GÜNDEM
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D
ifferent countries have
reacted in their diffe-
rent ways according
to the expression: the
problem is global but
it has to be addressed
and solved locally. Most EU countries
and the U.S. had first severely underes-
timated the danger posed by the pande-
mic - some leading Western politicians
had even called it a politically-hyped
hoax and downplayed its severity for
weeks - and had reacted late with me-
asures to curb the spread of the virus,
e.g. by closing schools and promoting
or enforcing “social distancing”. Even
The World Health Organization couldn’t
bring itself to calling COVID-19 a “pan-
demic” for a long time while it was al-
ready quite clear it would eventually
spread to the last corner of the planet.
(At the time of the writing of this artic-
le, the disease has spread to 172 count-
ries, 441 thousand people have been
infected globally and the only continent
unaffected by COVID-19 is Antarctica.)
Development of COVID-19 in
Turkey
Turkey has apparently been affected by
the pandemic relatively late. (The WHO
had already acknowledged COVID-19 as
a pandemic at that time.) The first offi-
cial case in Turkey was reported by the
ministry of health on March 11, 2020,
when Italy already had 12462 cases and
827 fatalities. Compared to the Western
countries, the Turkish government re-
acted much more quickly and announ-
ced the closure of schools for at least
three weeks already two days after the
first officially diagnosed case, when the
official number of infections in Turkey
was still in the single digits and there
had been no fatalities, yet. (Compared
to Italy, which imposed the first quaran-
tine zone comprising 50.000 people in
Northern Italy on February 22, 23 days
after the first case in the country and at
a time when there were already 79 di-
agnosed cases and 2 fatalities.)
It is also a very unfortunate term as
even the WHO has meanwhile found
out 2 , because it can be misunderstood
and cause anxiety about social isolation
and cutting social contacts with other
people where it just means to put enou-
gh physical distance between people so
they can’t infect one another.
The Turkish government has used even
more unfortunate terms. First, people
were simply instructed to stay at home
(“evde kal”) without giving more insight
into what behavior this meant and what
it did not mean. In addition, officials
keep telling people on the media to iso-
late themselves (“kendinizi izole edin”),
which should even cause more feelings
of anxiety than “social distancing”. Even
Turkish mobile phone operators have
started “nudging” people by changing
their operator name displayed on pho-
nes to “#EvdeKal TR” (Vodafone) or
“EvdeHayatVar” (Turkcell).
This is being mostly referred to with the technical term “social
distancing”, an English language technical term from public
health and epidemiology which has been widely used by go-
vernments, institutions and media and that has been verbatim
translated into other languages, also into Turkish.
And in the following days, as the re-
ported figure slowly but steadily grew,
the Turkish government announced
new actions and restrictions almost on
a daily basis to stem the growth of the
epidemic in Turkey. (As a physicist, the
author of this article understands that
exponential growth is extremely diffi-
cult to grasp for normal humans, so it
is understandable if many people here -
like in other countries - considered the-
ir personal risk of contracting the virus
fairly low, as long as there was only “a
handful of infected people in a populati-
on of 84 million.)
Despite all the measures, in the days
since Turkish “patient 0” was officially
announced on March 11, the number
of Turks tested positively for COVID-19
has grown exponentially (to 1872 ca-
ses and 44 fatalities on March 25) just
like in other countries. And it appears
Turkey is developing on quite the same
trajectory as Italy - just about three we-
eks later.
The Ethical Imperative of the Hour
is Physical Distancing, But Behavi-
or Change is Slow.
Without medicines to treat the disea-
se, and without vaccines to inoculate
the population, what is – apart from
hand-washing – the course of action
people should take? How should they
behave in face of the COVID-19 threat?
Looking to frameworks for ethical deci-
1 Makkula Center for Applied Ethics, Santa Clara University:https://www.scu.edu/ethics/ethics-resources/ethical-decision-making/a-framework-for-ethical-decision-making/
sion making 1 , we can evaluate the opti-
ons by asking the following questions:
1. Which option will produce the most
good and do the least harm? (Utilitarian
Approach)
2. Which option best respects the rights
of all who have a stake? (Rights Appro-
ach)
3. Which option treats people equally or
proportionately? (Justice Approach)
4. Which option best serves the com-
munity as a whole, not just some mem-
bers? (Common Good Approach)
5. Which option leads me to act as the
sort of person I want to be? (Virtue Ap-
proach)
Answering these questions, it is pretty
obvious that there is only one ethical
imperative of the hour: to protect one-
self form getting infected – and thereby
So it came as no big surprise that des-
protect others from being infected, po-
pite the government’s growing restric-
tentially failing ill, needing hospitaliza-
tions to daily life and even with a new
tion, intensive care,
government regulation
artificial ventilation Whereas the U.S. has
as of March 22 that for-
bids most people over
and dying. Protect a relatively low Power
society, even huma- Distance, extremely high the age of 65 to leave
their homes, many pe-
nity, by protection Individualism, and has
ople did not comply and
yourself. And there
a low Uncertainty Avo-
had to be warned and
is currently only one
idance, Turkish culture
sent home individual-
sure way of doing
is
characterized
by
high
ly by the police in the
this: putting physical
Power
Distance,
Collecti-
first days. Last weekend
distance between pe-
vism (low Individualism), one could still obser-
ople.
ve people ambling in
and an extremely high
groups and picnicking
This is being most- Uncertainty Avoidance.
at the seaside in Istan-
ly referred to with
In this respect, Turkey is bul, men fishing in the
the technical term
Bosphorus, elders sit-
“social distancing”, clearly “different” from
ting together drinking
an English langu- the Western countries.
tea and playing Okey
age technical term
– of course without ke-
from public health
and epidemiology which has been wi-
eping the recommended distance of at
dely used by governments, institutions
least one-and-a-half to two meters from
and media and that has been verbatim
one another.
translated into other languages, also
into Turkish.
Now why is it, one may ask, that chan-
2 Rebecca Gale: Is ‘social distancing’ the wrong term? Expert prefers ‘physical distancing,’ and the WHO agrees. The Washingron Post, 26.03.2020;
https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/wellness/social-distancing-coronavirus-physical-distancing/2020/03/25/a4d4b8bc-6ecf-11ea-aa80-c2470c6b2034_story.html
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