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These policies in California are analogous to abstinence-only sex education. Everyone knows California's policies are unrealistic -- people are going to gather

These policies in California are analogous to abstinence-only sex education. Everyone knows California's policies are unrealistic -- people are going to gather. Instead of telling people how to do it safely, and how to minimize risk, the government is taking the impossible approach of telling people not to do it at all, and taking away venues where it is relatively low-risk to do so. Even though the government cannot ban highly risky gatherings in private homes (because law enforcement is not on board with that), it has decided to ban lower-risk gatherings such as outdoor dining anyway. This is not a rational scientific approach, but rather an attempt to stick to unrealistic abstinence-only messaging. That attempt to stay on message is costing people their jobs and their businesses despite having little public health benefit. When people see public health orders being unrealistic and inconsistent, they stop respecting them.

thaumasiotes 6y ago
> Even though the government cannot ban highly risky gatherings in private homes (because law enforcement is not on board with that) It's also explicitly protected by the first amendment.
stryker7001 6y ago
The government has told people exactly what to do (stay away from large groups, don't have large gatherings for thanksgiving etc). People didn’t listen. Thats why they had to take the next step. It sounds like an opportunity to educate yourself about COVID.
- cwhiz 6y ago
  As badly as people seem to want an authoritarian dictatorship, this is still a free country. If I want to gather with my friends, I will. Have you ever considered that people aren’t listening precisely because they have educated themselves on covid?
  - DiogenesKynikos 6y ago
    That's a very antisocial attitude to take. Societies can't deal with crises like pandemics if enough people take that attitude, and the result will be large numbers of avoidable deaths.
    - cwhiz 6y ago
      In March and April we didn't know the risks, and we didn't know who was at risk. Now, we have the data, and we do know. If you are in a high risk category, or just generally concerned, you should isolate. I wear a mask in public, and that's about all that I think is legally reasonable.
      - supercanuck 6y ago
        I take it back
        cwhiz 6y ago
        Okay. I hope this comment made you feel better in some way.
        supercanuck 6y ago
        Whatever, do what you want, just wear a mask, please
DiogenesKynikos 6y ago
> Everyone knows California's policies are unrealistic -- people are going to gather. Governments can drastically reduce contacts between people, and doing so reverses the growth of the epidemic. This has been done in many countries now. The most obvious example is China, which essentially eradicated the virus months ago, but even European countries have had success with lockdowns. For example, take a look at the graph of new cases in France: [1]. Case numbers were growing exponentially in October. The French government implemented a lockdown on 30 October. About one week later, the number of new cases began to rapidly decline. A recent relaxation in the lockdown (beginning 1 December) has caused the decline to stop, and new case numbers are now approximately constant at 20% of peak level of a month ago. For the US, an equivalent effect would be reducing new case numbers from 200k/day now to 40k/day in one month. The US could do this, and it would save hundreds of thousands of lives over the next few months. 1. https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/france/#graph-cases-daily https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/france/#gr...
- disgruntledphd2 6y ago
  Just to note, even though I agree with you, the situation in the US is more analagous to the EU locking down right across the board for a month. That would be a lot trickier to make happen, especially by unanimity. But yeah, this is theoretically (although not really politically) possible for the US right now.
- chronofar 6y ago
  > Governments can drastically reduce contacts between people, and doing so reverses the growth of the epidemic. But doing so has costs and epidemiology is not, nor should it be, the only consideration. The US could enforce speed limits of 25 mph everywhere and effectively eradicate motor vehicle deaths. Could enforce limits on sugar intake and reduce heart disease deaths. But of course these seem fairly absurd propositions. The fervor of COVID reporting makes such measures seem reasonable. It reminds me a bit of Bostrom’s vulnerable world hypothesis, in which he imagines scenarios could arise (in that case due to technological progress) where the only way to prevent a rogue bad actor from accomplishing mass destruction is “turn-key totalitarianism” where freedoms are subsumed to allow the government to address the threat. And there are situations where this seems the only pragmatic response, for instance if technology was discovered that allowed an individual to easily and cheaply produce an explosion akin to a nuclear weapon. But COVID does not seem such a scenario to many. And yet what many others are asking for here is turn-key totalitarianism. Is that really favorable here to more vulnerable populations being at higher risk? Do we really want to just maximize age expectancy and reduce deaths as a guiding function of society? I don’t think so, but that is the implicit claim within, and it's why it's hard to enact in practice.

