In the context of a pandemic, “first responders” are those who take the earliest action on behalf of others in medical distress — nurses, doctors, EMTs, police, firefighters, etc. They are skilled and brave, willing to risk their own health, physical and emotional. They are heroes in the truest sense.
But there is another sense of “first response” relevant to a pandemic such as ours, one that helps gauge our understanding of the role of production in human life. This sense of “first response” pertains to our answer to the question, How do we defend against the physical threat of a novel virus like SARS-CoV-2?
To evaluate that response, consider what a genuine solution to the pandemic involves, one that minimizes the number of fatalities and serious illnesses over time. For one, there must be a widespread understanding and communication of the nature of viruses in general, their general properties and behavior. There must be an understanding of the nature of this virus in particular, its similarities to and differences from others. There must be research into diagnostic tests, vaccines, and antivirals — new or existing — to discover which could mitigate the effects of the disease. There must be mass production of all tests, vaccines, and antivirals ultimately deemed to be effective, and then global distribution and administering of each. There must be rapid logistical analyses and organizational approaches to address the most urgent needs. There must be enormous increases in production of existing types of medical supplies (like personal protective equipment) and life-saving machines (like ventilators), but also rapid prototyping, testing, and production of innovative variations on those supplies and equipment (like new masks and simpler, less-expensive ventilators). There must be nearly overnight expansions of the number of hospital and ICU beds. There must be accelerated training and staffing of professionals so that they can be available when and where required. There must be national and global movements of myriad goods and services — via cars, vans, trains, ships, airplanes — to precise locations and on time. There must be computer hardware and software to accommodate expanded communications among a quarantined citizenry and workforce. There must be a variety of financial services to ensure that funds are accumulated, managed, and accessible where needed to support all of this activity. This is not an exhaustive list. Think of all the people involved in such efforts. Think of the skill, risk, and toil that they embody.
Of course, there are also the political leaders, local and national, who must understand and implement the complex legal issues that are unique to emergencies. And the hundreds of millions of private citizens globally who transform their lives and suffer the pain, personal and professional, of doing their part to mitigate the spread and buy time for all this other work. Both roles are worthy of great praise.
But both are also primarily supportive, and neither ultimately provides the answer. The only answer, for this or any human problem, is the productive thought and action which successfully yields the goods and services needed. So perhaps our “first response” at the beginning of any crisis should be to ask, How do we produce our way out of this? And along with this to ask, How do we therefore enable, support, liberate, encourage, and reward the many who willingly engage in that production?
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