>> rather than stay at a quarantine facility. Nobody is being forced to use the app.
Download the app or we send you to a camp? That isn't much of a choice. I'd say it is about as non-choice as possible while still meeting the literal definition.
Download the app or we send you to a camp? That isn't much of a choice. I'd say it is about as non-choice as possible while still meeting the literal definition.
If you want to present an argument against quarantine being needed or warranted, please go ahead. Checking in on the app is the least intrusive of the three options - quarantine under guard (usually in a hotel, like the one I'm in right now), quarantine at home with police visits tio ensure compliance, or quarantine at home checking in to the app once or twice a day.
In this context, getting hysterical about the least intrusive option is weird.
I’m really not sure what point you’re trying to make.
I'm British by the way. The UK also has guarded quarantine centres in hotels for people coming in from what it considers “red zones”
Responding to your edit: still madness
You quarantine people (and animal) who might be sick, that’s the point of it.
It doesn’t look like madness to me when you look at the comparative death rates.
So are we going to do a quarantine for the flu next? A pandemic that claims up to a 2 million lives a year globally:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017%E2%80%932018_United_State...
Heart failure and car accidents claim a higher risk.
Should we have locked down in 2017?
https://www.news.com.au/national/nsw-act/news/nsw-health-lim...
I wish this was a joke, or fake news. But no, once they control where you can go, when you can go there, etc, it's not a big jump for them to demand control over what you put in your body. It's for your own safety, after all.
If there hadn't been a lockdown, many more people would have died from COVID than now died from drinking. Sweden for example, famous for its non-lockdown, suffered 10 times as many COVID deaths than neighboring Norway with lock-down (and alcohol).
In contrast, when someone is separated from society because they are known to be infected, that is called "isolation."
Surely, we should aspire to be better than 14th-century Venice. To not treat people as if they are nothing more than viral vectors. Instead many would trade away what little control over our own lives we still have in exchange for imagined safety from a virus we will all contract eventually. That the vast majority of people have no issues recovering from.
It's not the plague. It's not Ebola. It's not the worst case scenario we were rightfully concerned about in early 2020. How this hasn't sunk in yet for most people is just baffling to me. Then I look around and see lots of motivated reasoning and state-sponsored propaganda about a permanent transition to remote work, increased government surveillance, curtailing the movement of citizens, and other social initiatives various coalitions were already working towards, that are of course suddenly "absolutely necessary" because of a "once in a lifetime pandemic", and it becomes a little clearer.
1. https://ktrh.iheart.com/content/2021-06-01-after-covid-lockd...
2. https://hotair.com/jazz-shaw/2021/09/07/out-covid-lockdowns-...
3. https://www.guardiangazette.com/2021/08/30/climate-lockdowns...
And for those who aren't convinced, I'll be available to accept apologies at my nearest concentration camp.
It's not the plague, but it has killed around 10 million people worldwide, and 700 thousand people in the US alone.
Countries that have a zero-CoVID policy, such as New Zealand, China and Australia (or at least some states in Australia), must use quarantine to prevent reimportation of the virus. For such a policy to work, it is critical that even people who do not appear to be sick be quarantined.
You may argue that China, New Zealand et al. should not have pursued a zero-CoVID policy (and in that case, you should be prepared to argue that the 4 million deaths that would likely have resulted in China would have been acceptable), but given that they've pursued this policy, they need to quarantine international travelers, even if they appear to be healthy.
10 million is frankly a drop in the bucket. We don't shut down society and hand over control of our lives over car accidents, heart failure, or anything else that kills hundreds of millions.
The behaviors that lead to those deaths are absolutely a form of social contagion and in no world are they less important or relevant because they're not caused by a communicable disease. People could choose to stop the world for those, too. It would probably work. That we choose not to, or rather, that we understand there are tradeoffs involved, does not make us callous murderers.
I feel truly sorry for people who believe that "zero Covid" is a possibility. We have documented evidence of animal reservoirs for the disease. You can vaccinate every single person on the planet and it will not eradicate this virus.
Particularly now that we are aware that 1) our vaccines are not sterilizing and 2) we have evidence of a vaccine resistant mutation on the horizon.
If you want to play whack a mole with restrictions and injections your entire life please do so of your own accord and stop trying to force the rest of us to live in this dystopia with you. I have a short life to live.
Humanity has lost its tragic sense. That there are things outside of our control. This reality does however tend to catch up with each and every one of us.
"People die" as an excuse for letting millions of people die of preventable causes is a terrible attitude to take.
I hate to be this blunt but you're kidding yourself if you think this was ever an option for the United States.
With respect to "preventable causes", I already responded to that point. Most death is preventable. Or at least delay-able. That does not mean everyone agrees with your scorched earth campaigns to prevent it.
Here on HN, there are plenty of people who live in China, or who have family/friends/colleagues in China. They can tell you what the situation in the country is.
For more than a year, bars, restaurants and most other things have been open, mass gatherings have been allowed, etc. In densely packed cities with Guangzhou and Shanghai, what do you think R0 would be under those circumstances? Any community transmission would quickly grow into a major outbreak, just like in Wuhan in December 2019.
