Empathy does not preclude criticism. And she's a fictional character. She's not a real person. Empathy, kindness and other such attitudes are not a requirement, because she is lacking the extra dimension a person has. I at least am able to get into her head enough to understand the human impulses driving her selfish or destructive or unfeeling actions.

And to make this point about Egwene, of all people, is ridiculous. She is one of the least empathetic, most self-absorbed, most careless of how her actions or agenda hurt other people, most prone to petty judgments and dismissals of other people among the major characters of the series. Maybe Elayne comes close with her big picture focus, but she's very close to those with whom she forms personal relationships, which includes a very many people with whom she does not need to have more than a professional relationship, but reaches out anyway. Elayne shows more empathy for mere colleagues than Egwene for long-time friends who make special efforts to help or support her.

And that's your problem. You prioritize empathy to an absurd degree which is no better than sticking exclusively to some sort of objectivist logic and rationalistic calculation. You just lose your shit over the idea of people being called 'useful' regardless of the context, which has nothing to do with valuing them AS people, but rather assessing their participation in society. In other words, we can keep safe and protect the at-risk population with minimal societal disruption because old people and sick people ARE less useful. That's just a fact. It has nothing to do with their right to live, their rights under the law, or the obligations society has toward them. But if my grandmother is locked away from contact with anyone else, she would not be missed except in a personal sense. Her labor or participation in the in-person retail marketplace would not be missed.

You're the actual monster if you think someone's utility has ANYTHING to do with caring for them. The implication of your indignation over the use of the term, is that one can only care about useful people and that only useful people have rights, and that if some part of the population can be called useful, another part can be assumed to be "not useful" and therefore somehow less. THAT is the monstrous idea. Do you believe that "essential workers" are somehow better people or special or more deserving? That's all that useful is in my context - I was expanding the category of people permitted to function normally from just the essential, to include the useful as well. But you seem to think these mean castes of some kind in society, which can the disposed of or dismissed.

We pass on viruses all the time. It's how the world works. The Wuhan Flue does absolutely nothing to most people aside from some minor discomfort. If you don't want to catch the virus, protect yourself. Freedom means you can stay home, wear PPE, wash all you want, etc. There is nothing I can do to expose you to the virus without your acceptance of the risk that is not already a crime according to laws that were on the books long before the current hysteria over a threat of a minor illness they treat with bed rest and vitamins, while denying medical treatment to people with every other kind of problem.

I have empathy for all the people whose businesses are going under, who can't work and fall through the cracks of unemployment, but have to keep paying their taxes anyway. I have empathy for the cardiac and cancer patients who can't see a doctor, because the hospitals are keeping space open for the mythical surge of China virus patients (especially since they have no clue how to treat them anyway, as there is strong suspicion among the medical community that the ventilators were hastening their deaths). I have empathy for the new widower whose wife of 68 years died alone because COVID regulations prevented him from visiting her in the treatment unit to which she was transferred even though neither of them had the disease, and who could not even be with more than one of his several kids or any of their grandchildren to mourn her.

You're the one lacking empathy, whose cowardice and selfishness condemns everyone to the destruction of their lifestyles, probable impoverishment and the loss of social interaction and the onset of depression and anxiety for which they are prevented from receiving help or relief, because you're afraid of a cough that most people never notice they had.