Marlon Meyer
Northwest Asia Weekly
Jessica Ruan helps her mother pack a box with a mask (from the Seattle HUST Alumni Association)
On the morning of April 22, 16-year-old Julia Ruan woke up with a sore throat. Her parents tested her at home and it came back negative. She went to school and stayed overnight that night.
What happened next, and how families dealt with it, was not only another lesson in the ravages the pandemic still brings, however small, but on the other hand, perhaps a lesson in the key to solving it.
In a recent paper, Nancy Jecker, professor of bioethics at the University of Washington (UW) School of Medicine and a Fulbright scholar in South Africa, argues that the kind of solidarity that exists in families is a good “starting point” for what we should think about global interdependence.
“In small solidarity groups like families, people’s lives are interconnected because what happens to one person profoundly affects what happens to others. Bonds of love and caring bring team members together and guide They consider each other’s interests. However, these same interconnections do not bind strangers who have never met,” she wrote in the paper, “Global sharing of COVID-19 treatments during the ‘new normal’,” she and C Co-authored by Atuire, published April 25 in the journal Bioethics.
Western countries such as the United States need to move away from an ethic that focuses on individual needs and instead focus more on a group ethic where the well-being of each member is paramount.
Given that we share a biosphere where pathogens travel everywhere, and that new variants can harm anyone, the My First Approach to allowing the rest of the world to continue without a COVID-19 drug treatment is not only unsafe, but also myopic.
“It fails to build the social capital needed to address 21st century health threats,” Jecker said. “We live in a globalized world with interconnected economies, networked through the Internet, and the common interest of avoiding nuclear war; we are more globally interconnected than ever before.”
Jecker said the principle of justice stems from the fact that all members of a group are interconnected, which is why Jecker and Atuire chose a family to start their discussions.
During a pandemic, everyone enjoys equal susceptibility, which forces them to connect with each other.
“This interconnectedness is evident wherever people meet – in schools, shops, restaurants, gyms and workplaces, as shared spaces create pathways for disease to spread and the potential for disease and death,” they wrote. During infectious disease outbreaks, people are more aptly thought of as ‘victims and vectors, sick because something from others can be passed on to others.'”
In the case of Julia’s family, the emerging crisis shows how family members go beyond their usual roles to consider the needs and well-being of others.
Mother Joan reflected on the questions and strategies posed by Jekel’s paper after the crisis ended and found surprising results.
After Julia went for the night, she came home feeling worse. This time, she tested positive. Immediately, the family took action.
Julia’s father, who picked her up in the car and stayed with her, realized he might have been exposed, so he started wearing a mask full-time around the house.
Julia returned to her room for full isolation.
Joan made the meals and sent them to the bedroom door.
Each family member slept in a separate room and no one went out.
But Joan realized how important socializing was to her daughter. During the first year of the pandemic, like many students, Julia found remote learning isolating.
When she was able to play open-air badminton at the end of 2020, it had a huge impact on her mood and well-being.
“She really missed her friends when school was closed,” Joan said. “So when badminton started, even though she had been playing for many years, she was really engaged. She loved it so much that she could see her friends.”
So Joan figured out a way to get her daughter through the quarantine period without feeling too isolated.
“We were all in our own rooms communicating with each other via FaceTime, but I was worried that wasn’t enough for her,” says Joan.
The opportunity came when Julia asked if she could spend more time connecting with friends on her phone. Usually, the family follows a strict schedule. If Julia gets enough sleep, Joan will give her half an hour a day to play games or socialize electronically.
But now it’s different.
“She asked me if I could contact her friends for an hour a day,” Joan said. “I gave her two.”
That’s exactly the kind of dynamic Jecker is calling for across countries. Finding the most vulnerable is the only way to keep groups safe.
But Jekel distinguishes the philosophy of “negotiating to advance self-interest” that energizes the West from the philosophies of Far Eastern and Global Southern cultures that seem to prioritize group well-being.
“In the West, you usually assume everyone is a stranger, so you want to maximize your own interests and protect yourself from external threats,” she said.
Instead, the ethics she explores outside the West, including ubuntu ethics or classical Confucianism in sub-Saharan Africa, emphasize the embeddedness of social relations.
Given the interconnectedness of globalization in the 21st century, there really is no other way to think about the planet, Jecker and Atuire write.
The result, they argue, is that once rich countries have secured the safety of their most vulnerable members, they must share treatments with other countries. But it shouldn’t be through acts of charity, which means condescending to those who are unequal.
Rather, it should pass through the principles of justice that treat all people fairly.
Joan agrees. But she said it took her a while to fully develop her thinking about it.
“When I first met my husband, before we got married, he was going through a lot and he said to me, ‘We have to be selfish,’ and I remember being shocked,” she said.
But things changed after becoming a mother with her eldest daughter.
“That was 19 years ago and it was very difficult to get a US visa. My parents wanted to come and help but were turned away. So my husband and I were alone with the newborn. After coming home from the hospital, I tried to take care of the baby at night , so that my husband can sleep and he will take care of the baby during the day. Anyway I have to get up at night to feed the baby and I can also change the diaper. But after a few days, I was in such a bad shape that I couldn’t move at all. Really scared I was with my husband. That’s when I realized that if I didn’t take care of myself, I couldn’t take care of my kids,” she said.
She added: “The same logic of ‘selfishness’ applies to my emotional needs. How can I love my children, my family and our world when I’m exhausted, depressed, when I don’t feel loved Other people? Only when I am emotionally healthy can I regulate my emotions and behavior and do what a mother or wife or daughter or good citizen should do.”
Having found balance, Joan was able to devote herself fully to others.
In the early days of the pandemic, as president of the alumni association of a top Chinese university based in Wuhan, she led a campaign to bring masks to China and then in the Seattle area.
In the first year of the pandemic, a coalition of multiple Chinese-American groups, Chinese airlines, local delivery services, and a core group of volunteers (in which her alumni association was involved) delivered deliveries to hospitals and other healthcare providers nearly 1,000,000 masks.
Her organization raised $1.2 million for COVID-19 relief in the region.
When asked if she was influenced by Confucianism, she said she didn’t know, but it was probably “in her blood”.
“I mean, what are nations made of? They are made of families. What are families made of?
Qiong’s personal experience echoes Jecker’s call to share therapy in an “all-in” approach.
According to Jecker, nearly as many types of in-state organizations as possible are needed to share and distribute drugs.
“We need to think about global health governance beyond countries,” she said. “We already have pharmaceutical companies, charitable foundations, civil society groups involved, medical institutions, local and national governments, regional groups such as the EU and the African Union, but we need someone in the background to support things so they can coordinate better together .”
Mahlon can be contacted by info@nwasianweekly.com.
This health series is funded by the Washington State Department of Health, which has no editorial input or oversight of the content.
