Coronavirus quotes. May 16
by Michael Cook | 16 May 2020 |
Dr Susan L. Murray. NEJM, on working in the middle of an Ebola epidemic in 2014
Most health care workers I know are brave people who perform demanding jobs in difficult circumstances. But one of the terrifying things about an outbreak of transmissible disease is that it’s not just our own life and health that we are being asked to put at risk in caring for patients.
We risk being the vector that brings the illness home to the people we love — to our children and partners and parents — and that can be truly terrifying. It is easier to risk our own safety than to threaten the people we care about.
Without support, without proper education, training, and contingency plans in place to help protect health care workers and their families, fear can run riot through a hospital or through a community. If we are not prepared to fight fear and ignorance as actively and as thoughtfully as we fight any other virus, it is possible that fear can do terrible harm to vulnerable people, even in places that never see a single case of infection during an outbreak.
Wesley J. Smith, National Review. On suicides of despair in a time of coronavirus
[NJ Gov.] Murphy was asked Saturday during his daily coronavirus briefing in Trenton if the state will track suicides and consider this when determining how to reopen the state. “I don’t know specifics in terms of tracking suicides, but we have said this: The combination of isolation and now other factors like job losses are having big impacts on folks, there’s no question about it,” the governor said.
So, let me get this straight. If someone is in despair because they lost everything when their business collapsed or had a loved one die from COVID-19, they shouldn’t be able to commit facilitated suicide.
But if they are in despair because they have been diagnosed as terminally ill with COVID-19, they should not only be able to self-terminate, but also, have their suicide facilitated by a doctor under a law signed by Governor Murphy.
No! That’s nonsensical. Governor Murphy should be concerned about preventing all suicides, not just some.
Michael Cook is editor of BioEdge
If I receive an email which begins: "The World Deserves the Truth…. Please brace yourself for the following information I’m about to share with you", I am not inclined to believe it.
However, this particular one is so creative that it deserves to be shared. Apparently NASA and the Vatican Observatory learned in November that a massive asteroid is about to hit our planet. Soon afterwards, a top-secret UN meeting was convoked to develop a strategy to keep the world calm and give governments the best possible chance of maintaining public order. So they came up with the idea of releasing a coronavirus. Everyone would have to shelter at home. So that's why we are all washing our hands.... and waiting for annihilation.
That does sound a bit far-fetched, to me at least, but how do you deal with other conspiracy theories? The most popular one at the moment is Plandemic, a movie whose teaser has been censored by Google and Facebook. But is censorship the best strategy for dealing with loopy rumours? See below.
However, this particular one is so creative that it deserves to be shared. Apparently NASA and the Vatican Observatory learned in November that a massive asteroid is about to hit our planet. Soon afterwards, a top-secret UN meeting was convoked to develop a strategy to keep the world calm and give governments the best possible chance of maintaining public order. So they came up with the idea of releasing a coronavirus. Everyone would have to shelter at home. So that's why we are all washing our hands.... and waiting for annihilation.
That does sound a bit far-fetched, to me at least, but how do you deal with other conspiracy theories? The most popular one at the moment is Plandemic, a movie whose teaser has been censored by Google and Facebook. But is censorship the best strategy for dealing with loopy rumours? See below.
NEWS THIS WEEK
by Michael Cook | May 16, 2020
Google and Facebook have censored a conspiracy videoby Xavier Symons | May 16, 2020
A group Oxford ethicists say "yes".by Michael Cook | May 16, 2020
It seems to work, but bioethicists have questionsby Michael Cook | May 16, 2020
Hospitals run by the Brothers of Charity are no longer Catholicby Michael Cook | May 16, 2020
Babies on one side of the border; parents on the otherby Michael Cook | May 16, 2020
German Federal Court refuses to endorse the ideaBioEdge
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