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Comment by scarmig | Hacker News Reader

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.

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> ...this is a case of quarantine for thee but not for me.

I think you have this backwards?

And I'd note that this is just an open letter signed by those willing. Perhaps a left-leaning subset.

But yes my first thought when I see this kind of thing is how people have been criticizing religious gatherings.

Edit: oh I see how it can be viewed the other direction, where "thee" is the right and "me" is the left.

Or maybe there are just bigger problems than the virus right now.

Your comment is a case in point: the takeaway the general public will have from this letter is that the virus doesn't really matter, and you should feel free to disregard it if you can come up with a vaguely plausible reason why your particular circumstances mean you should be exempt from caring about it.

Which we kind of were at anyway, but now public health figures have given their signoff on that interpretation.

The virus doesn’t seem to matter for police forces either, spraying tear gas as salutation and forcing anyone at reach to burst out as much body fluid as they possibly can.

TBH from the outside it seems that whatever the death count is it never really mattered to a majority of people in the US.

The CDC already failed us. Public health figures have been wrong repeatedly at the local, state, and national level.

I understand people's frustration with them, and I understand why people don't care about their "signoffs" on what we're allowed to do, especially when the guidelines are completely nonsensical like in California.

Where are the free clinics? Where are the free tests? Where is the free quarantine hotel room? None of that, instead we just get chided for being stupid and uncooperative by leaders. This is completely unacceptable, they failed us, not the other way around.

And the police might actually kill me today, unlike the virus.

Like the immediate livelihoods of tens of millions of Americans?

That's what some people have been saying since February, yes.

the virus doesnt care, it's going to infect as many as possible. One thing is for certain, if there isn't a huge jump in infections then there will never be a lockdown in response to a pandemic ever again.

http://www.thewebcomicfactory.com/comic/the-antiwar-comic-ka...

Not only conservatives...

It is a straw-man but I think the woke circle isn't that different from religion for some proponents. Different dogmata, same zeal.

And while I don't like people being too sensitive that you refrain from stating anything substantial in public without PR support, this statement is particularly bad.

The lockdown protesters make clear that experts don't decide about their freedoms. This statement just provides evidence for the validity of their point in my opinion.

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