Because they're not a threat to society, have not been determined to be guilty, and throwing people in jail (only to bond out anyway a couple days later, in most cases - funneling more money to bondsmen) is a great way to (a) spread a pandemic and (b) waste money giving them what they want (shelter, food, healthcare, etc.)?
How does that stop the next pandemic any better than prison stops recidivism or new criminals? How can a billion people be held accountable for the actions of a few unelected researchers?
The pandemic showed that in a lot of countries government could just suspend basic human rights handing out house arrest to innocent people and get away with it.
Didn't murder or rob nobody and was serving a a bigger "prison sentence" for free.
The pandemic wasn't prevented and the goverement didn't get guillotined for locking up people and failing to achieve a justifiable goal.
The only people who can tell you the actual purpose of an action taken are the people who actually took that action. Everyone else can only speculate.
How curfews can slow the spread of a virus, I have no idea. If you want to slow a virus's spread, you do it by isolating people and preventing them from mingling. A curfew doesn't do that; it just forces them to mingle during a shorter number of hours in a day, which if anything helps the virus spread by increasing the density of people mingling. The allegation that it was just governments trying to look like they're doing something useful is not an unreasonable charge. Any idiot can tell you that preventing someone from going on a bike ride in the middle of the night in the middle of nowhere is not going to help stop a pandemic, but this is exactly what several governments did.
I guess I don't understand why more people aren't asking for a solution that allows them to sustain themselves and their families and also doesn't elevate the risk of spreading COVID-19. I don't get how "end the lockdown and let a bunch of people get sick" or "possibly starve homeless in the streets" became the only two possible options, and I don't get how anyone becomes a staunch advocate for either.
Correction: the virus hasn't done anything to anyone who wasn't already at risk. This is a downvote worthy perspective because it reflects the truth of the situation while countering the narrative from the media.
Grand gestures by politicians seeking re-election and an opportunity to assert their authority is shoving people into poverty and the largest mental health crisis we've ever seen.
In March, lockdowns and temporary restrictions were appropriate because we had no idea of what we were dealing with. I mean cover on, Ford was ready to manufacturer 50k ventilators!
We know who's at risk at this point. Locking down the healthy is not helping the unhealthy (by choice or by no fault of their own, doesn't matter, everyone deserves to live).
Instead of providing assistance to those most at risk, government officials have capitalized on the opportunity to expand their control over individuals not at risk.
We don't know if people that are contract covid obtain ANY immunity much less long lasting immunity. We rejected that strategy because even if it actually worked it would have cost 2 million lives in the US. After we burned 2 million corpses we might be dealing with a different strain that the rest of us aren't immune to and find ourselves back at square one.
Contemplating hugging strangers in hopes of spreading covid is contemplating negligent homicide.
I think it's fair to say Cause A is worth the risk of spreading the pandemic while Cause B is not. Especially when Cause A is linked to the murder and maiming of so many people while Cause B is a bunch of complainy-pants people complaining.
They're being flagrantly irresponsible. If nothing else, messaging and public trust are key parts of any epidemic response. Right now, a conservative might look at this letter and come away with the impression that this is a case of quarantine for thee but not for me. An opinion that wouldn't be unjustified: can you imagine them doing the same thing to provide cover for abortion protests? The right to religious gatherings? It burns goodwill and trust, making significant public health interventions harder both now and in the future.
The reason, of course, is that ignoring the potential for disease transmission in these protests is necessary to stay in the good graces of woke circles.
That's how it should work. Excellent example. Automobile deaths account for over 3000 deaths per day, far in excess of what covid19 has or will do.
Given that information, it seems that you would recommend people "shut up and stay inside" due to the "risk to other people". This is not rational.
Giving up everyone's freedom and accepting simple authoritarian solutions a few vocal people want is not a good approach. Punishing perfectly healthy people by threat of imprisonment as a result of the absence of planning by the nation's healthcare and government is not a reasonable response.
I don't think any authorities have taken these decisions flippantly and if you have seen the amount of hate fired specifically towards them and their families I challenge your assumption that they have no skin in the game.
Is it a well educated bet based on science? Yes. No one is saying it is proven to be successful, no one has had a pandemic or a virus this dangerous replicate itself globally in an incredibly short period of time. This isn't a panacea it's survival mode. We've been in a pretty unknown unprecedented state since February with some pretty bad information coming from the Feds to sow doubt into the equation.
What is your solution given the benefit of hindsight? Go the Texas approach? If you look at death per capita in CA it's highest in the red counties that didn't do any lockdowns and have the lowest population density. Meanwhile the second most dense city in North America (SF) has an incredibly low rate of mortality and infection with some pretty tough measures in place.
So I don't think a single person is to blame for the COVID-19 pandemic. I think it was bad (and maybe even happened at all!) because of a systemic failure of the scientific medical community. Now, if you believed a single person or a small group of persons where to blame for it, you don't think they should be executed? I think it's a valid position to have. It's not mine, but I wouldn't censor it or call it contentious. I'm willing to personally kill someone for way less than that. I just don't think the someone to blame for the pandemic exists, but if I did yeah I would think they deserve to die.
I don’t see it really as punishment, just prioritization of public funds which is normal when it comes to socialized healthcare.
The virus may be a moving target, but all governments have shown that they are willing to fund public safety against infection. If circumstances change, we may have to return to free and widespread testing, but the hope is that vaccination can drive the active infection rate to 0 which is something that all our measures for the past year have been unable to do.
Take a step back and think critically about what you are saying and what kind of system you are building. You are building a system of enslavement. You will not be able to go anywhere or do anything except without the arbitrary permission from authorities who don’t care about you.
This pandemic is nowhere near that dangerous to justify this. Where do you draw the line? When you can’t shop in the grocery store unless you accept public health treatments without question? When they’ve dehumanized people enough that you tolerate surveilling them in those quarantine “hotels” “until they choose to comply with public health safety laws?”
The slope is slippery and you are sliding into hell. Time to stop being tribal or partisan about sticking it to the “anti vaxers” and start thinking about the system that is being built.
Ensuring the cause of the pandemic is understood and steps have been taken to greatly reduce the likely hood of it happening again is the opposite of deranged. Failing to do so is in fact deranged.
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