Recently I watched the following exchange between UnHerd’s Freddie Sayers and Swedish professor, epidemiologist and government advisor Johan Giesecke, where Sayers queries Giesecke on the possibility that Sweden’s relatively relaxed Covid-19 policies could be perceived as ‘cold-hearted’:

While I understand how a policy that lets the virus ‘run its course’ could be seen as callous, it made me think about what other ‘cold-hearted’ policies we have come to accept as a part of everyday life.

For example, approximately 550,000 Americans are homeless on any given night (for reference, about 580,000 people live in the entire state of Wyoming). In addition to the mental stress and anguish homelessness must cause, homeless people have increased risk for several physical health problems as the US Institute of Medicine describes:

Homelessness increases the risk of developing health problems such as diseases of the extremities and skin disorders; it increases the possibility of trauma, especially as a result of physical assault or rape…It can also turn a relatively minor health problem into a serious illness…

Other health problems that may result from or that are commonly associated with homelessness include malnutrition, parasitic infestations, dental and periodontal disease, degenerative joint diseases, venereal diseases, hepatic cirrhosis secondary to alcoholism, and infectious hepatitis related to intravenous (IV) drug abuse…

For even the most routine medical treatment, the state of being homeless makes the provision of care extraordinarily difficult.

This public health crisis is not unrelated to government policy. Not only could the government end homelessness for a few billion dollars - a drop in the bucket compared the trillions being handed out in an attempt to keep the economy afloat, but reckless policies helped cause the 2008 financial crisis which lost Americans their jobs and homes, and then kept assets prices inflated to make sure things stayed that way.

Neither is the crisis unknown to the government - it has simply cold-heartedly allowed it to persist. As Jimmy Dore pointed out, California suddenly decided to commandeer hotels and motels to shelter homeless residents as part of their Coronavirus response. This ‘selective public health concern’ is just as hypocritical as ‘selective moral outrage’ except with immediate, tangible life and death consequences for thousands if not millions of Americans.

In a similar way, in response to Covid-19 Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer ordered that water be temporarily turned back on for thousands of Michigan residents who had it turned off “as part of a widely condemned debt-collection programme” dating back to 2014. But the obvious and well known health hazards of living without water were allowed to persist for years thanks to cold-hearted government policies.

Hospital executives with cold hearts reaped billions in profits while leaving their employees exposed to Covid-19 due to lack of protective equipment as CBS News reported:

The NNU claims that HCA, which employs 94,000 nurses in 21 states and the United Kingdom, “can well afford to be properly prepared for the pandemic.” The health care provider has made over $23 billion in profits over the past decade, according to NNU; making it the second-largest hospital provider by revenue in the country, Modern Healthcare reports.

“For the wealthiest hospital corporation in the United States to show such disregard for the health and safety of its caregivers, is disgraceful and unconscionable,” said Ross.

And one non-inclusive estimate puts the death toll of US warmongering since World War II at 20 million people - did we weigh the ‘health risks’ to these victims before overthrowing governments such as Chile’s, often in the interests of private entities like the copper industry?

So while people are free to evaluate the level of caring in Sweden’s coronavirus response, I think it’s safe to say that one of the greatest dangers facing humanity is not how we respond to this particular crisis, but what we accept as ‘normal’ and to what degree the health and happiness of ordinary citizens are prioritized in the status quo of our society.