Covid as a tragedy of the commons
Covid as a tragedy of the commons
The tragedy of the commons is a phenomenon where freely available but limited resources are not used efficiently and are threatened by overuse, which also threatens the users themselves. As Susan Jane Buck Cox describes, one can observe that model in medieval England and many contemporary aspects and challenges. Examples can be seen in the overfishing of the seas, deforestation of forests, and the discharge of wastewater into streams and rivers. These activities share selfish behavior and a lack of thinking about the public good. I argue that you can see a similar phenomenon today in the Covid era with people refusing to get vaccinated.
Vaccine refusers, for whatever reasons, often argue that they are allowed to make their own decisions about their bodies. With this statement, however, they do not note that they endanger other people with their refusal. People that are vaccinated can still be at risk of getting infected because the vaccine, as we unfortunately now know, is not 100% effective. The philosopher Immanuel Kant once said: "The freedom of the individual ends where the freedom of the other begins." Why should unvaccinated persons have the right to infect me and restrict my freedom to be healthy? Why should vaccinated people be penalized if there is a lockdown because not enough people have been vaccinated? In Austria, the country with one of the lowest vaccination rates in Europe, this is the case. They are currently in lockdown. As a reaction they have announced that there will be mandatory vaccination by February. In a lockdown, many can no longer pursue their activities and have existential worries. In addition, there is a risk that if you have a health problem, you will receive less good treatment because of hospitals overloaded with Covid patients. The risk of overburdening the health care system and thus lockdown can be significantly reduced by vaccination. Therefore, people who do not want to be vaccinated are not only endangering themselves; they have a tremendous negative impact on our society. At the same time, the unvaccinated are free riders who, thanks to the vaccinated, can now enjoy the freedoms that we have regained.
Health is a common good in our contemporary society which we have to take care of. It affects all of us and is in danger from the selfish behavior of unvaccinated people. That is why effective measures are needed to get people to vaccinate. As Hardin said: Freedom in a common brings ruin to us all (Hardin, 'Tragedy of the Commons." in Hardin and Baden. Managing the Commons, p. 20)
Nicolas Grünig, November 29,
This is a really interesting way to connect the tragedy of the commons to the pandemic. I knew that global health was dependent on the actions of everyone, but I never connected that to the tragedy of the commons. To me, the most obvious example relating the pandemic to the tragedy of the commons is vaccine allocation, as each country competes to get vaccine access for their populations sometimes at the expense of less wealthy countries.
ReplyDeleteI definitely agree with Nicolas's point here that it is possible to connect the COVID-19 pandemic to the concept of the tragedy of the commons. In this instance people who are refusing the vaccine are putting others at risk, and a neglecting the common societal good. Furthermore, I agree that people refusing the vaccine are jeopardizing society due to the overburdening nature of the pandemic on our hospitals and infrastructure not to mention people in our collective society.
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