From ‘Personal Coping’ to ‘Social Coping’. How to React to a Pandemic, a Proposal by Ethics

In the light of the existing refl ections on Covid-19 issues, the text proposes a new refl ection on the consequences of a pandemic from the point of view of Christian Social Ethics, its strategies, and reactions in everyday life. The author shows that common good, solidarity, and subsidiarity, fundamental principles of social ethics, are decisive in enabling authentic ‘coping’ to survive the pandemic aftermath. The main implication of the contribution is to show an alternative way of overcoming the breakdown caused by the pandemic state. The methodology the text uses is the theoretical-hermeneutical one proper to the humanistic sciences, leaving aside statistics because of their continuous changing.

Th e analysis of the ethical-moral developments of a global situation such as the pandemic we are experiencing in recent months calls for a much broader refl ection than that limited to a simple comment on the voices emerging from civil society. It contains and links together a series of ideas and considerations that arise above all from the immediate externalisation of emotional reactions of fear and dread towards the unknown and uncertainty. Th ey are caused above all by the unprecedented situation in which human beings fi nd themselves living, and seeing their freedoms and, to put it to the extreme, their dignity restricted. Th e aim of this contribution is precisely to try to go beyond the observation, attempting to present some insights on how to rethink the human being in the pandemic situation, especially from an ethical-moral point of view. It is not a question, therefore, of assuming an encouraging and/or compassionate attitude towards our current situation. It is rather based on presenting perspectives for a hermeneutic interpretation of the human being that can and must continue to live, even with all the limitations of the moment. In order to do this, we will attempt to answer one question in particular, posed amidst the insidious network of numerous opinions on the new life during and aft er the pandemic: How can we try to be, without being able to present ourselves to others in a social way? 1 Th e exegetes of the virus proudly told us that we were going to emerge from the pandemic stronger, better, and more united. Even without seeing the light at the end of the tunnel, far from being strengthened, we have been weakened as a social body, in our rights, yearnings, and vital expectations. In this environment, a revival of the plague was incarnated in the 21 st century. 2 Manuel Lázaro Pulido, in the prologue of his book La pandemia del miedo, provocatively warns of the illusions raised by the discourses of strength and social resistance against Covid-19. Th ese illusions, which have emerged in most societies and are carried forward not only by governments but also by civil society, encourage every human being to endure the limits imposed by the pandemic and to support their neighbours, their fellow human beings. 3 As the months have passed, however, the persistence of the crisis and the immediate worsening that has followed every unexpected relief has weakened human endurance and debilitated the social body. Th is debilitation has caused governments to lose the necessary direction for the containment and mitigation of contagions and men to lose confi dence in a positive resolution of the situation. In addition, this is appreciable in practically every nation in the world. What to do, therefore? Who can take the responsibility of managing the critical situation of human beings who, if on the one hand bring into play all the instinctive techniques of survival, and on the other hand experience the disintegration of their capacity for patience? Th is contribution intends to answer this question, with the help of the alternatives presented by Christian social ethics, its principles, and values.

Self-evidence of the Pandemic
Th at we are facing a pandemic is easily observed from statistics freely available online. On the date of the last revision of this contribution, the Worldometers site indicated 116,616,674 total global cases of Covid-19, distributed over 221 nations or unrecognised independent territories, representing almost all nations. 4 As of 8 th February 2021, there are only 13 territories that have never been aff ected by the coronavirus: Cook Islands, American Samoa, Tokelau, Federated States of Micronesia (Yap, Chuuk, Pohnpei, Kosrae), Niue, Kiribati, Nauru, Pitcairn, Palau, Saint Helena, Tonga, and Tuvalu. Th ese remote territories, apart from Saint Helena, are all located in the Pacifi c Ocean, are not prevented from speaking both at health and at political level of pandemic. It is a global phenomenon and, in a globalised world, it involves all men and, as the Social Doctrine of the Church teaches, any global thing 'concerns the destiny of humanity' . 5 From the point of view of human sciences, which unlike hard sciences can give voice to the content of human emotions, this global engagement imposes an enormous challenge. It consists in fi nding elements common to everyone, which allow the whole of humanity to accept the pandemic voices analysed in assessing the ethical and social implications of the pandemic. Th e author's proposal is a cogent suggestion for reading the current situation, which is, moreover, ever changing and therefore potentially invalidating the theses of this article, conceived and written between January and March 2021. 