Coronavirus: Review of Public-Health Issues

What has the battle against Covid-19 looked like from the perspective of a public-health policy expert?  Scott W. Atlas, M.D. has written the book, “A Plague Upon Our House,” regarding his fight at the White House to stop Covid from destroying America.  This book is an imprint of Post Hill Press and has ISBN 978-1-63758-551-1 (paperback).  The following discussion is based on Chapter 20 and the Coda appearing in that book.

Atlas quotes (on his page 272) Professor Sunetra Gupta, who wrote that assumptions rapidly accumulate in mathematical models of epidemiology, often leading to very large errors in predicted numbers of deaths.  Some models’ results for coronavirus deaths were sometimes too high by a factor of 4.5, leading to a harmful clamor for economic lockdowns despite their inevitable side-effects: other medical treatments missed, education-years foregone, mental-health problems incurred, and alarmist health-policy groupthink rationalized.  

Were children especially at risk?  Atlas reports (on his page 276) that as of June 9, 2021 there were 62,538 Covid deaths in California, and exactly ZERO of them were children under 18.  The European Center for Disease Prevention surveyed seventeen countries and found that open schools were not associated with accelerating community transmission.  On his page 282, Atlas states that his home state of California, having less than 17% of its students in fully in-person schools as of June 2021, compared unfavorably with Florida, which had 100% of its students in fully in-person schools at that time.

Atlas finds that the attachment of the general public and of government leaders to face-masking is unfounded.  On his page 296, Atlas mentions a study published in May 2021 by University of Louisville researchers, who found that mask mandates and use are not associated with lower SARS-Cov-2 spread in the U.S.  Atlas finds that the public’s refusal to accept that masks are not needed after vaccination is evidence for the existence of deeply damaged psyches and of invincible groupthink among many Americans.

On his page 299, Atlas notes that decades of research on lives lost from unemployment and missed medical care indicate that the pandemic lockdowns were very harmful.  Through May 2020, 1.5 million years of life had been lost due to lockdowns, which was almost double the 800,000 years of life that had been lost due to Covid-19.  Atlas also mentions the harmful ideas of the bureaucrat Redfield (see page 287 for the idea that universal masking would defeat the pandemic in eight to twelve weeks) and of the bureaucrats Fauci and Birx (see page 307 for Fauci-Birx lockdowns as the antitheses of the Florida approach).  In the opinion of Atlas, these bureaucrats caused a great deal of unnecessary carnage among the American people.  On pages 307 – 310, Atlas affirms the superior anti-pandemic performance by the state of Florida, led by its Governor DeSantis, who opposed masking mandates and prolonged lockdowns.  Instead, Florida maintained open schools and, among the ten largest states, had the lowest age-adjusted mortality rate for all ages.

On his pages 315 - 330, Atlas relates how, immediately after being introduced by the U.S. President at his August 10, 2020 press briefing, he (Atlas) was attacked by totalitarians posing as mainstream media.  YouTube pulled down some of his video interviews.  Twitter blocked his account.  In February 2021, JAMA (Journal of the American Medical Association) published a defamatory attack on him.  The totalitarians’ first Orwellian lie to the public was that anything said against lockdowns was a choice of money over lives.  This was not true: The issue is number of life-years lost in various scenarios when accounting for all risks.  The totalitarians’ second Orwellian lie to the public was that the anti-lockdown position advocated letting the infection spread freely until herd immunity would be achieved.  This was not true: The issue is the relative merit of universal lockdowns versus the focused protection of the most vulnerable, especially of those in nursing homes.  Atlas’ viewpoint was encapsulated in the Great Barrington Declaration, which has been co-signed by 14,794 public-health officials and medical scientists, as well as 43,575 medical practitioners as of June 27, 2021.

There are other negative aspects of U.S. public-health policy as well.  In the print edition of the Wall Street Journal on January 27, 2022, Dr. Marty Makary described the ruin of many lives by public-health officials who have insisted that workers with natural immunity be fired unless they were also vaccinated.  In contradiction to that approach, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) last week released data showing that natural immunity (the immunity acquired by an unvaccinated person who recovers form Covid-19) is 2.8 times more effective in preventing hospitalization, compared with vaccination.  Moreover, natural immunity is between 3.3 and 4.7 times more effective in preventing Covid-19 infection, compared with vaccination.  

