A saying in Italian goes like this: “Quando c’è la salute, c’è tutto” (When there is health, there is everything). That is, everything that matters is there, as long as you are healthy.
Arguably, and strange as it may sound given the coronavirus pandemic, most people may have actually been (at least physically) very healthy in the last few weeks, and probably healthier than they would have been without the pandemic. The reason is clear: the lockdown measures either strongly recommended or enforced in most countries have kept most people physically distant from other people. As a result, the chances to catch any virus have dramatically dropped for most people.
But it has also become clear that the Italian saying is false, at least if understood literally. Most people’s health may have been secured, but at the price of missing out, at least for some time, on many of the things that matter.
No, when there is (physical) health, not everything that matters is there. It’s not easy to articulate the goods that have been totally sacrificed or drastically set back by the enforced or voluntary confinement, let alone compose a complete list, but I’ll try:
1) The freedom to move around, both in one’s surroundings and between cities or countries, whenever one wants and for whatever reason;
2) Face-to-face social interaction (with schoolmates, teachers, professors, colleagues, friends, relatives, lovers…) and the benefits (including, e.g. mental health) that usually come with face-to-face as opposed to virtual interactions (an important debate to be had here, by psychologists and philosophers, is precisely what the face-to-face benefit differential is);
3) The personal freedom usually afforded to parents by being able to rely on kindergartens and schools (as well as children’s freedom from parents!);
4) Any kind of work that cannot be done (or cannot be done well) from home, not to mention the very fact that many people have become unemployed;
5) Related to this, the overall economic wealth in many countries;
6) The possibility of many leisure activities, again including their many benefits;
7) Not least, a balanced relationship between the state and its citizens, where the state does not systematically present itself to law-abiding citizens in the sinister guise of policemen controlling their behavior.
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