2 'Los exégetas del virus nos dijeron ufanamente que de la pandemia íbamos a salir fortalecidos, mejores y más unidos. Aún sin ver la luz al fi nal de túnel, lejos de robustecernos, nos hemos debilitado como cuerpo social, en nuestros derechos, anhelos y expectativas vitales. En este entorno, se encarnaba un revival de la peste en pleno siglo XXI. danger and consciously prepare for the future, the so-called aft ermath. Th is is even more diffi cult because, generally, such work is cooperative and, precisely because of the nature of cooperation, should be done together. However, in a time when we have to try to be without being able to present ourselves, what strategy is possible to adopt? In this contribution, I will try to present a strategy composed of three steps: I. recognising false fl ags, II. fi nding the via media of ethical concordia, and III. restoring hope and the conditions for resuming life. Th e bases of this strategy are contained in a policy document prepared in 2007 by the World Health Organisation, Ethical Considerations in Developing a Public Health Response to Pandemic Infl uenza. 6 Already from the title, it is clear that this document does not want to investigate from a medical point of view the development of a pandemic, but intends to draw up strategies of behaviour -therefore ethical -with respect to everyday situations that may occur during a pandemic situation. Th e general theoretical line that underlies the entire document recalls elements that have been repeatedly emphasised in our daily lives, such as correct information on the cause of the pandemic, a proper network of international cooperation among the various governments for a common and shared response, an equitable strategy that guarantees both the health and the freedom of citizens, and a careful consideration of the needs of individual nations, while respecting international protocols. Regarding these warnings, we have repeatedly witnessed a multiplicity of opinions and ideas on how to solve the pandemic, with attitudes that are more or less libertarian or restrictive of human freedom.

A Th ree-step Strategy: False Flags, Ethical Concordia, Hope
Step I. In this intricate net of opinions and proposals, it is necessary fi rst of all to discern which are the correct ones and which are not, in view of the only necessarily posed objective: to face the pandemic, to solve it, and to lead people to restore their daily life to the conditions preceding the spread of the virus. In other words, one must beware of 'false fl ags' . In this sense, it is necessary to identify the subject of such false fl ags. Firstly, it could be said that the areas of politics, administration, and economy are the subject of continuous false fl ags, since they are constantly engaged in ensuring the survival of a nation. Th erefore, they are considered to be those domains in which the pandemic is considered an excuse to justify measures that would otherwise be unpopular and prevaricate regarding human dignity. 7 Indeed, the representatives of these spheres are tasked with providing unequivocal and globally shared direction with the goal of stemming the socio-economic eff ects of the pandemic. However, they are only the result of the democratic agreement of human beings and, thus, they are only the secondary product of a nation understood as the set of citizens living in it. Moreover, governments, administrators, and economists must observe the guidelines of the supranational body that manages the crisis, in the Covid-19 case this being the WHO. Its 2007 document, presented above, indicates to individual nations the following questions to be answered in planning a response to a pandemic event. Who will receive priority access to medications, vaccines, and intensive care unit beds, given the potential shortage of these essential resources? In the face of a pandemic, what obligations do health-care workers have notwithstanding the risks to their own health and the health of their families? How can surveillance, isolation, quarantine, and social-distancing measures be undertaken in a way that respects ethical norms? What obligations do countries have to one another with respect to pandemic infl uenza planning and response eff orts? 8 Beyond the remarks generated by a possible specious thinking aimed at an unconditional attack on the representatives of public institutions, it is not to them that we must look. Th ey engage and confront each other to ensure the survival of public life and the men and women who participate in it. If, on the one hand, their role is clear, on the other, to the people they represent they appear nebulous, and they are oft en the object of speculation and misinterpretation concerning their actions. For this reason, it is necessary to defend ourselves from false fl ags about us human beings who, catapulted without any previous experience into an event like the one we are experiencing today, are unable to express our fears and our existential discomfort in the face of the 'new living' . We need to rethink ourselves and the reality that surrounds us, changing our perspective and trying to understand who we are within the horizon of the pandemic. In this regard, Soraj Hongladarom writes that: It is scarcely imaginable that a pandemic is actually upon us, killing hundreds of thousands and potentially many more. Th ose of us who are not in the healthcare fi eld seem to have been led to believe that, given the current advance in medical technology and knowledge in public health […], a local epidemic that can be contained in a short time, endangering thousands only […]. Let us focus on the old fi rst. What is now happening across the globe is that various countries are developing ways to fi ght the virus in their own way. I don't think this is surprising, given that countries refl ect the mindset and the culture of the people […]. And what about the new? Apart from the fact that the virus and its disease are new to science, the pandemic situation has shown that there are many things that have not been experienced before. 