The chapter deals with three aspects of the relationship between human dignity and the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020. One, the growing body of academic journal articles on COVID-19 shows remarkable appreciation of human dignity as guidance for public responses to the pandemic. Two, the “corona triage” (Lübbe, Corona triage. A commentary on the triage recommendations by Italian SIAARTI medicals regarding the corona crisis, 2020) can be regarded as a modern version of the trolley problem (Thomson, Yal…
Read moreThe chapter deals with three aspects of the relationship between human dignity and the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020. One, the growing body of academic journal articles on COVID-19 shows remarkable appreciation of human dignity as guidance for public responses to the pandemic. Two, the “corona triage” (Lübbe, Corona triage. A commentary on the triage recommendations by Italian SIAARTI medicals regarding the corona crisis, 2020) can be regarded as a modern version of the trolley problem (Thomson, Yale Law J 94:1395–1485, 1985) when the differentiating valuing of human lives is combined with ideas about killing and letting die: Human dignity demands that corona triage situations be avoided. Referring to Ubuntu, the sub-Saharan version of human dignity, the chapter demonstrates why “flattening the curve” (social distancing, mouth-nose-coverings, travel restrictions, lockdowns) was a collective effort to protect human dignity and also a manifestation of human dignity. Three, the protests against public responses to COVID-19—often associated with contempt for the government, scientists, and media—should not be explained only with disdain for “covidiots.” Rather the loss of agency imposed by COVID-19 rules encroached on human dignity.
