By Engr. Edgar Manaay
As per December 15 World Health Organization data, the United States (population of 331 million as of 2020) has the highest number of Covid-19 cases in the world at 16.51 million; 5% of the population and also the highest mortality at 303,000; 0.09% of the population.
Compared to a backward country like the Philippines with a population of 108 million as of 2019, our cases are 452,000; 0.4% of the population and mortality of 8,781; 0.08% of the population. Despite its high-tech health system, mortality rate in the U.S. as a percentage of the populace is higher than ours.
We wonder why this is happening to the most powerful and scientific nation in the world. Many people thought that the worst pandemic and recession in a century would unite the people of the most powerful nation on earth but the opposite happened.
In an article for the Boston Globe, Michele Gelford said: “The decentralized, defiant, do-it-your-own-way norm that makes the Americans so entrepreneurial and creative also deepens its anger during the coronavirus pandemic. To fight the pandemic, the U.S. can’t just shift its resources, it has also to shift its cultural pattern as well.”
The U.S.’s conflicted response aggravated by the ambivalence of Pres. Trump to the pandemic reflects a broader cultural phenomenon. In a loose culture like the U.S., as confirmed by my entire family living there, people are simply not used to tightly coordinating their social action towards a common goal, and compared to other nations, they are more ambivalent about sacrificing their freedom for strict rules that constraints choices.
U.S., Italy, and Brazil are examples of “loose cultures” which have weaker rules and are much more permissive. Singapore, Austria, and China have “tight cultures” which have many rules and punishments governing social behavior. The latter have histories of famine, warfare, cultural disasters and yes, pathogen outbreaks and have learned the hard way that tight rules and orders save lives.
Cultures that have faced few threats such as the US “have the luxury of remaining loose.” They understandably prioritize freedom over constraint, and they are highly creative and open, but also more disorganized than their tight counterparts. During World War II, the US has shifted “from loose to tight” with men going to the battlefields and women working in factories to produce tanks and armaments. They have to do it again by temporarily sacrificing liberty for stricter rules to limit damage from the pandemic. This time around, it is difficult to do it again because of the influx of immigrants that have diluted the very core of American values.
Humans are infected with what the German philosopher Nietzche called the “will to power”. Because of our fallen nature, we seek to be our own God. (Genesis 3:5 – For God knows that when you eat from it, your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil). This drive for personal power, expressed in a culture that centers on individual rights and happiness, produce the kind of “loose culture” as described above. How does it relate to masks, public worship and other pandemic issues that are highly controversial? Emphasis on individual liberty leads some to resist governmental authority on worship, school, and masks.
In the midst of this cultural conflict, Christians should adopt Jesus’ command to “love your neighbors as thyself” (Matthew 22:39) as a guiding principle. How will I relate this to the pandemic? Science and mainstream media tell me to wear a mask whenever I am around non-family members. Because it says that: masks protect others and myself and I want to do nothing to harm my neighbor. If there is even a chance that not wearing a mask could infect others, I choose not to take that chance. And I choose not to give offense to my neighbor who believes that my mask-wearing protects them.
However, there is new research on mask-wearing from a Danish study that was completed several months ago but was only recently published in a peer-reviewed journal. The study took two groups and gave the first group masks to wear with instructions on how it should be used. The other group was the mask-free control group. The study found that coronavirus spread within the statistical margin of error in each group. IN OTHER WORDS, MASK WEARING DID LITTLE IF ANYTHING TO CONTROL THE SPREAD OF THE VIRUS. As the wearing of masks is still mandated across the country and globally, this study should be reported as an important piece of counterevidence. At the very least, if this study is widely circulated, it might be expected to invite a rush of similar studies by our Department of Health together with the IATF (Inter Agency Task Force) to refute or confirm the result.
Since the result of the study goes against what mainstream media had established as conventional wisdom on mask-wearing, the report is being ignored and at worst being distorted by mainstream media itself. Proof of this is that this study has not been circulated in the Philippines and most parts of the world. This is a dangerous and foolish subjugation of science because Covid-19 has wrought so much havoc on this planet that all truths and research should come out in the open for the scientific world to assess, confirm or refute and every confirmed finding used to combat this deadly pandemic.
The Los Angeles Times even twisted the research with this headline: “FACE MASK TRIAL DID’NT STOP CORONAVIRUS SPREAD BUT IT SHOWS WHY MORE MASK-WEARING IS NEEDED”. Similarly, a massive new study conducted in Wuhan, China and published in the respective scientific journal, Nature, reports that asymptomatic persons who have tested positive for covid-19, DO NOT PASS the infection to others!
Considering that masks mandates and lockdowns are all based on the theory that asymptomatic “positive cases” can still pass on the sickness, this is potentially an important piece of information to help plan a more effective response to the virus. At least, again, it should stimulate additional far-reaching studies to either confirm or deny the Wuhan study. We do know, based on information from widely accepted sources such as CDC and WHO that lockdowns can have very serious effects on society. So, if there is a way to continue to fight covid-19 and protecting those most at risk while drastically reducing debilitating effects related to lockdowns, isn’t this worth some consideration? Isn’t this worth at least some further research on both the mask and lockdown mandates?
At these trying times, the whole world needs the whole truth and nothing but the truth about covid-19 for according to Charles Caleb Colton: “Pure truth, like pure gold, has been found unfit for circulation because men have discovered that it is far more convenient to adulterate the truth than to refine it themselves.”
