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Comment by asutekku | Hacker News Reader

It's this kind of thinking that has made US to be at the level they are now. The freedom of an individual has been engrained in to the heads of people so well that a huge portion does not even consider social distancing / wearing masks, because it infringes upon their liberties. Of course, it is not as extreme as locking down villages/buildings but the point stands.

Sometimes people need to understand (I know this is not a popular opinion) that for the general good they need to give up their liberties for a while.

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I only wish they could see how they look from the outside. The US and the UK are laughing (crying?) stock for those of us in places where we, for the most part, take this seriously, and have it under control.

The freedom of the individual is, in most cases, more important than the greater good. If you disagree, you'll have to make a better case than just saying that it's not true. There's a very easy solution that doesn't infringe upon liberties: everyone makes his own choice according to the level of risk with which he's comfortable. A healthy twenty-something can probably go about his business and be fine; an at-risk person should stay home as long as necessary until it's safe.

Is a law against drunk driving an inappropriate restriction of my liberty?

Following your logic, we should say that people must have sufficiently armored vehicles to go out, so that it's safe in case they're hit by a drunk.

> There's a very easy solution that doesn't infringe upon liberties: everyone makes his own choice according to the level of risk with which he's comfortable.

This plainly doesn't work. Social problems can't be fixed by individualist solutions. The vast number of people who are in the huge risk class (probably a quarter of Americans) can't be forced to stay in house arrest to avoid death, when much easier solutions could prevent the disease from even existing, as seen in Vietnam.

A few weeks of highly localized, tight quanatine are nothing compared to what is going to happen and be required to prevent millions from dying in the US alone. Unfortunately that ship has long sailed away..

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