Makary notes that the National Institutes of Health (NIH) has always disdained natural immunity as having unknown longevity, even while refusing to study the matter.  Hence, Makary and some colleagues at Johns Hopkins University did the required study themselves: Among 295 unvaccinated people who recovered from Covid-19, 99% of them had Covid-19 antibodies up to nearly two years after infection.  This result should be unsurprising, because other severe coronaviruses such as SARS and MERS also confer lasting immunity.

In Makary’s opinion, public-health officials have a lot of explaining to do.  Even CDC director Walensky signed the “John Snow memorandum” of October 2020 declaring that there is no evidence for natural immunity to SARS-CoV-2 following natural infection.  In view of the clinical fact that no one ever sees reinfected patients on ventilators, something must be causing that observed absence - - and that something is natural immunity!  Nevertheless, public-health officials recklessly destroyed the careers of some pilots, truck drivers, teachers, soldiers, and others who had recovered form Covid-19 and who chose not to be vaccinated.  

Adverse effects of this irrational public-health policy (ignoring natural immunity) have also invaded hospitals.  The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services decreed that all facilities under its jurisdiction must require vaccination of staff.  [The U.S. Supreme Court disallowed such a mandate in the case of OSHA (Occupational Safety and Health Agency).]  One understaffed hospital in Washington state, having lost 55 staff due to non-vaccination, ran so short of workers that it “summoned staff who were Covid-positive to return to work even if they were sick,” but with only mild to moderate illness.

By way of summary of the critiques of public-health policy offered by Makary and Atlas: Makary concludes that many politicians and public-health officials owe apologies to American workers and that fired workers with natural immunity should be rehired.  Atlas goes further by comparing “the Party” in George Orwell’s dystopian novel, 1984, to today’s coterie of leading public-health officials.  Atlas (on his page 317) quotes Orwell: “If all others accepted the lie which the Party imposed - - if all records told the same tale - - then the lie passed into history and became truth.”

Coronavirus and Inflation: 2020 - 2021

In a blog post appearing on this website on May 19, 2020, some statistics and predictions were presented for the coronavirus SARS CoV-2, which causes the Covid-19 disease.  This coronavirus can be aerosolized by normal breathing and spread to others, expressing itself in hyperactive immune response, pneumonia, stroke, excessive blood clotting, and the failure of lungs or other organs.

By way of contrast, the European plague (Black Death) of 1347 - 1351 C.E. was most likely an expression of bubonic plague, which is typically estimated to have killed between one-third and one-half of the European population during that interval.  Black Death is an infectious fever caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis and spread by fleas.  That long-ago European plague, as well as today’s global pandemic, caught their contemporary societies completely by surprise.

The origin of SARS CoV-2 is controversial: No pangolins, bats, or other non-human animals were ever found to have had the disease before its massive human outbreak centered on Wuhan, China in late 2019 or early 2020.  On June 24, 2021, Ewen Callaway published a news article (“Deleted coronavirus genome triggers scientific intrigue”) on nature.com.  There, Callaway stated that some SARS-CoV-2 genome sequencing of the early outbreak in Wuhan was removed in May 2020 from a U.S. government database by the scientists who had done the work.  The missing sequences, once recovered, were not dispositive of the origin of SARS-CoV-2.  Nevertheless, one wonders why those data files were temporarily withdrawn; why there was, apparently, U.S. government funding for coronavirus research at a Wuhan lab under Communist military auspices; whether that Wuhan research fell under the category of “gain of function” (the tweaking of the genetics of one virus in order to produce an even deadlier virus); and whether “gain of function” research is ever justified apart from the fact that “research makes money flow.”  These issues are not pursued here.

It should be noted that controversy also exists on the significance of asymptomatic cases (infected individuals without signs of disease) and on the distinction between “deaths due to Covid” and “deaths with Covid.”  How many co-morbidities are necessary before a death due to Covid-19 is relegated to a death with Covid-19?

It now seems appropriate to compare some of the early Covid-19 predictions from the May 19, 2020 blog post on this website with some of the actual results since then (as of the last half of January 2022).  (Here, all SARS-CoV-2 variants are considered together, including Delta and Omicron.)  As of May 1, 2020 the coronavirus pandemic had resulted in 3,334,416 reported cases and 237,943 officially attributable deaths world-wide; while the corresponding U.S. data were 1,098,565 cases and 64,577 deaths.  According to initial U.S. federal reports as of May 1, 2020 the estimated upper bound on the number of U.S. deaths in 2020 due to this outbreak of Covid-19 was 2.2 million.  Starting with these numbers and a total U.S. population of approximately 330,000,000, the implied upper bound on the U.S. Covid-19 mortality rate in 2020 was 0.67% (2.2 / 330).  

