It's not a rant. I'm just addressing the holier-than-thous of this pandemic the way they deserve to be. Respect is earned, doing stupid/selfish / virtue signalling shit doesn't warrant respect (whatever 'side' of the issue someone is).
Yes, of course, a lockdown helps reduce the numbers, but at the same time when they revise the mortality rates down from what they were initially, govs act as if that's not a factor at all. These people aren't trying to save lives; they're just taking the safest possible path for their government careers - that's about it.
On the other hand there's many people who care but are misinformed. A majority of the same people freaking out about someone going for a walk or other low risk behaviors will not follow proper hand/grocery washing procedures, not handle masks properly, wear some shitty 1 layer cloth mask that's not properly sealed: increasing rather than decreasing infection risk.
I don't know what the differences are between our countries right now, but here (especially in red areas) I doubt the safest possible path for government careers is erring in the direction of caution. When you say "these people aren't trying to save lives" - or when anyone says that really - it's important to distinguish what's meant by "these people". At least here in the states, the government officials who are erring in the direction of caution (if they're erring) are listening to the virologists and epidemiologists at the top of their field. There's all sorts of opinions about how government officials aren't being reasonable, yet I haven't seen an single argument incorporating esteemed virologist and epidemiologist opinion to strengthen it - they all rely on pointing out the damage that lockdown has caused and will continue to cause as strength for the argument. It's like arguing that the cure is so, so much worse than the disease
solely by pointing out how much damage the cure has wrought without even attempting to get estimates about how much of the disease was avoided - and that's enough to get the conservative masses to grab their pitchforks (and literally, guns). In other words, it seems like red areas largely perceive the damage thus far caused as being the result of the shutdown and the government rather than being the consequence of the pandemic itself. Not only is there a significant yokel insurgent movement to see almost all forms of distancing and precaution (masks, actual physical distance, hand sanitizer when entering store) as excessive and senseless government control, there is a lot of anger fueling people to actively forego precautions and even cough into employee's faces if/when an employee asks them to wear a mask - which only prolongs the government control that's being protested in the first place, which stirs more resent about it, and so on. So I have a hard time believing a lot of these government officials are doing it to save their jobs this point, at least in this country, they're doing to save lives in spite of how much public support they'll lose.
And there is a lot of misinformation - it's estimated that half of Twitter posts about coronavirus are bots intentionally spreading misinformation to sow political discord in this country (and promulgate the notion that protective measures are anti-American impediments to freedom), and they're spreading misinformation in the direction that works against caution. For example, it's true that wearing a basic cloth mask - especially if it's one layer, and isn't sealed properly against our face - isn't going to do much to protect us personally *but* the main purpose of wearing masks is to stop all potential asymptomatic carriers from spreading it. And in that latter sense, a single layer mask that isn't properly sealed can actually go a long way in stopping the spread of infection by containing a sneeze or cough, and/or stopping someone from touching their face and then spreading infection from their face via their hands.
I mean, sure, there are a lot of individuals who are going overboard with caution for themselves and getting judgy about others not being cautious enough - but I have yet to see pieces interviewing leading virologists and/or epidemiologists saying, "Yeah, this isn't really helpful, this or that government official doesn't need to do this," when it comes to the government mandating precautions. And I mean, I've been looking for it. I'd be interested to see such a thing if anyone could provide it here.
Okay, I'm sure it varies from place to place but if you have a 'lockdown,' i.e., some people are unable to work - that is taking it too far. People who have mortgages and loans can lose all their shit because the gov literally won't let them work - that is not okay. If people want to go to the restaurant, let them go to the fucking restaurant - but then it's going to be their fault if they get grandma sick because they couldn't bother to research how effective their face mask actually is - there is such a thing as personal responsibility. And if people are in a high-risk population - let these people stay home and order food online etc. instead of requiring everybody else to bend over backwards. It sucks yes but everything in life is a form of compromise.