thaumasiotes 6y ago

> Even though the government cannot ban highly risky gatherings in private homes (because law enforcement is not on board with that) It's also explicitly protected by the first amendment.

stryker7001 6y ago

The government has told people exactly what to do (stay away from large groups, don't have large gatherings for thanksgiving etc). People didn’t listen. Thats why they had to take the next step. It sounds like an opportunity to educate yourself about COVID.

cwhiz 6y ago
As badly as people seem to want an authoritarian dictatorship, this is still a free country. If I want to gather with my friends, I will. Have you ever considered that people aren’t listening precisely because they have educated themselves on covid?
- DiogenesKynikos 6y ago
  That's a very antisocial attitude to take. Societies can't deal with crises like pandemics if enough people take that attitude, and the result will be large numbers of avoidable deaths.
  - cwhiz 6y ago
    In March and April we didn't know the risks, and we didn't know who was at risk. Now, we have the data, and we do know. If you are in a high risk category, or just generally concerned, you should isolate. I wear a mask in public, and that's about all that I think is legally reasonable.
    - supercanuck 6y ago
      I take it back
      - cwhiz 6y ago
        Okay. I hope this comment made you feel better in some way.
        supercanuck 6y ago
        Whatever, do what you want, just wear a mask, please

DiogenesKynikos 6y ago

> Everyone knows California's policies are unrealistic -- people are going to gather. Governments can drastically reduce contacts between people, and doing so reverses the growth of the epidemic. This has been done in many countries now. The most obvious example is China, which essentially eradicated the virus months ago, but even European countries have had success with lockdowns. For example, take a look at the graph of new cases in France: [1]. Case numbers were growing exponentially in October. The French government implemented a lockdown on 30 October. About one week later, the number of new cases began to rapidly decline. A recent relaxation in the lockdown (beginning 1 December) has caused the decline to stop, and new case numbers are now approximately constant at 20% of peak level of a month ago. For the US, an equivalent effect would be reducing new case numbers from 200k/day now to 40k/day in one month. The US could do this, and it would save hundreds of thousands of lives over the next few months. 1. https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/france/#graph-cases-daily https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/france/#gr...

disgruntledphd2 6y ago
Just to note, even though I agree with you, the situation in the US is more analagous to the EU locking down right across the board for a month. That would be a lot trickier to make happen, especially by unanimity. But yeah, this is theoretically (although not really politically) possible for the US right now.
chronofar 6y ago
> Governments can drastically reduce contacts between people, and doing so reverses the growth of the epidemic. But doing so has costs and epidemiology is not, nor should it be, the only consideration. The US could enforce speed limits of 25 mph everywhere and effectively eradicate motor vehicle deaths. Could enforce limits on sugar intake and reduce heart disease deaths. But of course these seem fairly absurd propositions. The fervor of COVID reporting makes such measures seem reasonable. It reminds me a bit of Bostrom’s vulnerable world hypothesis, in which he imagines scenarios could arise (in that case due to technological progress) where the only way to prevent a rogue bad actor from accomplishing mass destruction is “turn-key totalitarianism” where freedoms are subsumed to allow the government to address the threat. And there are situations where this seems the only pragmatic response, for instance if technology was discovered that allowed an individual to easily and cheaply produce an explosion akin to a nuclear weapon. But COVID does not seem such a scenario to many. And yet what many others are asking for here is turn-key totalitarianism. Is that really favorable here to more vulnerable populations being at higher risk? Do we really want to just maximize age expectancy and reduce deaths as a guiding function of society? I don’t think so, but that is the implicit claim within, and it's why it's hard to enact in practice.