In contrast, the plague of 1347 to 1351 could be associated with four consecutive years with an annual mortality rate of 12%, which would account for the death of 40% of the population.  (Note that 1 - 0.88^4 = 0.4, which is in a mid-range between the historical estimates of 0.33 and 0.50.)  Thus, the implied upper bound on the U.S. mortality rate due to Covid-19 in 2020 was about 18 times smaller than the historically estimated annual European mortality rate due to bubonic plague during the mid-fourteenth century (0.67% ≈ 12% / 18).  On this metric, the bleakest U.S. outlook for 2020 would have had to be multiplied by a “horror-factor” of 18 in order to capture the reality of the earlier bubonic plague.  

Fortunately, the actual number of U.S. deaths attributed to Covid-19 as of January 21, 2022, as reported by the New York Times, is “only” about 860,000.  Of these, worldometer.info states that there were 370,781 such deaths in 2020 and 478,405 in 2021.  Using the number for 2021, the actual U.S. Covid-19 mortality rate in 2021 was 0.14% (0.478 / 330); and the corresponding “horror factor” was approximately 86 (0.14% ≈ 12% / 86).  On this metric, the actual U.S. Covid-19 mortality for 2021 would need to be multiplied by a “horror-factor” of 86 in order to capture the reality of the earlier bubonic plague.  

It was, and continues to be, a widespread presupposition that public health measures could have been (or still can be) instituted that will swiftly eliminate coronavirus deaths without regard to economic consequences.  This presupposition has proven to be false: So-called lockdowns of travel, trade, and commerce have led to world-wide economic recessions; portending ruinous taxation, hyper-inflation, and expropriation of rental properties; and auguring famine, civil chaos, and stark authoritarianism.  The U.S. Department of Labor’s March-to-April 2020 grocery inflation rate was 2.6%, the highest monthly increase since the mid-1970’s.  The year-over-year Consumer Price Index (CPI) for December 2021 (comparing December 2021 to December 2020) saw a 7.0% increase, which was the highest inflation rate since 1981.

One notes in passing that the CPI, a venerable economic index of long standing, was set up to ignore what its creators considered to be noisy data (food and fuel) and capital investment (housing).  Consequently, the CPI grossly underestimates the “real” inflation rate by ignoring some key inflation drivers.  Hence, it is fair to say both that inflation is at its worst since 1981 based on the CPI and its “market basket” of what people actually buy, apart from fuel, food, and housing; and that a more realistic inflation rate, as experienced by most individuals today, greatly exceeds 7%.

One also notes that the Roman Empire flourished economically from its inception in 27 B.C. until the reign of Marcus Aurelius (the Antonine dynast who reigned from 161 - 180 A.D.).  The earlier Roman Empire had relatively low taxes and a money supply that grew approximately in proportion to the size of the economy.  According to some historians, the so-called “Antonine plague” (smallpox or measles), imported into the Roman Empire by legionaries returning from battles in Mesopotamia, decimated society; drove up wages so as to create too many denarii chasing too few goods; made public administration and military preparedness impossible to finance; and caused inflation amounting to a factor of 100 or more from 200 A.D. to 300 A.D.  Diocletian and other exemplary military leaders extended the life of the Roman Empire, but inflation was ever present; and by 476 A.D. the last nominal Roman Emperor in the West was sent into exile by the barbarian Odoacer.

  The root cause of inflation in the late Roman Empire seems to have been the Antonine plague (imported by Roman legionaries), which in turn caused depopulation, economic disruption (high wages and low output), debasement of the currency via creative metallurgy, and ruinous levels of taxation imposed by desperate emperors simultaneously confronting foreign invasion.  (For example, in 251 A.D. a Goth army killed the Emperor Decius in battle in what is today northeastern Bulgaria.) 

  The root cause of post-2020 inflation in the United States is the coronavirus pandemic (imported by infected airline passengers), which in turn caused unacceptable mortality, economic disruption (trillions of dollars printed for welfare, lack of incentive to work, and supply-chain impediments), and debasement of the currency via printing press and spreadsheet.  Still looming are the ruinous levels of taxation to be imposed by a desperate governing class simultaneously confronting massive illegal immigration and declining real wages.

Comparing the root causes of inflation in each case, one might well expect increasing societal instability in the U.S. analogous to that in the late Roman Empire.

