I would like to think it's possible to protest lockdowns and their economic destruction while also taking the virus seriously and observing social distancing and wearing masks.
What would be a reason to protest lockdowns?
For many it's a matter of principle. For others who are literally having to stand in food lines for the first time ever and are unable to pay rent or write paychecks, it's a matter of survival.
If we can't take care of each other at a time of emergency shame on us. I mean us the people not the government.
https://twitter.com/raleighpolice/status/1250111779574894594
(No qualifications about distancing)
I mean, isn't that the definition of rights? If the government can take away fundamental rights via executive power, then it is called having a penal system. We all live in a state of exception, freedom is always conditioned, during a pandemic or otherwise. There is no principled libertarian stance that is violated now but not status quo ante.
Home confinement must be voluntary, or it is a major fundamental infringement upon basic human rights.
I assume you wouldn’t tolerate the government shutting down or mass censoring the media/publishing during an emergency?
Everyone should be staying home. No one should be using force to ensure that.
Can you be specific? No one is preventing you from visiting a friend or going to a private residence...
> Home confinement must be voluntary
Is it not?
> Everyone should be staying home. No one should be using force to ensure that.
Who is using force to ensure people stay home?
I'm really shocked at the difference in the way the lockdowns are perceived by some people. I mean, just read the text of your local order. Here's the one for California, for example: https://covid19.ca.gov/stay-home-except-for-essential-needs/
Now... read through that and tell me exactly which provisions constitute a "Human right violation" to you?
Clearly forcing many businesses to shut down is restricting the right to work, and forcing schools to shut down or go online restricts the right to education.
Outside of individual states, the travel bans being instituted around the world are definitely restrictions on freedom of movement.
Disclaimer: I don't live in the US and the lockdowns in my country were (and to some degree still are) far more draconian than this. However, I can still see why people in the US are upset about what their government has required of them.
Which counties? Are there any people who have been prevented from visiting friends, or prosecuted for doing so?
I mean, I'm seeing a whole lot of screaming about Freedom here and very little evidence of any such abridgement.
https://www.sccgov.org/sites/covid19/Pages/order-health-offi...
And sorry, I missed the news I guess. What's the cite for people who have been threatened with fines or (!!) prison for visiting friends?
You really don't think you're making making a bit much of this?
No-one is "confined". Even in Washington state, which has some of the more strict rules in place, says "You are perfectly allowed to go outside, and do the things you need to do, but practice common sense and public health best practices when you do".
> No one should be using force to ensure that.
Where has force been applied to keep people in their homes?
https://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/490445-lou...
These are not isolated incidents. To be clear, I don’t agree with their actions. I also don’t agree that what they were doing should be illegal.
You can claim that isn't coercion because you don't have to stay in your home and could aimlessly walk outside, but to most people, it feels like coercion. After all, private businesses and individuals can make their own voluntary risk assessment about staying open, and public lands belong well, to the public who front the taxes to support them.
Absolutely hell no. They were given the chance and repeatedly made the wrong "risk assessment" resulting in deaths.
Those that are too scared to go outside can self isolate per their own risk assessment. But curtailing others’ freedom due to their own fears is not OK.
Your statement, labeling others’ choices as the wrong risk assessment, feels very authoritarian to me. By that logic we should ban anything that carries a nonzero possibility of death, whether it is skiing or biking or alcohol.
> For healthy people under 50
This is not their choice: in the US you have completely unnecessary businesses forcing people with conditions, elderly people, etc. that could be transacted entirely online forcing people to "go to work or get fired and we will refuse any unemployment claim because you decided to no-show", "you are not allowed to wear masks because you will scare customers, even if you buy masks yourself", -type of bullshit. It does not help that unemployment is also rather broken or overloaded and people are not getting paid that need it the most.
This is unacceptable. And yes, you can argue that the individuals for this can eventually win in court, but they are also generally from populations where knowing how to navigate the complexity of the legal system is rare.
This comparison would be a lot better if certain portions of the US were not under situations where they are stuck between a rock and a hard place with regard to work availability, workers' rights, etc.
> But curtailing others’ freedom due to their own fears is not OK.
It's not only fears of individuals, but also a rate limited healthcare system. The people making the risk assessment as an individual to go out and gather should also consider "you no longer have access to medical care" as part of the risk assessment.
Reasons would be: 1) Don't you dare tell me protests are "non-essential" activities (see Raleigh PD) 2) Let people decide if they want to work. People are already quite cautious at this point. (I say this with some hesitation, which is one part of why I didn't go)
There are important issues of health, economy, and government power grab. Most people on all sides of the issue seem to pick only one or two.
Also, I'm skeptical of whether the US has the appropriate culture to handle such a thing.
COVID-19 Is Likely to Lead to an Increase in Suicides: https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/covid-19-i...
The Untold Toll — The Pandemic’s Effects on Patients without Covid-19: https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMms2009984
Even if we open back up, we should still keep the elderly/at-risk populations as quarantined as possible. Practice social distancing. Not hold large festivals/gatherings/etc until we get a vaccine or achieve herd immunity.
I dont know whether it is true statistically, nor whether it will end up being food from them, but that is what people from Sweden argue.
> and is instituting more and more aspects of a lockdown
Like what? There haven't been any new restrictions for weeks.
They didn't quantify the increase, but said Trump's warnings of "suicides by the thousands" "may be exaggerated".
So that's a couple days of COVID-19 deaths in the US.
> The Untold Toll — The Pandemic’s Effects on Patients without Covid-19
This explicitly says that the pandemic should have no effect on emergency admissions.
