The COVID Avenger Has Left The Commonwealth

By New York Times Bestselling Author Michael Levin

Let me introduce you to a secret friend, who styles himself the COVID Avenger.

He’s a crafty chap, given to whispering in my ear and telling me what he cannot say in polite company.

He doesn’t deny the reality of the novel coronavirus, but he does not believe that things were handled the right way.

The COVID Avenger believes that the country overcorrected and did not consider the costs of shutting down the economy, the public schools, the universities, and so on for such a long period of time.

If he were to speak up, the COVID Avenger would tell you that we failed to consider the mental health costs associated with essentially locking adults and children in their homes for two months.

Or the emotional cost of losing one’s livelihood, one’s business, one’s ability to attend a religious service, or simply the ability to go out and have a beer with one’s friends.

The COVID Avenger wishes that we had taken into consideration the certain rise in suicidality, domestic violence, addiction, and depression that this shutdown has entailed.

He would argue that there is a cost-benefit analysis to everything in life, from buying aspirin at the drugstore to getting behind the wheel of a car.

He would make the libertarian argument that individuals ought to be able to make decisions for themselves, instead of being subjected to diktats imposed by elected officials who may never have read the Constitution since grade school.

The COVID Avenger would also express his regrets about the politicization of the handling of the pandemic, that state governors and mayors have acted out of fear, ignorance, and the question of how things will play politically instead of recognizing that we are a nation of laws and not Platonic guardians.

He is also unhappy with the politicization of the news coverage of the pandemic, because it was more about demonizing one party or the other and less about informing the citizenry of what was really going on.

The COVID Avenger wishes no one ill and certainly would not want to have seen one more person sicken or die because of his thinking.

On the other hand, he deeply regrets the fact that, at least in his own state, three out of five deaths took place in nursing homes and other facilities for the elderly, while the young and healthy were restrained from living their lives or pursuing their livelihoods.

The COVID Avenger recognizes that his positions are not politically correct, and that most people may disagree with him.

At the same time, the COVID Avenger would remind his interlocutors that this is still a free country where people may express their opinions, however unpopular.

The COVID Avenger has not taken to the streets to express these views.

Nor has he looted Apple stores to make a dubious point about the appropriate way to respond to a grievous civil wrong.

If he were to go on Twitter, which he has not, he would post things like, “Kiss me, I’m asymptomatic.”

Or “COVID = complete violation of democracy.”

Or “Let my people go.”

If you want to find the COVID Avenger, he has left the restrictive Commonwealth of Massachusetts for the more open-minded vistas of the Granite State, New Hampshire, where gyms and yoga studios are free to open and where people go about their business in ways that are far less violative of civil liberties than in his home state.

I would never say any of the things that the COVID Avenger says.

I would never want to offend people with such non-mainstream views.

But if you would like me to pass him a message, you know where to find me.