Exacerbating its modern-day economic crisis, the U.S. governing class has superimposed internecine sociological warfare based on a very recent neo-Marxist theory in which one fixed class of high-incarceration-rate individuals is oppressed by a second fixed class of low-incarceration-rate individuals.  Old Marxist theory never succeeded because inter-class mobility left no fixed class to vilify.  In contrast, the neo-Marxist theory holds that incarceration-rate status may be identified by racial group, which is a fixed characteristic.  Hence, there are well-defined, static groups of oppressors and victims awaiting Marxist redress of grievances and establishment of societal stability.  (How well are these oppressors defined?  What is the assigned racial group for high-incarceration-rate individuals guilty of loan fraud involving billion-dollar real estate?)  Dogmatically assuming the existence of fixed classes of oppressors and victims, the neo-Marxist theory holds that laws serve only the “privilege” of the oppressors until such time as a Marxist ruling class will re-issue superior laws.

The Coronavirus of 2020 (2): Reflections

      In the last posting to this blog we compared some of the pestilence statistics from 1347 – 1351 C.E. with those of 2020 C.E., and noted that existential crises tend naturally to lead to re-examination of the ultimate concerns (fundamental values) of individuals and of societies.  The analysis of ultimate concerns arising from the war against SARS CoV-2 in the year 2020 is reminiscent of the World War II era, in which nations’ survivals were also at stake.  Between 1942 and 1944 the BBC radio service broadcast three talks by C. S. Lewis regarding the moral, spiritual, and intellectual content of Christianity.  These talks, offering spiritual clarity and encouragement to a people under duress, were subsequently collected as the book, Mere Christianity, in 1952.

      Today, the fraction of the population tuning in to C. S. Lewis broadcasts might be smaller than before; but that is a sociological effect not dealt with here, except to note in passing: Modern secular societies presuppose as a major premise, “If any public or private problem is real, then there exists a government program for that problem.”  But there is manifestly no government program for attaining life eternal (salvation).  Hence, attaining life eternal is not a real problem.  Lewis would presumably reject the major premise.

      In his Preface in Mere Christianity, Lewis announced that it was not his present purpose to dispute divisive theological points, but to expound “mere” Christianity, which had a settled existence long before he was born and whether he liked it or not.  He was himself Anglican, but some other Christian groups endorsed his ideas as well.  Having peeled back the divisive theological husks, however, what Lewis soon found was - - not the harvest grain of pure belief - - but the first bitter kernels of divisive philosophical contention. 

      Lewis found that he could not even use the word Christian without entering into intellectual trench warfare.  He wanted to say that a Christian is a human person who accepts the common doctrines of Christianity; but his critics took umbrage from the mere suggestion that Lewis, or anyone else, could identify who is or is not a Christian on the basis of accepted doctrines.  By Christian his critics meant only “having the spirit of Christ.”  [The Bible (e.g., Romans 8:9) frequently mentions the spirit of Christ; however, the question at issue is “What are the criteria for having the spirit of Christ, here, today?”]  Lewis remarked that his critics had rendered the word Christian useless, albeit with a spiritual veneer, as could be seen in an analogy between the terms Christian and gentleman.  At one time, a gentleman was anyone who had a coat of arms and owned some land.  A clever critic, however, could signal his own moral superiority by saying that a true gentleman is “one who exhibits noble behavior of a certain sort,” thereby transcending the “mere” issues of coats of arms and of land.  In so doing, the critic limits and impairs language by maintaining that if a person, X, calls some other person, Y, a gentleman; then the analyst no longer receives information about Y (that he has a coat of arms and owns some land) but rather receives information about X (that X likes Y and praises Y’s behavior).  The word gentleman becomes thereby useless for describing Y. 

      Analogously, Lewis believed that in the critic’s world, if X calls Y a true Christian; then the analyst gains no knowledge about Y, but only that X approves of Y.  In stark contrast, Lewis believed that the word Christian, and its meaning, derive from the Bible in Acts 11:26: Some of Jesus’ followers, who had fled the persecution of the church following Stephen’s stoning, re-assembled at Antioch, presented orthodox teachings about Jesus to the Greeks, and were referred to as Christians for the very first time.  Calling someone Christian goes hand-in-hand with presenting orthodox teachings about Jesus to those outside of the church.  Being orthodox implies, in turn, being subject to philosophical and theological debate.  Lewis’ version of “mere” Christianity is not presented as an alternative to existing creeds, but as the first stage of an orthodox faith: Metaphorically, one might think of a “mere” public vestibule of a large building from which doors lead into alternative meeting rooms for adherents of particular variants of orthodox Christian belief.  The contemplated variations have a restricted range: Lewis seems to presuppose that are only a few such rooms, history having weeded out exotic doctrinal species that are beyond the pale of intellectual or spiritual interest.  One might embellish his metaphor by specifying that there are windows in each of the meeting rooms that overlook a heaven outside the building, as well as doors leading out of each room and into that heaven beyond.