9 Th e challenges of the new pandemic 'give' us the experience of two aspects of humanity never considered before: a comparison between the health systems of diff erent countries with the need for unitary coordination and the new experiences of human beings in health emergencies. While the fi rst aspect can easily be addressed by comparison with previous health emergencies (including local ones), the second deserves more attention, since we are all dealing with something never seen before. Th is unawareness of the never-seen-before and at the same time dangerous leads us to assume an attitude towards the virus that, borrowing from Søren Kierkegaard, we could defi ne as 'fear and trembling' . Our relationship with the virus is one of complete subordination and, if we look at it as pervasive in our lives, they will be conditioned by the virus. Th us, the pandemic is not only a health issue, but it becomes a real ethical issue, confi rming what Hongladarom feared in his article. Th e consequence of this problem is more interesting than we might think if we put into play the freedom of choice of man. He can adhere to the indications of national and supranational bodies (rationally or out of fear) or deliberately disregard them, thus generating a further ethical and healthcare diffi culty, opening the way to the continued spread of the virus. Th ere are two ways, that of underestimating the virus and that of overestimating it. In the fi rst case, the human being considers himself superior to the virus, a non-rational entity and therefore incapable of understanding human defence mechanisms, and able to overcome any obstacle that comes between him and his realisation; in the second case, man considers himself incapable of understanding nature to its full extent and succumbs to the virus, declaring the impossibility of a return to a pre-pandemic humanity. Both attitudes, it should be noted, have both pros and cons that are quite understandable. In the case of underestimation, there would be an easing of measures that would apparently have positive eff ects on people's lives: present and future income would increase, unemployment would be reduced, mental health would improve (reduction of suicidal tendencies and loneliness), trust in governments would be maintained, and schooling would be restored. On the other hand, such a loosening would cause an increase in fatalities caused by Covid and, subsequently, also by other untreated diseases due to the overcrowding of hospitals. In addition, as the number of people on the road increases, so do the side eff ects that we would all point to as responsible for human drift on this earth: commuting, globalisation, accidents, pollution. All of these things, on closer inspection and according to diff erent sources, 10 have been good for the planet that we inhabit and for all its residents, whether more or less rational. For this reason, an overestimation of the pandemic risk would be preferable. Th e tightening of measures would potentially decrease the time of the closures to favour a decrease in the circulation of the virus, but again does not deal with the aft ermath. In the face of this scenario, in which it seems all positive or all negative, can there not be a middle way, a way that respects the social life of individuals in society and, at the same time, already preserves and builds its future?
Step II. Assistance in this direction is provided by Richard Layard, who in his study When to Release the Lockdown 11 notes that the attitude towards the virus does not have to be dualistic. You do not necessarily have to choose sides between those who are either afraid of the virus or those who are not alarmed by it. A study conducted by Layard himself between January and May 2020 in England would show that individuals' satisfaction and well-being reached a minimum peak when, aft er a few weeks of living with the virus, governments had not imposed any lockdowns; then, from April 2020 onwards, with the introduction of restrictive measures, British citizens began to feel hopeful and have a more positive perception of life. Th is suggests to us that, probably, when individuals feel supported and pushed to believe that a change of direction might be possible, they start moving and acting again regardless of their relationship with the cause of the pandemic. Th us, in order to fi nd an ethically agreeable way, it would seem necessary to move from a social type of 'coping' to a personal type. 12 Th at is, it is necessary to take care of the human being, of the individual. First, he must be primarily abstracted from the societies to which he belongs and, subsequently, reintegrated into the