Balancing the ‘rights’ of different
individuals and groups is rarely straightforward, as the debate over
mask-wearing demonstrates. At the heart of the problem is the point at which the
exercise of rights by some threatens the rights of others, which is the
underlying principle behind most of the laws under which we live. In the case
of mask-wearing, it’s a clash between the ‘right’ not to wear a face-covering
in enclosed spaces and the ‘right’ not to be infected by someone who may not
even know that he or she is carrying the virus. The conflict between these two
perspectives has been fairly minor in the UK to date but much more significant
in the US, where many people (encouraged at times by their president) have chosen
to believe that the coronavirus is some sort of hoax perpetrated by the ‘liberal
elite’. And some of them have died as a result of that mistaken belief.
There are no simple solutions but the suggestion
by Ann Widdecombe that shops should set aside specific times when non mask
wearers could do their shopping is a spectacularly silly one. It’s a bit like allocating
specific hours of the day when road users can choose on which side of the road
they should drive, with no obligation to choose the same side as anyone else.
And choose whether speed limits apply to them as well. And if their name is Cummings,
drive with impaired eyesight. I can understand why it might seem theoretically
OK to allow those who don’t care about getting infected (or simply choose not
to believe in the existence of the virus, freedom of belief being another ‘right’)
to congregate as they wish, in shops or anywhere else, if it was on their own
heads alone. But it isn’t – so there must surely be caveats. Protecting shop
workers is an obvious one. Infecting people who have agreed that they don’t
care about being infected is one thing; infecting those who do care is quite
another. And then there’s the health service and those who work in it, who
might be expected to deal with those who end up catching the virus as a result
of their own folly.
The source of the crazy suggestion
highlights an interesting observation – a Venn diagram of mask-resisters and
Brexiteers would show a significant overlap in the UK, as would a similar diagram
of Trump supporters and mask-resisters in the US (and we could probably throw
in anti-vaxxers and creationists as well in their case). I can’t help but
wonder whether Charles Darwin wouldn’t see all this as some sort of proof of the
veracity of his theory. That raises another question in my mind, though: whilst
we might want to protect others from the effect of the choices made by the deniers, to what
extent should we protect deniers like Widdecombe from the Darwinian impact of
their own choices?
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