The other thing is that deaths are basically at lows. So high infections and low death rate is basically what they want, isn't it?
That's a misrepresentation of what happened in Sweden.
While there was no formal lockdown, people absolutely voluntarily engaged in some level of social distancing.
You only need to look at the economic data, which shows a major domestic slowdown, to see that people clearly changed their behaviour. It just wasn't mandated by the state.
In fact, the same pattern is visible in other nations. That is, individual behaviour changed in advance of lockdowns pretty consistently across a variety of countries.
Summer, I'm guessing.
We have no idea how successful a vaccine will be. If it's 50% successful, that means that people will be getting Covid-19 regardless, so it seems we might as well front load the infections now.
In addition, recently they found a new variant of SARS-CoV-2 with a mutation in the spike protein. If the spike protein mutates enough such that the vaccine no longer works, then we really have no choice but to reach herd immunity.
I really do not understand how people can possibly justify such a course of action but obviously they do.
I just hope it is because they haven't properly thought it through - and not because of a disregard for human life.
That's because it's not a choice you can make just for yourself in isolation without affecting others.
Unlike, say, not wearing a seatbelt in a single passenger vehicle, where its only your own life at stake, if you choose to take risks with an infectious disease, you're also making a choice to endanger others--the emergency services and healthcare workers who have to care for you, the people you come into contact with while you're asymptomatic, etc.
So, by your making that choice, you are also choosing to increase the risks of those around you.
There's a famous quote: Your right to swing your fist ends where my nose begins.
Alas, it seems like some people care more about their personal freedom to swing their fists than they do about the welfare of their fellow citizens...
The question is: what's the consequence of those two violations of individual liberty?
In one case, it's the inconvenience of your having to put a cloth covering over your face in some circumstances, or being curtailed from having a beer in a public place.
In the other, it's the possibility of my death or disability resulting from your actions.
This bears a resemblance to many many other trade-offs we make between individual freedoms. For example, while curtailing your individual liberty, you are punished for driving drunk, firing a gun into the air, or defecating in public places, due to those actions endangering the health and safety of others.
Yet, for some reason, masks and lockdown orders are the hill folks are choosing to die on (in some cases quite literally).
But, I have to admit that in a world that appears hopelessly infected by American-style hyper-individualism, at a time when it seems we're more distant and disconnected from one another than ever before, and yet paradoxically pushed apart by greater and greater extremes of partisanship and tribalism, while sad and disappointed, I'm not terribly surprised that some prioritize their own convenience over the safety of strangers.
Well, until they're on a ventilator facing their own mortality. That does seem to turn folks around on the whole thing...
The idea that you masking me is reasonable is predicated on its triviality, "it's only a cloth" right? But it is you that decides that it is trivial, I have no say in that. If I were to demand that you wear a pork chop on your head, equally trivial, would you? No, you must insist that there is some scientific basis that you masking me protects your health, but those numbers are thin on the ground. Some high profile scientist believe that this is the case, some do not, so it is your adherence to this particular group of pro-mask scientists which justifies your (self admitted) denial of my liberty. I adhere to the other group of scientists. (Masks don't work, the second wave in a masked Europe demonstrates that, but that is besides the point, mine is a reasonable belief, as is yours.)
So your beliefs lead you to think you can take my liberty, and to trivialise that. My beliefs say you will not. We call this situation bullying, and this is the reason why the unmasked push back against the maskers, simply because that is the only way to treat bullies: when they instruct you to draw a cock on your own forehead, to do so it to invite more of the same ("it's only a cock, don't be such a baby", sound familiar?).
Frankly, no.
I refuse to answer incivility with civility. That way lies the paradox of tolerance.
And make no mistake, your choosing to prioritize your convenience over my safety is fundamentally uncivil.
> Some high profile scientist believe that this is the case, some do not,
The data on this is clear:
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-02801-8
Go ahead, pull the other one.
To be honest, this is not a surprise.