Of Lepers and Social Ending

Medical historians claimed that there are two endings for a pandemic, namely the “medical” or scientific ending and the social ending. The medical ending happened when there are a vaccine and a cure for the cause of a pandemic. Of course, this involves discovering a vaccine against the virus and a cure for the disease it causes. At the same time, it may include herd-immunity, or that the virus successfully thrived by not killing its host, that’s us in the case of SARS-CoV 2, which caused COVID-19.

Social ending occurred when people are no longer afraid of viruses and, despite the dangers, will go on with their lives being tired of the disruptions that viruses have brought. An example of this is HIV. Although there is still no vaccine against this virus, people are no longer afraid of it. The HIV virus has reached a social ending but not a scientific ending.

While waiting for the vaccine and cure, it is understandable that people are afraid of what they do not understand. This is a natural human tendency of rational beings would want to know the world so that he can control it with his ingenuity.

If it is entirely unknown and there is no sign of controlling it, stigma would inevitably go with it. On the other hand, the opposite can also happen, which is to completely ignore it because, after all, it is beyond our comprehension. Fortunately, this pandemic has not come to this point yet.

Undeniably many of our front-liners and COVID-19 patients were stigmatized in their communities. Some were even thrown out of their boarding houses or were avoided as lepers, which has caused them unspeakable traumas. This is unfortunate and should be adequately addressed.

On the other hand, the fear of the people is not unfounded. For so many months, we were told to avoid contact with the virus. This is the reason why we were encouraged to wash our hands with soap, apply alcohol, wear facemasks and face-shields, and to observe physical/social distancing.

Consequently, this has led people to avoid those whom they think have a high probability of being infected or were already infected. There are reports that hospitals are now having problems with their staff not only because many were already infected by the virus but also due to some medical personnel who stopped working for fear of being infected. Tell me if the people, the common tao, whose medical knowledge is rudimentary, will not be afraid. Of course, they will be frightened!

Now, what does discrimination look like? Certainly being thrown out of one’s boarding house and being stigmatized as “careless” among similar examples are unjust to those who became victims of COVID-19, it is almost identical to blaming people with cancer for being responsible for their sickness!

I believe that we should delay reaching “social ending” as much as possible while the vaccine and cure are not yet available. By slowing social ending, we as a society would treat this pandemic as something that we need to avoid, thus help stop the spread of the virus.

However, how can we show non-discriminatory behavior towards front-liners and the patients? This is where the baton seemed to stop. Many of those who preached for non-discrimination focused on the emotional distress of the front-liners and patients. Still, they are not offering a concrete remedy on how to stop this discrimination. We have heard plenty of exhortations and sermons about this issue on the feeling level, but actions on how to control these concretely are unsatisfactory or nil.

I came across articles and videos which claimed that the pandemic had made us “uncharitable” because we are avoiding people. I think this statement is irresponsible if not outright stupid.

So, what shall we do? Embrace everyone we meet? Is it to be like St. Francis of Assisi who embraced lepers? I think our modern medical front-liners are modern day St. Francis or St. Damien of Molokai who took care of the lepers, people who were shunned by others, during their times. The medical front-liners are the heroes of this war against this pandemic. If you are Catholic, it can even be said that they are the new “saints” of this era, who are willing to risk their lives so that others may live.

However, to advise the common people to “reach out” physically to COVID-19 patients is both confusing and giving us wrong signals.

The government and medical authorities are telling us to avoid close physical contact. But there are those who are telling us about “reaching out” to others because social distancing has brought people apart. It is confusing!

I cannot imagine how this is possible. Many of you will propose sending them letters or text messages or showing your appreciation for their service through creative means like songs or poems. These are commendable, which showed that reaching out does not necessarily mean shaking hands or that sort of thing.

The fact remains that while we are doing these, we should not dramatically blame other people because they are avoiding physical contact with COVID-19 patients.  I think it is just common sense. Whatever creative ways to reach out to COVID-19 patients are welcome, but to condemn people that they are bigots or accused them of treating COVID-19 patients as lepers are unfair. But, I do not think that this is the right way to reach out to others, at this time of our lives, whether they are COVID-19 positive or not.

Still, these “reaching out” is just in the “feeling” level which is not enough.

What we need is to inform people not only in terms of their “feelings” towards others but also by effectively providing them with information that will help them overcome their fear of the “unknown.”

Yet, in the end, we can only rise above all these issues when people are informed by data and formed by compassion.

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