Friday
As I watch the many different reasons people give for not taking protective measures against Covid, I am reminded of Danish responses to Grendel’s attacks in Beowulf. Although the poet, like the medical community, has a proven response, the people instead turn to false solutions, twisting themselves into knots in the process.
To be sure, the poet’s response would not pass muster with Covid-19. “Approach the Lord and find friendship in the Father’s embrace,” he advises. In our case, we have several miraculous vaccines, not to mention an understanding of the benefits of masking, social distancing, proper ventilation, and the like. Yet despite all that, various people set themselves up as modern versions of King Hrothgar’s counsellors, who worship at pagan shrines, vow offers to idols, and pray to killer-of-souls Satan to come to “come to their aid and save the people.”
Our own version of people worshipping false idols to deal with Covid have included: wishing it would just go away; seeing it as a hoax or no worse than the flu; recommending bleach and hydroxychloroquine; counting on the illness to affect just blue state populations, recommending we do nothing other than accept 3 million deaths and develop herd immunity that way (Sen. Ron Johnson’s solution); and imagining that letting individuals decide whether or not they should wear masks or get vaccinated will somehow address the situation by itself. A number of Republican governors seem to be operating on the principle, “What would Trump do?” And this partial list doesn’t begin to go into all the elaborate conspiracy theories.
As the poet recognizes, people do crazy things and think crazy things when disaster strikes. Or in his words, “That was their way, their heathenish hope”:
These were hard times, heart-breaking
for the prince of the Shieldings; powerful counsellors,
the highest in the land, would lend advice,
plotting how best the bold defenders
might resist and beat off sudden attacks.
Sometimes at pagan shrines they vowed
offerings to idols, swore oaths
that the killer of souls might come to their aid
and save the people. That was their way,
their heathenish hope; deep in their hearts
they remembered hell. The Almighty Judge
of good deeds and bad, the Lord God,
Head of the Heavens and High King of the World,
was unknown to them. Oh, cursed is he
who in time of trouble has to thrust his soul
in the fire’s embrace, forfeiting help;
he has nowhere to turn. But blessed is he
who after death can approach the Lord
and find friendship in the Father’s embrace.
When I suggested last week that a strong and forceful Beowulfian response may be the way to go—i.e., vaccine mandates—I received several negative responses, none of which offered a credible solution. One reader told me that Covid was “this joke of the flu,” another that the vaccine was a government-Big Pharma plot and was worse than having no vaccine at all–meaning, I guess, that we should go Ron Johnson’s natural herd immunity route, even though the price is millions of deaths. One reader, as an anti-vaccine argument, sent me a list of notable people attacking various vaccines, including the polio vaccine.
I’m not one to worship science, having a sense of both its strengths and its blind spots. But I trust that Dr. Fauci and his colleagues are professionals acting in good faith. In this time of trouble, they are not thrusting their souls in hellfire’s embrace, forfeiting help, but doing the best they can with the knowledge available to them. So far, the vaccines appear to be doing their job. Unfortunately, the unvaccinated continue to threaten our children and, when they themselves get sick, to swamp our hospitals.
In other words, Grendel continues to raid the great hall.
Further thought: Regarding those counting on God rather than vaccines and other health measures to save them, I think of the joke about the man stranded on his roof as the flood levels rise. He turns down help from a rowboat, a motorboat and a helicopter, each time saying that the Lord will provide. He asks God about this after he drowns, to which God replies, “I sent you two boats and a helicopter.” In this case, we’ve been sent life-saving vaccines.