      In Mere Christianity (Book II) Lewis, speaking to the “us” who have recognized common bonds and assembled in the aforementioned public vestibule, counsels against an infatuation with watered-down Christianity, which in British English is rendered as “Christianity-and-water.”  Lewis says that the very attempt to teach Christian doctrine at the level of an instructed adult sometimes causes some critics to formulate and to promulgate the bold theological principle, “If God exists, then He would have made ‘religion’ simple.”  Lewis counters that this principle seems to presuppose that “religion” is just one more thing that God thought up at the last moment and appended to his Creation.  But this is false, Lewis contends, because one part of God’s purpose is to let mankind know, via religion, the truth of “His statement to us of certain quite unalterable facts about His own nature.”  This statement to us is complex, not simple.  The corresponding, corrected theological principle, is “If God exists, then He makes ‘religion’ as complex and unexpected as He is to us.”

      For Lewis, God’s grace of faith to someone is typically an occasion for the recipient systematically to evaluate and to appreciate the historical, traditional evidence for God’s presence in the world.  Such evaluation plays a key role in forming Christian convictions and encouraging believers in extremis.  Lewis would consider this encouragement equally applicable to Britain besieged by Fascism and to the entire globe menaced by Covid-19.  

      Lewis does not deal with David Hume’s argument against traditional evidence in religion: Hume thinks that we form and adopt beliefs by evaluating probabilities.  The probability that any particular, ancient evidence is true is always less than the probability that some ancient, evil commentator or historian falsified the report of that evidence.  Our knowledge is thus limited to relationships between ideas (e.g., mathematics) and to matters of fact and existence (empirical impressions that we can receive and remember).  Contra Hume, Lewis might have replied that one does not acquire knowledge of other minds or assurance of religious faith by the calculation of probabilities but by the meeting of persons who leave us with impressions.  Lewis could say both that faith comes from hearing the Christian message (Romans 10:17), which is an empirical or subjective viewpoint; and that God’s grace can give even the dead, like Lazarus, ears to hear that message (John 11:38-44).  The gift of ears to hear is consistent with an objective view of God’s intervention in the ordinary course of history or nature - - whether playing out in wartime Britain or threatening the entire globe during the pestilence of 2020.

      The present writer has heard some pessimistic interpretations of 19th and 20th century existentialist philosophy: Being or Existence is said to reveal to us certain things, like the subject – object distinction, which philosophy then proceeds to obscure with inadequate language.  But even if some obscurity remains, it seems that we are left with some agreed-upon revelations, which can be appreciated if not fully comprehended.  Other proposed revelations, regarding ways of life or persons proclaiming religious insights, are not eo ipso irrational intrusions into an otherwise unitary, rational world; but are potential additions to a rational, burgeoning Zeitgeist.  C. S. Lewis tried to remain faithful to as many of the revelations of the Western Zeitgeist as possible while giving his account of “mere” Christianity.

The Coronavirus of 2020 (1): Background

Before turning to the planned blog for July, celebrating American Independence Day, it seems appropriate to celebrate having thus far survived the great global coronavirus pestilence of 2020.

      By way of contrast, the European pestilence of 1347 - 1351 C.E. was most likely an expression of bubonic plague, caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis in fleas on rat-infested trade routes linking Asia and Europe.  After gaining entry into a human’s blood via a flea bite, this bacterium causes death via septic shock to the immune system.  Based on historical research long after the fact, this medieval plague is estimated to have killed between one-third and one-half of the European population.  This European pestilence, as well as today’s pandemic, caught their contemporary societies completely by surprise.  The Spanish flu of 1918 was deadly, but influenza outbreaks per se were not then unexpected.

