Onkar Ghate on the Pandemic: The Ross Kaminsky Show

Onkar Ghate, ARI senior fellow and chief philosophy officer, recently appeared on The Ross Kaminsky Show — a popular show on Denver’s 630 KHOW radio. He was invited to discuss his white paper, “A Pro-Freedom Approach to Infectious Disease: Planning for the Next Pandemic,” which addresses the proper role of government during pandemics and the American response to the current Covid-19 crisis.

Ghate explains that he was motivated to write the paper by the profoundly mistaken approach to the coronavirus pandemic by federal and state governments. He argues that while there is a role for government in preparing for and combating infectious disease, that role is not to impose lockdowns, shut down businesses, and quarantine an entire population. Rather, argues Ghate, government’s proper role during a pandemic involving a dangerous disease is to test, isolate carriers of the virus, and trace potential carriers.

Among other questions, Ghate and Kaminsky discuss:

• What happens when people act irresponsibly and risk infecting others?
• Does quarantining individuals who carry a dangerous infectious disease violate their rights?
• What kind of legislation do we need to impose limits and provide guidelines to the government in the context of an infectious disease outbreak? And what about voluntary guidelines for the general population?
• What are some examples of countries that have handled the pandemic properly?

Listen to the interview here.