I think you can easily argue that what she did was not essential. I’m a runner, I ran a solo marathon on Patriot’s Day, and I agree it was not essential to my existence. Though I will often Say it is essential for me to run long.
We can also point out that it is safe for one person to go out and solo run (or sunbathe, or surf, or play basketball at the park), but it isn’t safe for groups to do the same thing. It surely wasn’t safe to host 25,000 runners for the Boston Marathon last Monday.
And there might be an argument that we have a moral responsibility to avoid solo actions that, were we in a group, would be troublesome and unsafe. But I’m not sure that does hold true. The performace of running isn’t what made the Boston need to be rescheduled: that was because of the crowd risk.
It was not dangerous. She wasn’t going to infect anyone else by running down the street. That’s just not how this thing works. You need to be in close proximity to the infected person, or touch surfaces they have shed virus onto AND then touch your mucous membranes. Someone needs to cough on or near you, and then you inhale the droplets that are coated in virus.
The runner under discussion is a CRNA - so she intubates people, which is one of the currently most dangerous medical procedures in the ENTIRE WORLD. I bet she has a pretty good grasp on the technicalities and risk stratification of going for a run.