Yet there's no such outbreak. And no, there's no conceivable way the government could hide such an outbreak.
That's why it's simply not credible to claim that there is any substantial community transmission in China.
The other thing is that you can look at how rigorous the reaction is to every new case of community transmission. There have been small outbreaks in China over the last year, but they've been contained using contact tracing, mass testing, and lockdowns (usually only of individual neighborhoods, but sometimes of cities).
[...]
>Would tens of thousands of deaths [...]
Like that.
It's absolutely insane to see young, Australian people completely embrace the Covid propaganda and totalitarian nonsense. Say what you want about boomers, but at least they used to be somewhat cool in their 20s, during the 70s. Having unprotected sex, doing drugs, having long hair, listening to rock'n'roll, protesting the wars.
In Australia we have 25-year-old boomers, scared of absolutely everything, and cheering on the government to govern us even harder. A complete nightmare.
But you can't say that in polite company so you just have ~40 percent compliance with whatever insanity is going on now. Hilariously enough the compliance from police is lower than from the general population so basically we have politicians and the terminally online talking about masks, jabs and sign ins and the people who are supposed to enforce it not being bothered with it.
Standing in front of the super market something like one in three pull out their phone, unlock it, point it at the check in qr code and not log in.
I'm reminded of the latter days of the USSR where no one took anything the government said seriously and just did whatever they felt like. Which does not bode well for the current incarnation of Australia long term.
Is it better to prolong the perverse, decadent rule of the senators and consuls or to embrace Clovis? Hit ‘em with your Coriolanus swag.
Remember... governments NEVER give up these powers readily.
The West had massively draconian laws during the last similar protracted existential problem, WW2, and gave them up just fine when it finished.
Your opinion is not factually supported. A million people were prosecuted for breaking lockdown laws in the UK.
That's his point. He's drawing a contrast to blackout laws,by claiming that an individual sees direct benefit from compliance (not getting bombed) while breaking lockdown doesn't create a lot of risk for the vast majority of offenders.
Ie, if a hypothetical person was 100% optimizing for self-interest, they would not break blackout laws but would break lockdown laws. This is a dramatic difference in dynamics when seeking to understand differences in compliance.
Yes… except that’s the other way around from what happened in reality. People did break blackout lockdown rules but they generally didn’t break COVID lockdown rules.
Though it sounds like you're saying you misspoke, and intended to say that people broke the blackout rules. That makes a lot more sense, thanks for clarifying
Your assertion that a million people were prosecuted seems far fetched.
1. https://www.cps.gov.uk/cps/news/6500-coronavirus-related-pro...
The New Deal occurred before WW2 as a way to simulate things out of the Great Depression. Turns out war is even a bigger economic stimulus package than social programs.
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Deal
> and the military industrial complex...
Actually, the US did:
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demobilization_of_United_State...
Then the Korean War happened:
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_War
It turns out the Communists were expansionist and needed a counter-weight in influence.
Which has lead to tens of thousands of deaths that have not occurred in Australia.
I can be probably persuaded that some specific regions can do well with voluntary quarantine. But I'd rather trust the local authorities to know what the best approach for their people is.
[1] https://en.mercopress.com/2021/08/23/case-zero-of-delta-vari...
It's one way that if you look at history minorities have also been identified.
Scapegoat behaviour from the crowd is a response to senseless suffering and pain. It actually makes those who scapegoat others feel better and people want to feel better. Why would anyone volunteer to feel worse? Most people don't have empathy for those who scapegoat others but the pandemic is a great way to see this happening at various stages in real time across the world. Some countries don't have any, others more, some loads, some vary according to lockdown severity, others don't.
How can one blame an invisible virus or an abstract political decision when humans traditionally blame each other?
What's the end result if you buy into scapegoating as a personal psychological tactic? We will find out.
It's not an invisible virus. With the right tools we can see and track it. Up until the recent delta outbreak, COVID was being accurately tracked and contained in Australia, with the source of almost all transmissions known. Under these conditions, quarantine is pragmatic, not abstract.
There have been many pandemics in the past. Governments have responded in the past with aggressive quarantines. Yet, before this current pandemic, no country had aggressive quarantines in place.
These kinds of restrictions imposed by governments have historically disappeared with high reliability when the situation calling for them has ended.
I sound like I'm an anti vax conspiracy theorist, and I don't want to put that across, but there is a strong precedent for abuse of power in every government across the globe. A lot of draconian measures ease when the panic is over, but shadows of them seem to remain in place, at least in the U.S. (again, I can't speak for Australia).
EDIT:
Here's an example of how anti Covid measures are being used to stop protests.
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/04/states-are...
Now, hopefully this will be transparent and end when Covid is over, but that's the question. When is Covid officially over?
I'm not sure I fully buy that. What authoritarian powers were left in place as a hangover from the Spanish Flu emergency powers that governors wielded at the time? Historically, the executive of governments have had _incredible_ emergency powers during infectious diseases crises, but I don't know that I've seen those powers extended indefinitely.
I'm absolutely wary of handling governments unlimited and unchecked power, even in emergencies. I generally agree with your concerns about governments being reluctant to return powers once they're granted. But I do think it's important not to overact and refuse to allow any government action on the other side of the equation.