context in which he lives, making him understand the responsibilities he has upon himself. Th e feasibility of such a change of target in coping is off ered to us by a reinterpretation of the classic scheme of social assistance supported by Christian social ethics. As is well known, Christian social ethics is based on four principles (dignity, common good, subsidiarity, solidarity) and four values (truth, justice, freedom, love). Th e union of these principles and values, in accordance with the norms and traditions of a given society and its international 10 At the following links there are a large set of sources, freely available, on every aspect of the pandemic: https://www2.brill.com/COVID-19_ Collection?fbclid=IwAR01ZfjObYL7Jl1VMt6ho7H6CCf6gFY4vNPt3h8GHvH4zXVS52ra5MjeR8Q; https://www.nejm.org/toc/ nejm/382/13?query=article_issue_link&fbclid=IwAR2iH1yFT76Tl4z9zj1Ocvr_aPvezoq7x7DF7mN75otrFLdHU1kwPOwLbP4; https://taylorandfrancis.com/coronavirus/?utm_source=website&utm_medium=banner&utm_campaign=B003164_mr2_2cx_6dp_ d656_coronavirus&fb clid=IwAR0FOLjymUJs_eO4quV8D7-rnI72EeIOG_X31y_cEncvYQ_DvoS5PuqaPwA. All of them were consulted between December 2020 and February 2021. 11 Cf. © Richard LAYARD, When to Release the Lockdown (online), available from: https://www.iza.org/publications/dp/13186/when-torelease-the-lockdown-a-wellbeing-framework-for-analysing-costs-and-benefi ts, cited 25 th February 2021. relations, restores the possibility for individuals to live a worthy life and to act well, in accordance with what is just and noble for all. 13 In standard social conditions, the recognition of the dignity of each individual generates the concept of solidarity, according to which each individual has the responsibility to take care of fellows who are in a state of diffi culty; the concept of solidarity is immediately linked to that of subsidiarity, according to which a relationship of mutual aid is established between the diff erent parts of a society; human collaboration by means of solidarity and subsidiarity generates the common good, which allows for the shared well-being of all parts of society in the national sphere and of all societies internationally. All of this is governed by the principle of true, just, free and loving action, that is, founded on charity, which is the form of love that distinguishes us as imagines Dei.
In social conditions such as those generated by a pandemic, it is more fruitful to reverse this process, since the standard direction goes from the individual to society, while in the pandemic phase it is necessary to make the individual understand what he can do to be truly useful to the welfare of his surroundings. Th erefore, it is not important for the individual to underestimate or overestimate the virus, but to act in such a way that with his contribution it is possible to support and rebuild the society in which he lives. Th e reversal of the scheme thus leads the individual to the understanding that the most important objective is the well-being of all societies, which with the common good they share allows all parts of society to be subsidiary to one another; having established the relationship of subsidiarity, it will be easier to be in solidarity with one's neighbours, since every relationship of solidarity is supported by mutual social help; every society, thus composed of individuals who recognise their importance in it, can fi nd shared practices of action and every eff ort made to fi ght the virus will have the support of its members, managing proportionally the public good and private spaces: Wellbeing of all societies  common good  subsidiarity  solidarity  dignity (of all societies) Th is inversion fi nds support from what the WHO states in the document on ethics in the pandemic, because: preparedness planning for an infl uenza pandemic involves balancing potentially confl icting individual and community interests. In emergencies, the enjoyment of individual human rights and civil liberties may have to be limited in the public interest. However, eff orts to protect individual rights should be part of any policy. Measures that limit individual rights and civil liberties must be necessary, reasonable, proportional, equitable, non-discriminatory, and in full compliance with national and international laws. 14 Th is perspective opens the way to the third step of our proposal, that of restoring hope and resuming life.
Step III. Once the strategy of approaching the human being in the pandemic has been established, being managed between the necessity of preserving his freedom and guiding him in the acceptance of eff orts aimed at the common welfare, it is necessary already in the pandemic phase to grant the individual the possibilities to hope for restarting life and to prepare the conditions for a return to pre-pandemic life. Th is process consists primarily of fi ve progressive steps: social awareness, right 11 2021 to health, understanding despair, assessing resilience, and encouraging development.
In the fi rst phase, that of the development of social awareness, each individual must know what strategies can be used to contain the spread of the virus and understand his role in them. Th is is a programmatic phase, in which processes of sharing and mutual aid are established between individuals and the rest of society, in the belief that a society must survive the pandemic event and needs the cooperation of all its members.
