Terrible Car Analogies & COVID-19
How Faux "Experts" Disqualify Themselves with Lazily Jury-Rigged Arguments
From the very beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, the general public has been subjected to no shortage of absolutely terrible car accident analogies. These have always been childish and poorly thought-out attempts to justify letting the SARS-CoV-2 virus run wild through the population without vaccines or other lifesaving mitigations, by people who have never seriously thought about pandemics or public health policy prior to 2020. Nor have they considered the extensive resources, manpower, and thought dedicated towards road safety.
Foolishly, this myth that COVID-19 is comparable to driving a car seems to originate in 2020 from Stanford academic John Ioaniddis, who is not a medical doctor and has made numerous rosy predictions about the supposed harmlessness of COVID-19 that were immediately debunked by a growing mountain of dead. Since then, Ioannidis has done little more than produce an endless stream of incoherent papers championing the SARS-CoV-2 virus whilst attacking scientists with real-world responsibilities and technical knowledge related to preventing COVID-19 deaths. Refusing to acknowledge his own failures as a scientist, John has instead chosen to become a contrarian darling of the modern anti-vaccine movement.
These arguments have been shared by other unscientific cranks, like libertarian Glenn Greenwald and conservative propagandist Justin Hart.
Driving a motor vehicle is one of the most regulated activities you can engage with in the United States of America. Seatbelt laws, speed limits, and highway safety patrol officers are just a few examples of the many mitigations that serve to prevent roadway deaths. On the other hand, you don't need a license to carry a deadly & disabling virus and spread it throughout your community, forging the chains of transmission that have already killed and disabled countless Americans. What is an apt comparison, however, is how the grumbling about COVID-19 mitigations mirrors the contrarian backlash to the passing of laws forbidding drunk driving, which still kills too many:
These utterly selfish, fundamentally childish tendencies have never faded away. Libertarian comedian Doug Stanhope would even go on to propose a case-by-case basis for permitting intoxicated driving in the early 2000s - thankfully an idea that nobody took seriously. Sadly, the COVID-19 pandemic has enabled these antics to become dominant, mainstream narratives weaponized to absolve the public of their responsibilities to one another.
Cheerleaders for selfishness prospered atop a mountain of needless suffering.
On its face, the argument itself is foolishly thoughtless: because people die in car accidents, the general public should turn a blind eye to COVID-19 death and disability. Imagine flipping this argument on its head: Because people die of infectious diseases, we should abolish seatbelt laws and other road safety mitigations so every American can enjoy the freedom of the open road. This isn't the thinking of serious, mature adults at work here. It shouldn't even be part of the discussion about how to best mitigate the harms of COVID-19, especially when it's merely levied to discredit those with the responsibility to prevent needless death & disability as "tyrants” seeking to corrupt America in a fantastical conspiracy theory.
If you truly wanted to compare COVID-19 and car accidents, we would have to engage with the reality that there's a number of bad outcomes that can emerge from both - whilst not being hit by a car or being infected with COVID-19 do not have negative implications, no matter what nonsense you’ve heard about “immunity debt.”
We don't suggest children experience "mild" encounters with steel chariots to further strengthen their bones and muscles, yet allegedly science-informed liberals have laundered the myth that viruses like SARS-CoV-2 are beneficial to pediatric health & development. Sadly, you can be severely disabled by both car accidents and "mild" SARS-CoV-2 infections, as millions of Americans have already found out when it comes to the latter - disproportionately women, who have been abandoned by their government and leading medical institutions.
In truth, if we were to treat COVID-19 deaths like we treat car accidents, we would be mandating and deploying airborne mitigations to prevent transmission of the SARS-CoV-2 virus in public settings, and especially schools - similar to how we employ safety regulations like School Zones and the many other countless roadway safety features we take for granted.
Instead, we treat COVID-19 like Group B rally racing - as if there are no speed limits, traffic lights, airbags, seatbelt laws, crumple zones, sidewalks and bike lanes, or any rules forbidding intoxicated driving. Would you feel safe sending your child to school in such a reckless environment? Yet, you're expected to turn a blind eye to the impacts of repeated SARS-CoV-2 infections on pediatric health and development because they don't immediately drop dead.
It's a perverse, unsustainable contradiction that must come to an end.
Really great essay, I have long thought the comparison to traffic fatalities is just dumb. For one thing, traffic deaths - even heavily mitigated as you note - are way too high.
Honestly, I despair at times over our allegedly 'intelligent' species. We really are not able to make reasonable decisions and take appropriate action. Our failure is especially acute in risk assessment.