It’s now six months since the lockdown began, and a second wave of the coronavirus may be upon us. We have learnt that in a crisis what makes the difference is not algorithms or protocols, but virtue and character
One of the things we have witnessed over the past months – clearer, perhaps, than for a generation – has been the virtues in full swing. At the start of the pandemic, when it became obvious that the excess deaths caused by Covid-19 were going to be alarmingly high, I was puzzled by the relative lack of comment in the popular media, or even in the academic press, about the virtues. Spinning around in my mind have been the words of Hillel the Elder: “If not now, when?”
Doctors and nurses and other healthcare professionals, suppressing their natural anxieties and fears, have been setting off each day to work under difficult conditions treating people who had the infection. To protect their families, some nurses left their homes and lived elsewhere. Many NHS workers have died from the virus, including a nursing colleague of mine: an expert in his field, a great friend to his colleagues and devoted to his family. And it wasn’t just the healthcare workers. Where would we all have been without the refuse collectors, the shop workers, the bus drivers and those who made deliveries to our doors? All of these people have shown courage, generosity, beneficence, kindness, to name just some of the virtues.