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Comment by chunkyfunky | Hacker News Reader

"effectively illegal to see other people as a consequence of your government's abject failure to manage an epidemic"

Surely though the current situation is as bad as it is because of other people's inability to manage themselves during an epidemic, as opposed to the government being to blame? I'm not having a poke, but I notice here in Ireland for example, when the government comes out with clear guidelines e.g. "Don't go around licking people's eyeballs. If you do you might get sick" then the general populace is all like "oh but it's so confusing! What if I only lick one of their eyeballs? What is the definition of 'might'? We need more guidance!". So then the guidance comes back "Do not lick people's eyeballs, ever" and BOOM - someone takes a constitutional challenge High Court because "Civil Liberties".

And I do think it's kind of the same in most countries, the government is not to blame, the general population is.

Just a thought :)

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It's true, a major part of setting public policy is making things as uncomplicated as possible, which results in often stricter statements than would be necessary if people were better at following directions. But from my observations (I live in the US but I read a lot of UK and European news), the government in the UK (less so Scotland) has been whipping back and forth on directives: Don't go in people's gardens! Get back to the office you lazy people! Go to school! Stop talking to people across your garden walls! You can only leave the house for an hour a day! By all means go to the pub, but leave before 10 pm when the corona comes out!

I think you have to take into account what people are going to be able to do for months on end, and it seems unreasonable to me to expect the population of an entire country to avoid seeing friends and relatives for half a year (as is now looks like will be the case going into the winter). While the US in general seems to have failed at this, we have had here in New England some good regional success thus far, without making human connections illegal (within limits -- I'm all for limits on gathering sizes, keeping bars closed, etc). The longer this goes on, the more the trade-offs need to be considered.

The anti-masker crowd is annoying but not the majority. You aren't going to ever fix stupid.

The failures of the various governments to respond promptly is more alarming. Guidance on masking in the US is still regional; and the CDC is seized by political infighting. Testing is a train wreck. Some states are trying to fight the spread while their neighbors are busy pissing in the pool.

Deflecting the blame to the 'general population' might work if there was anything coming close to competence at the federal level but it honestly just strikes me as making excuses.

In Sweden the culture, political system and standard of living etc is quite similar to its neighbors. But the government took the herd immunity approach to corona and it so far has resulted in 10x deaths per capita compared to the neighbors, which took a prevention approach.

So it really has very direct meaning on what the government does. They really have a lot of responsibility.

Sweden had a high initial death rate, however they have been down to an average 1 per day for the past month. So whatever they're doing lately seems to be working quite well. https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/sweden/

https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus-data-explorer?minPopu...

Worse for the first six months. Sweden's curve was comparable to Italy and USA in some sense.

«Herd immunity» was never part of Sweden’s approach though, just tune in to any AMA session with Tegnell. They have had much of the same response as other countries, although a more lax version with recommendations instead of strict rules and lockdowns.

But if your government was downplaying the seriousness of licking eyeballs when the whole world knows how bad locking eyeballs is, you can lay at least a little blame on said government, right?

The US has over 200k dead from COVID-19. This could have been avoided if the government had been staunchly pro-mask and social distancing from the start. Instead, they downplayed it as nothing to be worried about at best and a full-on hoax at worst. If the government had done the right thing from the start, all these people who can’t manage themselves would at least be wearing masks and staying away from each other if for no other reason than their president told them it was the right thing to do. I think we can safely blame the government for this one.

> I think we can safely blame the government for this one.

It's interesting how the "American" tradition of individualism and self-determination is quietly forgotten when things go wrong on a societal scale.

It is the government's job to protect responsible citizens from irresponsible ones. Only the government has the legal authority and power to prevent irresponsible citizens from acting out and putting everyone else at risk. If the government can't do it, then it is not competent.

You are both right.

Individual behavior is a combination if individual choices, local culture, and surrounding leadership.

Most individuals in the US are making smart choices (though you wouldn't be able to see that from the news since they are by nature not newsworthy). Local culture varies widely across the US. Some places are more science-focused than others. Local and state leadership is all over the place. Trump is obviously doing a catastrophically poor job.

All of these things affect the outcomes we see.

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