Sheltering at Our Common Home
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SYMPOSIUM: COVID-19
Sheltering at Our Common Home H.A.M.J. ten Have
Received: 18 April 2020 / Accepted: 3 August 2020 # Journal of Bioethical Inquiry Pty Ltd. 2020
Abstract The current COVID-19 pandemic has reactivated ancient metaphors (especially military ones) but also initiated a new vocabulary: social distancing, lockdown, self-isolation, and sheltering in place. Terminology is not ethically neutral but reflects prevailing value systems. I will argue that there are two metaphorical vocabularies at work: an authoritarian one and a liberal one. Missing is an ecological vocabulary. It has been known for a long time that emerging infectious diseases are associated with the destruction of functioning ecosystems and biodiversity. Ebola and avian influenza viruses have been significant warnings. Obviously, this pandemic will not be the last one. As the planet is our common home, the major metaphor to explore is sheltering at this home. Keywords Bioethics . Bio-invasion . Bio-preparedness . Common home . Disasters . Ecology . Emerging infectious diseases . Pandemics . Sheltering at home . Sheltering in place . Social distancing . War metaphor
The Missing Perspective It has long been known that new pandemics will arrive, although it cannot be predicted when. Pandemics have been regarded as the most serious and likely global H. ten Have (*) Center for Healthcare Ethics, Duquesne University, 600 Forbes Avenue, Fisher Hall 300, Pittsburgh, PA 15282, USA e-mail: [email protected]
catastrophic risk for the future (Global Priorities Project 2016). In 2003, it was estimated that since 1980 more than thirty-five new infectious diseases have emerged in humans; one every eight months (Smolinski et al. 2003). Since then the list has only grown (for example, the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) coronavirus, swine influenza (H1N1 and other sub-types), the Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) coronavirus, Ebola virus disease (EVD), and the Zika flavivirus). Most of these outbreaks have been localized but the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV), SARS, and avian influenza (H5N1 and other sub-types) should have been warnings that globalization can easily occur. Already in 2005, the WHO launched its Global Influenza Preparedness Plan, urging countries to make national bio-preparedness plans, and many countries did so (WHO 2005). Furthermore, it has been known for some time that infectious diseases are promoted by environmental degradation as a result of biodiversity loss and climate change. Destruction of ecosystems is shrinking the wildlife habitat and increasing contacts between wildlife and human beings. It is estimated that zoonotic pathogens cause 60 per cent of emerging infectious diseases in humans (Jones et al. 2008; Daszak et al. 2004). The global threat of pandemics therefore does not emerge spontaneously as a natural event but is the product of human behaviour. It is a consequence of the human way of life and exploitation of the planet. Destruction of biodiversity creates the conditions for the emergence of new
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