have visitors again as soon as possible. Should we sacrifice people like my mother because some believe a virus should be allowed to run its course? Should we hide the elderly because younger people are less affected by the corona virus? This goes against everything that people have developed in social solidarity. Even as a convinced Darwinist, I think we should continue to cultivate the ‘human’ in us as much as possible. We are no longer ‘ordinary’ monkeys, but monkeys with a moral sense, with a few exceptions. If we let that go, we might as well crawl back into the trees. By the way, what do you hope to achieve with a natural selection by a virus on human society? Some suggest that you can tackle the problem of overpopulation in one go, including all the nuisance it causes, such as the climate, environmental and biodiversity crises. That is a delusion that is apparently difficult to erase. A corona pandemic will have no noticeable effect on the world’s population, even if it causes tens of millions of additional deaths. After the plague in the Middle Ages, there has not been a single pandemic with a significant effect on human numbers (wars do not have a substantial effect either). There are now so many of us, and we have built up so much resistance to calamities through our healthcare and other technological developments, that a corona pandemic cannot affect us significantly. That it could be, is wishful thinking of people who have no knowledge of basic biology and do not feel like making what they consider pointless efforts. We have been so spoiled in recent decades … The only thing that the release of the virus would achieve is a slight restructuring of social security and pension costs. But the societal collateral damage it would entail would be so enormous that few would see the benefits. So get rid of that obsessive thought of a useful natural selection by a virus. Let’s give virologists and other experts the confidence to do whatever they think they need to do to mitigate the virus damage. It’s the best way to get rid of that nasty thing ASAP. Only it will take another year before it is (possibly) that far. The virus pushes us to the limits of what we can do.
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