The others (cancer sufferers who are avoiding hospitals etc) are the people most likely to die because of a reduction in social distancing.
> Because the cure maybe worse using draconian lockdowns instead of just social distancing like Sweden
Sweden's death rate is nearly 3 times that of Denmark, 4 times that of Norway, and nearly 10 times that of Finland. Since late April it has had to reverse its loose policies and start introducing bans similar to elsewhere[1].
[1] https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/swedish-coronav...
Citation does not support your claim. The reference you give was from April 17th (last friday), and references the barring of visits to nursing homes on April 1st, but no additional bans since that time.
And the other restrictions were reducing the size of allowed gatherings (500 to 50) and importantly for this discussion introduced sanctions for non-compliance.
The governor of VA did exactly that.
He got hit with a massive protest back in January(?) when it looked like he was gonna sign some gun related legislation. He signed a nearly identical bill recently while everyone was busy talking about Covid. Regardless of how you feel about the legislation I think it's a slimy move. I assume other state governors are doing the same things and just haven't heard about them yet.
I think a lot of the problem here is that people have been led to believe these "lockdowns" are hugely invasive, when they're really about as minimal as is possible. There are no police-enforced quarantines, as there have been in many nations. The definitions of "essential" businesses have been VERY liberally interpreted, to the extent that large numbers of routine office workers are still going to work every day.
What, exactly is the policy you think needs a protest to be enacted?
A plan for re-opening. There should be reasonable targets of X transmission rate, Y available hospital beds, X masks, etc. that we can aim for and achieve.
The lockdown here in Canada feels 10x more uncomfortable and hopeless than it needs to be because without a concrete plan for re-opening my mind extrapolates into "this will last forever, or 18-24 months for a vaccine".
Nobody is willing to discuss an acceptable number of infections and deaths that we can aim for, they just say things like "health/lives at any cost" which is terrifying as it implies "lockdown until vaccine".
Is that what you think the protesters were agitating for? That doesn't sound like the complaint upthread, either.
I think that's a great idea, by the way. I just don't think that such a policy would satisfy the people in question.
> Nobody is willing to discuss an acceptable number of infections and deaths that we can aim for
Alright, that's just silly. People, very serious policy people, are arguing about that stuff as we speak.
> they just say things like "health/lives at any cost"
Who is "they"? Who says this? That sounds like a strawman to me.
> Who is "they"? Who says this? That sounds like a strawman to me.
I can't find a single quote from Doug Ford or Justin Trudeau indicating what they think an acceptable infection/death rate is that would allow a partial re-open.
I can find plenty saying the opposite (although I understand, you can't necessarily take these quotes literally):
"I understand the actions we are taking are affecting the lives and livelihoods of people across the province, but these are extraordinary times and we need to do whatever we can to keep individuals and families safe and stop the spread of this terrible virus" - Premier of Ontario
(https://news.ontario.ca/opo/en/2020/04/ontario-takes-further...)
This is an information poor environment. I fail to see how any scientist would take such stringent targets as acceptable given that.
Yeah... about that.
From a western news outlet point of view, it seems like Sweden is doing it wrong.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8235979/UKs-coronav...
https://www.welt.de/print/die_welt/finanzen/article207268361...
As of the latest WHO status report they count 1'540 dead as per yesterday[2].
Given, that they country only 14385 confirmed cases this indicates that there is a massive lack in testing.
Looking at experiences from other countries the numbers are bound to explode in the next few days.
I understand, given the current yearning for wishful thinking that people point to Sweden as a role model for managing the crisis.
The grim reality, however, looks very different and Sweden is on the best way to one of the greatest corona catastrophies in Europe.
So much for Sweden having it under control.
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/19/anger-in-swede...
[2]https://www.who.int/docs/default-source/coronaviruse/situati...
Yes, we've only been testing people who require medical attention. No-one thinks we only have 15 000 cases. We probably have a hundreds of thousands of cases in Stockholm alone but the consensus in Sweden is that Stockholm will reach herd immunity in May.
Neighbouring countries are starting to ease up their restrictions so I think we will see an explosion of cases there compared to Sweden but let's talk again in a few days to see if it really exploded in Sweden like you claim it will.
Sweden has more than twice the number of confirmed cases Czech Republic has (~14700 vs ~6900). This is a hard thing to compare, this could be attributed to differences in testing, doesn't include asymptomatic cases and some suggest there's a bit of clever accounting going on so let's look at something else ...
Sweden currently has eight times the number of deaths the Czech Republic has (1580 vs 196). This is an absolutely incredible incredible difference! The Anglosphere has for a while had a really unhealthy obsession with the Nordic countries, Sweden in particular (I have my own theories on why). When it was apparent they were pursuing a more relaxed approach to Covid 19 many in the media and the public seemed desperate to latch on to them as How it Should Be Done. However it seems that in this case they should really have looked East for inspiration, rather than North.
[0] = https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=population+of+sweden+v... ... and in fact given how large it is and how distant it is from other early hotspots, the Sweden/Czech comparison should be an unfair comparison in Sweden's favour.
Not sure why you say the media was praising Sweden's approach. I only saw international media completely bashing Sweden's strategy but that has changed the last week now when the death rate curve is declining in Sweden and we still have ICU capacity.
Update: here is an example of the sort of article I mean. At that moment everyone was running with this idea, not just the BBC: https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20200328-how-to-self-is...
I don’t quite understand the first part of your comment - when to relax restrictions is a problem everyone will have and is not unique to Czech Republic. Granted, the huge success of the measures here might make the decision a little harder ... but the fact that we have prevented thousands of deaths is a GOOD thing and shouldn’t be taken as a negative.