      The pandemic of 2020 has been caused by the coronavirus, SARS CoV-2, which results in the disease, Covid-19.  After originating in bats and jumping species in Asia, SARS CoV-2 has spread globally; either directly from person to person via breathing; or indirectly from infected surfaces via hand-to-face contact.  Covid-19 can express itself in multiple ways, including, but not necessarily limited to, hyperactive immune response, pneumonia, breathing failure, stroke, excessive blood clotting, and system failure of multiple organs.

      According to the print edition of the Wall Street Journal, as of May 1, 2020 the coronavirus pandemic has resulted in 3,334,416 reported cases and 237,943 officially attributable deaths world-wide; while the corresponding U.S. data are 1,098,565 cases and 64,577 deaths.  Starting with these numbers and a total U.S. population of approximately 330,000,000, the U.S. Covid-19 mortality rate for 2020 will be co-determined by the cumulative number of daily Covid-19 deaths starting in May and running through December of 2020.

      According to initial U.S. federal reports, the upper bound on the estimate of U.S. deaths due to this outbreak of Covid-19 is 2.2 million; assuming that this outbreak will run its course during 2020, the implied upper bound on the U.S. mortality rate due to Covid-19 in 2020 is 0.67% (2.2 / 330).  In contrast, the plague of 1347 to 1351 could be associated with four consecutive years with an annual mortality rate of 12%, which would account for the death of 40% of the population.  (Note that 1 - 0.88^4 = 0.4, which is in a mid-range between the historical estimates of 0.33 and 0.50.)  Thus, the implied upper bound on the U.S. mortality rate due to Covid-19 in 2020 is about 18 times smaller than the historically estimated annual European mortality rate due to bubonic plague during the mid-fourteenth century (0.67% » 12% / 18).  On this metric, the bleakest U.S. outlook for 2020 would have to be multiplied by a horror-factor of 18 in order to capture the reality of the earlier bubonic plague. 

      The cultural memory of an epidemic with a very high mortality rate, like that in the mid-fourteenth century, has disappeared; leading less to thankfulness for the last 670 years of medical progress than to the overwhelming presumption that public health measures can now be taken that will swiftly eliminate coronavirus deaths without regard to economic consequences.  Without approved therapies or vaccines for Covid-19, however, this presumption implies that travel, trade, and commerce must be largely shut down; thereby magnifying the prospects for world-wide economic recession or depression; portending ruinous taxation, hyper-inflation, and expropriation; and auguring famine, civil chaos, and stark authoritarianism, if not indeed updated versions of the Committee of Public Safety and the Reign of Terror.  As examples, note that the U.S. Department of Labor’s March-to-April grocery inflation rate for 2020 was 2.6%, the highest monthly increase since the mid-1970’s and the “Arab oil embargo”; that a U.S. Presidential order was required to balance the needs of workers and consumers while keeping meat-packing plants open; and that one U.S. Senator has already been vilified as the “Marie Antoinette of the Senate” for opposing nationalization of state pension debts that long predate the pandemic.

      A time of existential crisis may lead to a re-examination, on the part of individuals and of societies alike, of fundamental values or ultimate concerns.  The theologian Paul Tillich believed that human attitudes towards objects of theistic, religious devotion are expressions of ultimate concern.  These objects are experienced as most holy, real, and valuable.  Tillich’s approach does not address non-theistic religions; and the frequently casual attitudes of ancient pagans towards their civic deities does not seem to indicate existential attachment.  Thus, Tillich’s analysis seems to be largely restricted to Western societies in the Common Era.

      Today’s Zeitgeist demands, however, that the criteria for “ultimate concern” be generalized so as to include globalism, environmentalism, and identity politics, etc.; as well as metaphysical interests in a personal God and in Being itself.  This generalization of Tillich’s original notion dilutes its significance while widening its application.  “Ultimate concern” may now pertain to traditional worship, praise, and prayer or to the quest for some ultimate good, such as the Holy Grail, Absolute Knowing, or (one presumes) the Minimal Carbon Footprint. 

      The analysis of “ultimate concern” - - on the occasion of the war against SARS CoV-2 - - is reminiscent of an earlier era in which national survivals were imperiled.  Between 1942 and 1944 the BBC radio service broadcast three talks by C. S. Lewis regarding the moral, spiritual, and intellectual content of Christianity.  These talks offered spiritual clarity and encouragement to a beleaguered people and were subsequently collected as the book, Mere Christianity, in 1952.  (Today, the fraction of the population tuning in to such broadcasts might be smaller, but that is a sociological effect not dealt with here.)  In the June posting to this blog we will examine some arguments from Mere Christianity.