In the second phase, that of the right to health, it must be shown that the main objective of a pandemic health response is to heal everyone. Th is healing process involves respecting, protecting, and realising the health of each individual. A society is only safe if all individuals in that society are safe. Th ere is no interest in a particular social group; the goal is the healing of every individual, through a subsidiary and solidary process to which the rest of the social partners are called to contribute. Th is mechanism is not only national, but also international, with individual nations assuming the role of 'individuals' who have the right to health and to be fully healed. Th is is even more necessary because of the very defi nition of a pandemic and because the globalised world no longer has clear boundaries between nations. 15 Th e third phase, that of the awareness of despair, is probably the most important and decisive phase. It has to do with hope, an 'ethical method' through which we have the possibility to understand ourselves and others, both in the present and in the future. It allows us to 'fi nd ourselves again' . 16 An easy objection that could be made in this regard derives from the observation of our daily life in the pandemic era: with the continuous lockdowns we are deprived of any freedom and, in the name of the health emergency, all we can hope for is to fi nd food and drugs available and good weather to take a nice walk. In this framework, added to the daily dose of uncertainty about the progress of the pandemic, possessing hope to the extent presented here is not easy to achieve. As it is driven precisely by uncertainty, to some extent hope is not 'hopeful' . Formally, we could say that 1. S desires that p.
2. S believes that p is possible. 3. S is not certain that p. An individual who hopes that something will happen, in this case that the pandemic will end and we can return to pre-Covid normality possesses a belief that this event can indeed occur. However, since this event possesses a certain degree of uncertainty -one does not know when the pandemic will end -it automatically invalidates the whole process of having hope and acting accordingly. In order to make hope possible a fourth factor is introduced, we must make hope 'hopeful': 4. S believes that the corresponding determining factor is good.
Th e individual must become aware that the introduction of the determining factor, that is, the computation of actions that make possible the mitigation and progressive elimination of the pandemic, is decisive if society is to cope with the pandemic crisis. Only in this way, with a hope 'that hopes' and with an individual who is aware that everything he is suff ering and that seems limiting his freedom is instead fundamental, the process of personal coping can be said to be satisfactory. By turning his insecurities into awareness, the individual will have no problem taking care and being taken care of, because he will have realised the importance of his thoughts and actions towards the progress of society against the pandemic. In this way we can enter the fi ft h phase, that of the evaluation of resilience, in this case of the capacity that a society possesses to recover from the damage suff ered by the pandemic. In the aftermath, the same individuals will fi nd themselves almost stunned by the possibility of resuming daily social actions and, for this reason, it will be necessary to evaluate with great care the ways in which they will return to life. Connected to this, there is also the need to check for possible post-traumatic stress, typical of all the 'less human' moments in history, which recur with lower frequency and interrupt the normal course of our lives. Clearly, this the sixth phase, we need to foment development. Th is seems obvious and self-evident in the direction of continuous progress, but here it has a rather diff erent meaning. It may happen, in fact, that some individuals, encouraged and put in front of the possibilities of contributing to the common good of their society, are unable to imagine a positive solution. We are in the scenario of 'What if...?' Stuck between 'non-hoping' hope and fear of the recursiveness of the 'new' present, the individual will not be able to free himself from the duality of overestimation/ underestimation of the virus. Th erefore, he must be motivated even more strongly by highlighting the positive results of the attitude of 'hopeful hoping' .

Appendix 1 -Highlights of the paper proposal
Th ree-steps strategy:  Step 1: recognise false fl ags o Problem 1: human response to pandemic: overestimation or underestimation of the risk. o Solution 1: fi nd a via media through which the focus is not on the risk, but on individuals.  Step 2: fi nd a via media of ethical concordia o Problem 1: evaluation of lockdowns on individual and social well-beings. o Solution 1: recognising the coping of individuals and of societies: from social to personal. o Solution 2: reversing the Christian Social Ethics scheme on the link individualsociety. Classic: Dignity (of all individuals)  solidarity  subsidiarity  common good  wellbeing (of all societies) Reverse: Wellbeing of all societies  common good  subsidiarity  solidarity  dignity (of all societies)  Step 3: restore hope and resuming life conditions o Problem 1: how to come back to a pre-pandemic lifestyle. o Solution 1: restore hope and resuming life in fi ve progressive phases. Phase 1: Social awareness in individuals. Phase 2: Right to heal everyone. Phase 3: From despair to 'hopeful' hope. Phase 4: Restore life and evaluate resilience (individual and social). Phase 5: Elaborate worst-case scenarios ('What if…?') to be evaluated. ***