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While coronavirus poses intractable medical challenges, and the persistence of the lockdown raises the spectre of economic ruin, the moral problems raised by the pandemic have received much
less attention. Yet they are proliferating as rapidly as the disease itself. Whereas we have confidence in virologists to investigate viruses and in epidemiologists to understand epidemics,
we have less faith in economists to master economic crises. When it comes to ethical problems, there is no consensus at all. To whom can we turn for answers to the agonising moral questions
thrown up by Covid-19 ? We have no choice but to trust politicians to decide complex trade-offs between health and wealth, such as whether lifting lockdown is worth an unknown number of
deaths, or for how long we are prepared to sacrifice our privacy to enable the authorities to trace our contacts. Perhaps the most difficult moral problem that will soon be facing ministers,
though, is how to persuade a large minority of the population, the nine million who are 70 or more, to remain in isolation long after the rest of us have resumed social life. Some are even
arguing that the 7.3 million aged 60-69 should also self-isolate. Keeping a quarter of the population in quarantine indefinitely poses a formidable problem of consent. Just as we expect our
leaders to be guided by experts in scientific or economic policy, however, so we should require them to consult those who are versed in ethics in deciding how best we are to live with
Covid-19. One of our wisest public intellectuals is Professor Nigel Biggar, who holds the Regius Chair of Moral and Pastoral Theology at Oxford and is also, incidentally, a contributor to
TheArticle. In a letter to the Editor of the_ Times _on Wednesday (behind a paywall), Professor Biggar addressed the profound anxiety felt by millions of older people about the prospect of
being kept in social isolation for a period of many months or even years. He was responding to Lord Hope of Craighead, a former deputy president of the Supreme Court, who had argued that
“there is a balance to be struck between the public interest and the right of the over-70s to respect for their family life”. Professor Biggar agrees that there is such a balance, but denies
that we are dealing with two fixed quantities. He points out that the meaning of the right to family life has evolved in the midst of the pandemic. Given that those aged over 60 make up
more than 90 per cent of the victims, their right to see their families is curtailed by the Government’s duty to preserve the capacity of the NHS. In these extraordinary circumstances, the
elderly have a duty to suffer some restrictions. “Once the lockdown is relaxed, virus-related deaths will increase,” he writes. “As and when the NHS seems able to cope, the right of elderly
people to risk seeing their loved ones face to face should expand.” This is surely right. The risks entailed by spreading a deadly virus mean that individual rights, including that to family
life, must be limited by the common good. This is comparable to the prohibition on shouting “fire” in a crowded theatre, a classic illustration of the fact that our liberties are not
absolute. Yet the Government cannot assume that all senior citizens will consent to be discriminated against in this way without very good cause. We have argued here that coronavirus has
confronted us with an inconvenient truth: British society is institutionally ageist. The moral problem of keeping unwilling older people in lockdown is a test of how well we can overcome the
unconscious bias against their interests which manifests itself in so many ways. As a matter of urgency, the Government should set up an emergency committee to tackle this problem,
including thinkers such as Professor Biggar. Its task would be to weigh up the balance between the public interest and the rights of the elderly, offer proposals to mitigate the suffering of
the latter during the pandemic, and advise the Prime Minister on how to carry the nation with him. It should never be forgotten that the young benefit from the fellowship of the old just as
much as vice versa. The grandchild who cannot spend time with its grandparents may not suffer as much as the latter, but it is deprived of invaluable experience and memories. Just as the
benefits are mutual, so too is the damage done to all three generations by compulsory social distancing. Determining the point at which this social damage outweighs the medical benefits
requires not only common sense, but expertise in ethics. These are decisions that ought to be enlightened by compassion as well as informed by science. Our leaders must know that age-related
restrictions on such a scale cannot possibly be enforced; they require consent. Our senior citizens have a strong sense of public service, but the burdens must be reciprocal. If we expect
the elderly to do their duty, it must be seen to be fair.