Against Procrustean Public Health | CU Experts

Overview

Abstract; In this chapter, we identify two ways in which Procrustean reasoning—which requires that everyone be treated identically regardless of their differences—has infected and hampered pandemic response. The first is Procrusteanism about public health restrictions, which wrongly holds that fairness requires imposing the same public health restrictions on everyone, and in particular imposing the same restrictions on vaccinated people as on those who are unvaccinated. The second is Procrusteanism about medical interventions, which wrongly holds that fairness requires providing everyone with the same treatment—for instance, the same type of vaccine—regardless of their individual risk. These mistakes have both been exacerbated by unwillingness to conduct clinical trials to compare different approaches to public health and medical intervention. Our observations focus on the COVID-19 pandemic, but apply to future public health responses as well, where similar issues are likely to recur.