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> There has been zero such enforcement this time around. Totally false. > Public health powers are old, precedented and powerful. They are barely being used h

• wwweston 6y ago
  > Barely? Barely?! The fact that you're linking to news coverage featuring numbers in the... dozens makes it seem like "barely" is justifiable in the context of populations of millions. (It's certainly arguable that outside distanced activities shouldn't be the front lines of enforcement, but once you're infected you really are a risk to not even just any individual you happen by but anyone down the chain of infection.) > Trillions of dollars of economic damages. And if you assume that the damages came primarily from civil actions, then I guess that'd make sense. The reality is that there was never an option to avoid economic damages once the epidemic was uncontained. The bulk of the impacts come from the threat of the illness itself. Where most people are avoiding economic and social activities, it's not because they're forced into it, it's because they regard the personal or social risk to be significant. Lift all restrictions and only some margin of people will dive back in and even many of those will do so selectively. The major thing that civil actions do is coordinate the possibility of effective healthy mitigations. > Millions of lives will be lost due to the prioritization of the COVID over all else. Probably not from economic impacts: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/09/090928172530.htm https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/09/090928172530.h... https://www.history.com/news/great-depression-economy-life-expectancy https://www.history.com/news/great-depression-economy-life-e... It is true that severe covid cases take up a lot of resources in the medical system and that could cost lives, but that's an argument for mitigating measures. > My children can’t go to school. I might be persuaded based on enough further commentary that it's crucial that your children get influences forming their critical thinking skills from outside the home, but I certainly wouldn't assume it on the basis of a single comment.
  • zaroth 6y ago
    The goalposts just moved so far we’re not even on the same field. >> In 1918, several American cities jailed people breaking quarantine or otherwise putting public health at risk. And in 2020, several American cities did exactly the same. The link was my citation. Aside from millions of dollars in fines, and hundreds of thousands of small businesses forced shut to the point of financial ruin, yes, people have also been arrested. >> Public health powers are old, precedented and powerful. They are barely being used here. Now, the question wasn’t the necessity of the response, or the appropriateness of the response or even the effectiveness of the response. My incredulity was simply with the characterization of the magnitude of the public health response. The magnitude of the public health response is unprecedentedly and undeniably massive. To say public health powers are barely being applied is wrong, but also unfair to all those who have been directly impacted. Your opinion that people would be fearful enough of COVID that they wouldn’t have gone out anyway is highly speculative, belied by the data, but also besides the point. I think your concluding paragraph is entirely inappropriate and against site guidelines. I suggest you delete it. More so, it’s just in bad taste. Two weeks ago an 11 year old shot themselves on a Zoom call. It’s just one of the most grievous examples of the mental health impact of school shutdowns, but the overall mental health of school age children has been broadly effected.
    • reissbaker 6y ago
      > And in 2020, several American cities did exactly the same. Did they? In 1918, people were arrested for leaving their homes without masks on, regardless of whether they were known to be infected. In 1918 San Francisco, people were shot for leaving their homes without masks. A few people being arrested in 2020 for much more serious behavior — breaking quarantine while knowingly infected with COVID — is a pretty far cry from that. That's not to say nothing happened; obviously there were lockdowns, and private businesses were forced to close or reduce occupancy for varying amounts of time depending on the state governments. But individual private citizens were extremely lightly policed in comparison.
      • zaroth 6y ago
        People were not shot for leaving their homes without masks. People were shot (innocent bystanders, in one case) during brawls that ensued after being confronted for not wearing masks. I don't know if anyone died from those altercations in 1918, but at least one similar event unfolded in 2020 where a 73 year old man was shot and killed by police; https://www.cp24.com/news/fatal-police-involved-shooting-started-with-assault-call-over-mask-at-ontario-grocery-store-opp-1.5025475 https://www.cp24.com/news/fatal-police-involved-shooting-sta...