The raging cultural debate over COVID-19 befuddles many medical scientists and public health officials who believe their data alone should be responsible for driving health policies and instilling public confidence.
Though the emerging medical data generally point the same way, social and policy responses are vastly different across communities. Some open schools and make masks a matter of choice, while other locales enforce school closures and mandate masks.
Similarly, although a few vaccines have proven 95% effective in reducing transmission, only 60% of people surveyed by the Pew Research Center this month said they will take the vaccine. What undergirds these disconnected responses?
There are two issues at play here. Some individuals genuinely question the validity of the biomedical research. Their queries are beyond the scope of this piece. Others, however, accept the science but debate the application of the data to their own lives and communities. Perhaps religious and community leaders can frame the dialogue needed to bridge the divide and bring about better collective agreement in our society.
We rely on science to answer the “what” questions that explain the natural workings of the world around us. Yet, science does not itself offer values to guide the decisions based on the evidence gathered. These values are derived from external sources and help guide science’s application.
While there is no universally held set of values, much of the world’s population turns to religion for guidance, and religion can help us deal with the COVID-19 crisis as well. Religion can take the form of organized institutions or personal, private belief systems. Everyone depends on core values to guide their morals and decision-making. Religion is one such source of values.
Why, then, during this unprecedented pandemic have religious leaders not been included in the public policy conversations? The resulting silence is deafening, especially when we reflect that a higher being has guided the faithful through so much of human history despite repeated challenges.
Faith in science has understandably gained leverage, especially as profoundly important technologies change the world around us. But opening elementary schools during a pandemic is not just about the hard science of the COVID-19 spread. Surgeon General Jerome Adams has told us that many people are dying from the social consequences of the virus along with those who are dying from the physical infectivity of the virus itself.
Of course, many of today’s public health measures are justified to avoid a greater loss of life over our tragic baseline, but where is the respectful acknowledgment of the price we all pay? Deaths of despair will continue growing, and decisions respecting community values could help navigate a medically acceptable middle ground that optimally serves all at-risk groups. We must have constructive discussions around the translation of scientific observations into values-driven policies.
Pope John Paul II offered that “science can purify religion from error and superstition; religion can purify science from idolatry and false absolutes.” He went on, “Each can draw the other into a wider world, a world in which both can flourish.” So, it is odd that religious voices have been excluded from the policy conversations and that religious life has been marginalized, as demonstrated in New York, where rules have severely restricted religious assembly while allowing “essential” liquor stores to function at higher capacities. The result was an awkward Supreme Court ruling overturning the decision.
If we wish to mitigate the rising discontent against COVID-19 shutdown measures, we should seek an approach that respects the values that many nonscientists hold dearly. After all, unlike science, faith powerfully addresses “why” questions that drive ethical decision-making. These deeper debates are informed by our values. Conspiracy theories are a symptom among those who feel their ethics are being ignored. The antidote is the trust built when we speak openly and honestly with each other.
Aristotle argued that the mark of an educated person is the ability to entertain an idea without accepting it. Last Monday, we hosted a forum of religious leaders and scholars who all hold professional scientific degrees. The physicians, ethicists, geneticists, and epidemiologists spoke in a Cura Foundation webinar co-hosted by the Vatican’s Pontifical Council for Culture and supported by the John Templeton Foundation. Tyler VanderWeele, Rabbi Edward Reichman, Aasim Padela, and the Rev. Kevin FitzGerald argued that scientists and religious leaders should be dialoguing about public health approaches and jointly informing the decisions of our elected leadership. Surprisingly, none of our panelists had been approached by policymakers regarding public health decisions.
This is not just about making the public enthusiastic endorsers of masks or vaccines. Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks, who recently died, argued that optimism and hope are not the same. Optimism is the belief that the world is changing for the better, while hope is the belief that, together, we can make the world better.
Let us use science and faith and fight our common enemy, COVID-19, together.
Mehmet Oz, M.D., is an attending surgeon at New York Presbyterian Hospital. Robin Smith, M.D., is president and chairman of the Board Cura Foundation.