One of the the reasons lockdown needs to be mandated is because that facilitates government assistance. A person can't apply for unemployment benefits if they decide to stay home to stay safe. A lot of people would have continued to work even the most non-essential of jobs, even if sick - as you say, because they have mortgages and loans (not to mention, they have to eat). Small private businesses would not be able to ask for assistance if they were allowed to stay open (although the way assistance was doled out leaves *a lot* to be desired there, that's a different argument). Probably an even bigger reason though: the fewer people out and about, the more the coronavirus can be contained, and the safer the essential workers will be.
If consequences were truly contained to one's own sphere, then I'd largely agree with "If they want to go to a fucking restaurant, let them go to the fucking restaurant." But it isn't just a person's own grandmother they're putting at risk - it's their grocery store employees (and maybe those employee's grandmothers), the medical staff that will have to help them, *and* help everyone they consequently infect (and everyone
those people consequently infect), etc. Also, this presumes the waitstaff are also more than willing to keep working at that restaurant (and/or all workers in that type of situation who don't get to decide if they want to take that chance), regardless of how much that puts them at the mercy of patrons being responsible. While the vast majority of Americans aren't the type to show up and cough on employees for simply being asked to wear a mask - in a pandemic, all it takes is a small minority for that to be a serious issue. And while it may be a small minority who actively coughs on people who try to take away their "freedom" to not wear a mask, the norm is quickly becoming to not wear one. I live an hour outside Chicago (a hot spot here in the U.S.) and only maybe 10% of people in grocery stores here are currently wearing masks and/or being conscientious about physical distancing. There is social pressure for those who might normally not give a rat's ass and agree to wear one to
not wear one - if you do, you're seen by those in your community as a mindless sheep.
Yes, of course, I have no issue requiring people to wear masks, wash hands entering and exiting shops etc. These are small inconveniences at most that are justified by the pandemic.
In my original post, I had specified that I was always for the criminalization of willfully exposing people to illness. IE: if someone who has flu-like symptoms goes to work I think they owe the company the sick days for everybody else who gets infected due to their action. Same if you have COVID-19 type symptoms and you go cough at someone's grandparents - that's a form of manslaughter. Now yes there are asymptomatic carriers, that's always an issue with any pandemic. But it's difficult to blame people for what they had no way of knowing if they are taking every precaution.
I'm not sure how much you're taking the U.S. into account with this post - for all I know, you don't intend any of this to be applied to the U.S. and you're exclusively talking about France (?). But the fact that people here largely see these precautions that they could be taking on their own as soul-crushing impediments to their freedom is significantly prolonging the government enforced distancing.
While I am a bit annoyed myself at how "100,000 lives" is being played up a bit much - as if 45k people don't die by suicide alone every year (even though 100k isn't the annual count, we don't know the annual count for the virus yet) - the thing is, it's only as low as 100k because lockdown happened when it did. I'm not remotely even an armchair epidemiologist myself, but looking at those charts Jonny posted - if we hadn't taken any measures at all (or if we'd *only* started suggesting masks and washing hands and distancing - taking into account that most people wouldn't do it, not believing it's much more than a "Democrat hoax"), with the trajectory it was on, the fatality count would likely be over a million now. This isn't just a more serious kind of flu; it isn't the virus itself that's killing people, it's the aftermath it leaves of the body's own immune system attacking itself. That's in addition to the fact that it's more contagious than the flu. I think the fact that a lot of people who have gotten sick seem barely affected is giving a false sense of security - it's manifesting in so many different ways that it's hard to anticipate with any degree of totality how it can harm us. While children getting that toxic shock like syndrome and younger people having strokes is relatively rare, it's important to
keep these things rare until we can find some kind of toehold over all the complications like this that it causes.
eta: And we wouldn't need government mandating precaution as much to keep these things rare if people weren't so fucking mental that they uphold and enforce the belief that taking precautions makes a person a 'mindless sheep' - but here we are.
