The Greatest Good for the Greatest Number

Vincent J. Curtis

23 Apr 20

When did we forget that the rule is the greatest good for the greatest number?

If there’s one thing that’s forgotten in this Covid crisis, it’s that people continue to die from other causes.  In Canada, about 250,000 people are going to die this year from all causes: cancer, heart disease, pneumonia, diabetes, Alzheimer’s, suicide, etc.  As of April 23^rd, there were roughly 40,000 known cases and 2,000 deaths from Covid-19.  What we have learned is that in most cases the person who died of coronavirus already had a health problem.

Recent studies in California indicate that our count of cases may be low by a factor of fifty to eighty.  The infection is so minor that most people aren’t aware that they had it.  These results, if valid, mean that the virus is wildly more contagious than we thought, and also far less deadly.  The consequences of this is that containment measures aren’t availing, and we are farther along the “herd immunity” curve than previously thought.

Eventually, the extreme mitigation measures will be lifted having done little for public health beyond delay the development of “herd immunity.”  That is the fear, that releasing people from containment will cause a new surge in cases.  Well, duh!  Until half or more of the population have developed anti-bodies for the virus, a second outbreak will almost certainly occur.  We need less containment.

Will less containment result in more deaths?  Likely, but we’re in the middle of a pandemic, so get over it.  Narcissistic moralizing and virtue-signaling about “saving every life we can - from coronavirus” are getting in the way of sensible resolution of the crisis.  The rule is the greatest good for the greatest number.  If 10,000 people die, coronavirus might crack the top ten causes of death in Canada this year, and maybe not if you assign the cause of death to the morbidity the person already had before they contracted the virus.  We may get there anyway, just slowly.

It is now becoming clear that we are destroying our economy and ruining public finances out of a moralistic myopia.  In the midst of a pandemic, you have to expect an uptick in annual mortality.  You can’t stop it.  It won’t go away until “herd immunity” is developed, hard as that is to achieve.  To get there, we have let the herd loose and have it run the minefield, expecting thing will get ugly before they get better.

But we can’t stay locked up where we are.
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