The article by Yehoshua Socol, Moshe Yanovskiy, and Yair Shaki “Judeo-Christian Analysis of the COVID-19 Crisis and Its Management” has been published in the University of Valladolid Journal of the Sociology and Theory of Religion last month. (to cite: Socol, Yehoshua, Yanovskiy Moshe & Shaki Yair Y. 2023. “Judeo-Christian Analysis of the COVID-19 Crisis and Its Management”, Journal of the Sociology and Theory of Religion, 15 (2023): 131-154).

The present coronavirus crisis caused major worldwide disruption. Numerous experts admit now that crisis management was far from optimal from the very beginning. In the paper, we first digest the available information on the crisis and its management. We then list factors that led to the chosen way of crisis management. Afterward, we question whether religious leaders could have gained enough information for them not to have supported lockdowns, etc. back in March 2020. In our opinion, they could have if they would have addressed trustworthy experts with a list of reasonable professional questions. We then analyze the question if hypothetical coercive measures are justified in the case when they are effective in decreasing the overall mortality but cause the death of several people. Our conclusion is that such measures are not justified ethically, and implementing emergency powers is justified only in the case of war. Finally, we formulate several important problems highlighted by COVID-19 to be discussed in the future.

The reader is highly recommended to compare this paper to the prominent libertarian Scholar Walter Block article “A Libertarian Analysis of the COVID-19 Pandemic” penned and published in 2020 on a way how to approach the intellectual challenge of the pandemic and how to assess the Government’s response.

Few of our papers relevant to the issue of assessment of Government response to the virus pandemic:

(1) COVID-19 Library. Filling the Gaps
(2) Are lockdowns effective in managing pandemics? (journal Int. J. Environ. Research & Public Health
(3) supplemental to (1) Coercive Policies and Some Reactions to the Coercion in the Time of COVID-19 Pandemic