Covid and the Two Weeks Narrative

https://off-guardian.org/2022/03/25/two-weeks-to-flatten-the-world/

Over the past year I've encountered in person and via websites expressions of frustration and disgust from many Christians arguing that they tried to obey the government protocols regarding Covid in good faith. They were promised 'two weeks' to flatten the curve and it didn't happen. As such many of these church leaders have shifted over to the Covid-sceptic position and remain bitter that they're open to criticism and in some cases attack from those who questioned it from the beginning.

In addition to being discouraging, it's just plain frustrating to encounter this sort of thing. As I've been arguing since the beginning of the pandemic, the debates within the Church were skewed from its onset and went off the rails as the wrong questions and assumptions were pursued. Additionally, while I embrace the idea of conspiracy and am more than willing to pursue some of those lines of thought, a kind of irrational and utterly disconnected-from-reality form of conspiracy arose with Trump but especially in the final year of his presidency. From the election, to Covid, and then the economy there have been a slew of false and unfounded ideas put forth that not only are incoherent but fail even a simple test of cogency.

Things are afoot. Change is in the air and power players are at work (on all sides and in all camps) trying to steer and manipulate the situation. There's little doubt of this and while the government bumbled the response to Covid, it doesn't mean that the disease was fake or that all that has been said is false. As I've long argued this shook and upset the corridors of power. They didn't want this and yet have wrestled with how to respond. While the Right believes it's some sort of Marxist plot, I along with many others see the response in terms of profits being put above lives. And even now, the virus has not run its course. It continues to generate variants and we can only hope that this fall won't bring a more virulent strain. Long Covid is only now beginning to be understood and the effects of this pandemic are going to be with society for a long time, and sociologically – perhaps even longer.

So what about the 'two weeks' argument? I find those who cast the narrative in terms of being misled have (even after all this time) not understood the nature and course of the events. It was hoped that if all the protocols were followed then the virus could be stopped. But instead we find that the protocols were not followed. Why not? There are several factors to this.

First, there were all the naysayers who refused to follow any of the protocols and remained defiant. They continued to facilitate spread.

Second, there were the many people who sincerely thought they were obeying the protocols but it is evident that there are large numbers of people who don't understand basic hygiene and while you could put a mask on them – they just didn't get it. How many people did I see removing their masks to sneeze? Cashier's pulling down their mask to lick their thumb in order to count bills? How many walked around with their mask below their nose the entire time? I even know of some who did this and then complained that others weren't masking. The list goes on and yet many of these people just have never understood the nature of the protocols. They didn't get it and while they made a token effort at mitigation they were more or less wasting their time and facilitating the spread.

Third, for all the talk of lock-downs and the like, it was never all that serious. There were so many businesses that were deemed 'essential' and many more that made themselves so by token efforts – suddenly they were selling hand-cleaner and wipes or something to that effect. People were moving around and abusing the 'necessary' caveat. And businesses tend to put profits first and there was a lot of pressure to work and not complain or make a fuss – not to mention the many people who simply needed the money. The lockdowns and protocols weren't taken very seriously and many individuals and certainly the big economics forces never wanted them to be. Zero-Covid was never pursued and the bottom line is the politicians were trying to mitigate it enough to keep society and the economy from going into a freefall but at the same time were unwilling to temporarily shut down society and appropriate the necessary resources to make sure that people could stay home and stop the virus from spreading. It was always a half-hearted effort at best.

Eventually it reached a point that the economic pressures were too great and so they opened things up and cut back on the protocol requirements knowing full well it would put more people at risk. The airlines have to fly, the schools have to open. People would die but that was the price society had to pay. It's completely immoral and deceptive and it required a backpedalling dance surrounding earlier statements. Trust was broken and then was shattered which only vindicated the sceptics – or at least that's how they read the situation.

And now there are the additional or corollary problems concerning the economy. Yes, the payout system was abused and once again churches behaved disgracefully in this regard. And yet the rhetoric coming from Right-wing circles and the street just isn't true. There are still myriad people I encounter who believe that to this day millions of people are being paid to stay home and this explains the worker shortage. Others blame Covid for all of the economic strains. It played a part to be sure but there's more to it and a lot of it has to do with the way the Federal Reserve has been financing the US economy and pumping it full with cash since the 2008 crisis – a practice that was turned up several notches with Covid. The piper has to be paid. You can't flood the economy with that much money and expect that it won't lead to market bubbles, inflation and the really destructive element - speculation. That's a big part of what has happened and though it's a cliché, there's been something of a perfect storm. Wall Street players made out like bandits (literally) and yet now the many bubbles are bursting. Other factors have to be considered and incorporated into the model to understand just what is happening across the economic spectrum. It's complicated and you won't get two experts to agree. But you'll get political activists to agree, especially if they pursuing a Right-wing agenda and want to deconstruct the Covid narrative in order to score political points.

The linked article typifies the kind of chaos, bad arguments, and misinformation that dominates. Millions did die and we witnessed a terrible spectacle – especially in the United States where over a million died. We saw in the most base and brutal terms that this society is not united in any way shape or form. And the Christian response? Well, I've been writing about this for months now. It was appalling and disgraceful and the Evangelical community quite literally has blood on its hands – nothing new there, I'm afraid. The Evangelical movement (and its allies) has completely lost its way. For a long time they've called evil good and good evil. The Covid episode was no exception.

This was an easy one for Christians but politics 'trumped' not only New Testament ethics but even something as simple as clear and coherent thinking.

And yet this is the type of fallacious article that will resonate with many Evangelicals and others on the Right. And the waters are muddied because the website has some material that's pure rubbish and even disinformation and yet there are also bits and pieces of truth. It's really a frustrating time and all the more as I encounter few people who can or will take the time to work things out.

Two weeks might have flattened the curve and changed things but that was a qualified and provisional claim. The required criteria for it to be true were never met and thus to revisit it and claim 'we were deceived' only demonstrates a basic misunderstanding of what was happening, let alone what happened.

If these many pastors really believe it's their duty to preach on current events and connect Scripture to them – even in just a mere ethical sense, then they had better make sure they know what they're talking about before they dare to proclaim these things from the pulpit. This is all the more the case when they connect their socio-political interpretations with Scripture or buttress their arguments using Scripture.

I don't think the Church needed to pick apart all the in's and out's of Covid. It really doesn't matter. For the sake of argument the protocols could have been arbitrary or even simply contrived. So what? The question is this, how do we respond? The New Testament provides an answer. An ethic rooted in the Renaissance-Enlightenment categories of Right-based thinking and social contract will provide a different set of responses. Factor in centuries of erroneous Sacralist tradition and heresies like the Lesser Magistrate Doctrine, Right of Resistance, not to mention the romanticised narratives about liberty, tyranny, Christianity, and the American Revolution and you have a formula for disaster.

Given the nature of globalisation and everything else that's happening with food, trade, medicine, travel, and the like, it's not a question of if but when the next pandemic arises. Shouldn't we expect this? Shouldn't we expect judgment and hardship in this age?

What will the response be? It makes tremble and even sick just to think of it.