In the given Australia example, the state is exercising quarantine powers to stop an infectious disease. That sounds...not that novel or expansive to me. Nor does it seem like something the government will have an interest in beyond the pandemic. Quarantines, I think, are a really strong example of an _extreme_ limitation on liberty and expansion of the state's powers that are tolerated during a pandemic but absolutely abhorrent outside of one. It's also an example of powers that almost never are extended indefinitely beyond the pandemic.
> Here's an example of how anti Covid measures are being used to stop protests.
Turning to the cited article, I don't think it supports the position you're stating. The author appears to be discussing legislatures using the COVID emergency as a _distraction_, but doesn't present any anti-COVID measures being used to stop protests.
I'll admit that each of the bills passed and signed are an abhorrent restriction on the right to protest and the right to free speech and assembly. Accepted and granted. But none of those bills appear to be anti-COVID measures in any way. As far as I can tell from reviewing the legislation and reviewing contemporaneous articles, the only connection to COVID was the fact that the public was distracted.
The South Dakota bill for example (https://mylrc.sdlegislature.gov/api/Documents/69887.pdf) doesn't mention "COVID", or "pandemic". The only mention of "disease" is in the definition of intoxication (to explicitly say it is not a mental disease).
The Kentucky bill is similar (https://apps.legislature.ky.gov/record/20rs/hb44.html). It doesn't mention "COVID", "pandemic", or "disease", and doesn't appear in _any_ way to be designed as an anti-COVID measure.
The only anti-COVID measures discussed in the article by the author are praised as a measured and reasonable response. The only "use" of the pandemic by the legislatures was as a distraction.
I do agree that anti-COVID measures targeted at public protest should receive significantly more scrutiny than many other anti-COVID measures.
Don't know, my country does some checks like calling people on the phone, the rest relies on trust. Seems to work just as well.
So I see a lot of room to criticise "the least intrusive" option as well. This is security done wrong. Not slightly wrong, detrimental towards the goal of security. If people get uncompliant, no such measures will be efficient.
I have no idea what the requirements are for people who test positive, but here in WA that’s not even relevant because there are no known cases.
So it all looks like it’s working pretty well.
Curious what country this is where things are working "just as well" as Australia?
The only major places I can think of in the "developed" world faring similarly* to Australia statistically (deaths per capita) are South Korea & Taiwan; both have had similar citizen monitoring.
* leaving out NZ here obvs which is faring significantly better
I will add that if I’d been caught leaving the house, outside of a short daily workout, I’d have been liable for a fine and/or jail time.
There is merit for harsh policies if you can prevent any case, what NZ did relatively successfully. But admitting that it failed is hard to convey politically.
This seems quite absolutist; why the all or nothing binary of "any case"?
There is merit for harsh policies, to a degree, if you can reduce fallout, to any relatively significant degree.
This may be subjective, but fwiw if Australia were actually monitoring the population via app, requiring check-in every 15 mins & deploying authorities otherwise (a conclusion some commenting here did seem to jump to at first, despite the otherworldly logistics that would entail), then of course questions would need to be asked about authoritarian escalation.
But enforced mandatory quarantine explicitly for those choosing to travel (something that's even been done in some European countries too), given the stakes at hand, really doesn't seem like an overstep relatively speaking.
It's also worth noting that travel in Australia is extremely restricted anyway, so the number of people who are subject to this is pretty tiny.
Note that the South Australia app under discussion is in an Australian state which, like NZ, is relatively successful at preventing “any case”. It seems like the last case necessitating a 7-day lockdown in SA was almost 2 months ago and before then they hadn’t instituted a lockdown since Nov 2020. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_pandemic_in_South_Aus...
I don't. My comment was to the nature of the "choice" not whether or not the mandate was warranted. Let's not pretend that people have options when they really don't. There is no need to dress it up. In times of disease, governments do sometimes order people to do things. Let's not kid ourselves. Personal choice, personal freedom, is set aside.
Seems self-contradictory.
OP's point is giving a set of all undesirable options which under normal circumstances and given freedom, you would decline all the options. "Choice" tends to imply you have at least some desirable options or at least have the option to refuse all of the choice options (not choosing has to be an option in the proposed choice).
If you're given a set of constrained options where you must choose and none of the choices are desirable, you're really given highly constrained freedom to the point no one considers it freedom. It's even worse when it's clear that most the constraints (choice options) point to only one option for any sane "chooser."
Sure, you could jump off the Burj Khalifa but is that really a viable option? Pretty much everyone would record a chicken dance video and choose minimal public humiliation over the other options. I gave options but they're not really options, not from any sane decision making perspective. That is the illusion of choice to make people feel like they have control over direction. We have a lot of this going on in society these days, where people have options but the options lead to one obvious path, meaning they have no viable alternative options.
Ah yes, that thing adults routinely do.
This a is a mind game they're playing. Show you all the horrible things they could mandate to make the less horrible one sound better.
Bound to repeate history looks more and more valid everyday.
Zero Covid countries like NZ and Australia that re-open to the world once their populations hit 80% vaccination will have prevented many deaths among their population.