The science is settled: In allocating the vaccine, the most efficient way to reduce the spread of the global virus is to give it first to the elderly. Ah, but there’s a problem: Our major medical institutions, the CDC and the AMA, don’t like listening to the elderly. Moreover, the elderly, through no fault of their own, skew white. Due to an accident of history and demographics, the recent wave of multi-racial immigration has not (yet) reached that age cohort.
And so even the CDC (until a wave of outraged forced the agency to reverse itself) suggested an initial vaccine distribution based on racial equity, rather than on science. Racial equity is a laudable goal, but in this case, pursuing it would result in more people of color dying than would die if we simply followed the science, and vaccinated those elderly virus spreaders as soon as possible.
Yes, Shakespeare is on the case, even here. He looks at the denial of resources to the elderly, and elderly abuse in general, in King Lear. Lear, at age 80, abdicates his throne and divides his kingdom between his two older daughters, Goneril and Regan (he planned to give a third to his youngest daughter Cordelia, but she was too pure of heart to feign fawning love to him, and her true-felt love left her tongue-tied). The elderly ex-king wanders the kingdom, visiting in turn his two sisters in their castles, with a retinue of 100 soldiers to keep him in good cheer.
That’s too many vaccine dosages wasted on a wrinkled, unproductive retiree, according to Regan and Goneril Here’s Lear showing up at Regan’s castle after Goneril told him she’s only host 50 men at hers:
Regan. I am glad to see your Highness.
Lear: “…Beloved Regan,
Thy sister’s naught. O Regan, she hath tied
Sharp-tooth’d unkindness, like a vulture, here!
[Lays his hand on his heart.]
Regan: “I pray you, sir, take patience…
I cannot think my sister in the least
Would fail her obligation. If, sir, perchance
She have restrain’d the riots of your followers,
‘Tis on such ground, and to such wholesome end,
As clears her from all blame.”
That sounds an awful lot like Dr. Fauci patiently explaining to the elderly, and all the rest of us as it happens, how it was necessary for him to lie to us earlier in the course of the pandemic about his assessment of herd immunity. How better to restrain the riots of Lear’s followers?
Lear. My curses on her!
Regan: “O, sir, you are old!
Nature in you stands on the very verge
Of her confine. You should be rul’d, and led
By some discretion that discerns your state
Better than you yourself. Therefore I pray you
That to our sister you do make return;
Say you have wrong’d her, sir.”
So it’s the elderly’s fault for being old, and they should for being, for example, open-minded about the efficacy of hydroxychloroquine, which the American Medical Association recommended doctors not prescribe for COVID-19, even as doctors across the world were recognizing its worth. Oh, and Regan – but don’t I mean the AMA? – recently reversed its position on the medicine. How many might have not died if Goneril had not been so spiteful toward Lear – I mean if the AMA had not been so spiteful after President Trump touted hydroxychloroquine?
Lear. Ask her forgiveness?…
‘Dear daughter, I confess that I am old. [Kneels.]
Age is unnecessary. On my knees I beg
That you’ll vouchsafe me raiment, bed, and food.'”
And that would be rationing of healthcare a few years after it becomes fully nationalized. Just look at the National Health Service in Britain. Regan goes on:
Regan: “Return you to my sister.”
Lear. [rises] “Never, Regan!
She hath abated me of half my train;
Look’d black upon me; struck me with her tongue,…”
Regan: “O the blest gods! so will you wish on me
When the rash mood is on.”
Lear. No, Regan, thou shalt never have my curse.
Thy tender-hefted nature shall not give
Thee o’er to harshness. Her eyes are fierce; but thine
Do comfort, and not burn.”…
Lear has spoken too soon. It turns out that Goneril herself is about to arrive for a visit with her sister, an event not at all welcome to Lear. Regan backs her sister’s demand that Lear dismiss half of his men.
Regan. I pray you, father, being weak, seem so.
If, till the expiration of your month,
You will return and sojourn with my sister,
Dismissing half your train, come then to me.”
Lear. Return to her, and fifty men dismiss’d?
No, rather I abjure all roofs,….”
Regan: “I dare avouch it, sir. What, fifty followers?
Is it not well? What should you need of more?…”
Goneril: “… I entreat you
To bring but five-and-twenty. To no more
Will I give place or notice.”
Lear: “I gave you all-”
Regan: “And in good time you gave it!”
Gratitude. Lear sounds like a citizen who can’t believe the candidate he voted for, now in office, would renounce her earlier campaign promises and act only her own interests.
Goneril: “Hear, me, my lord.
What need you five-and-twenty, ten, or five,
To follow in a house where twice so many
Have a command to tend you?”
Regan: “What need one?”
What need one? Lear’s answer stands as one of the great speeches defending human dignity, which includes allowing ourselves more than basic necessities. Lear speaks for all of us who feel that human life should also reflect the glory we feel in being alive, and in being human:
Lear: “O, reason not the need! Our basest beggars
Are in the poorest thing superfluous.
Allow not nature more than nature needs,
Man’s life is cheap as beast’s…No, you unnatural hags!
I will have such revenges on you both
That all the world shall- I will do such things-
What they are yet, I know not; but they shall be
The terrors of the earth! You think I’ll weep.
No, I’ll not weep.
I have full cause of weeping, but this heart
Shall break into a hundred thousand flaws
Or ere I’ll weep. O fool, I shall go mad!”
This season’s blog posts reflect the discouraging events now occurring in our public life. But I hope that, especially in times like these, the classics, and Shakespeare chief among them, can keep us connected to the highest and best in Western culture, even as we navigate the remnants of our fallen republic, and gather the strength to reclaim it.
