Lockdowns do work. They have serious economic consequences but they ARE effective in suppressing infectious disease. They weren't necessary, for example, in South Korea, because there was a massive testing and contact tracing program rolled out early on, and distancing and mask mandates which are enforced. You can be fined, even jailed for repeated violations. Of course there have been few such arrests. In that culture people are more disciplined. As a result they have around 500 deaths total - not 500 thousand, 500. And their lives are much much closer to normal. We could probably have a regular Thanksgiving for everyone, with large family gatherings and everything, safely, had we done as good a job as they have.
If people wear masks you're right, lockdowns become unnecessary. But if we let community infections get too far out of control, a prison-like lockdown becomes the only method left to bring the numbers back down. De facto lockdown will occur without a declaration if enough people get sick, and the news is full of overflowing hospitals, people dying on gurneys in the hallway, and bodies stacked up in freezer trucks. When the average person is too scared to go out the economy shuts down.
Our government needs to do what governments have traditionally done during pandemics. The rules are not optional. Follow them or go to jail. That's your "personal choice". Oh my personal liberty! It's fascism! I have zero respect for anyone so self absorbed they consider any emergency restriction for the good of society an intolerable affront. Why should we pander to the worst among us, especially under these circumstances?
reply
share
B1cKsurN (14776)
3 years ago
They don't work. People in the US have been masking and distancing for almost a year....only to be met with highest case totals. Comparing the US to other tiny little countries/islands and homogeneous populations is apples and oranges.
What you propose would be ridiculously authoritarian and racist.
reply
share
chrisjdel (2714)
3 years ago
The reason it's failed is because an obnoxiously vocal minority of the population has been ignoring safety precautions ... and damn proud of it! The US has been a mess of fifty different, largely uncoordinated piecemeal responses and morons protesting every attempt to contain the virus. The orange faced buffoon we've had for a President has been egging his cultish followers on to oppose masks, to wear their defiance of any restrictions whatsoever like a badge of pride. Combine that with a refusal of any state to simply close their borders to travelers and you get the current mess we're in. A few states with governors like Ron DeSuckup can screw things up for everyone else as their citizens jet about the country. Simple as that. To say we've been at it for a year and it hasn't worked is foolish - we never really did what we needed to do, not comprehensively and not all together, which is the only way it works.
South Korea succeeded where we failed because they had a nationwide highly coordinated and well funded response, with hardly any covidiots throwing wrenches into the gears. You don't hear whiny little bitches complaining about their personal freedoms. You don't see people refusing to wear masks in stores and bullying their way past teenage employees. There would never be a huge political rally in South Korea with people packed in like sardines and not wearing masks. Bikers wouldn't hold a convention with a hundred thousand participants and little or no precautions, then scatter to all parts of the country. That's why the Koreans are where they are today, and we are where we are.
We could've followed New Zealand's approach too - lock down initially until the cases disappear (easy to do when the total caseload is still low) then keep the border closed to incoming travelers and release all restrictions. Keep testing people who come to hospitals with flulike symptoms, but otherwise everyone lives normally. It's total BS to say we couldn't have contained covid and kept all these hundreds of thousands of deaths from happening. We could have. This was a choice.
Emergencies without obvious ends like the so-called War on Terror are the sort of thing that allows a government to chip away at vital rights in a way that sticks. You know, we need mass surveillance of the population and warrantless searches because ... terrorism. This is different. It's a pandemic. It's temporary. Not an open ended emergency, there's a definite endpoint (when we're vaccinated) making it fairly useless for the would-be tyrant looking to use it as cover for a long term power grab.
It is neither overly authoritarian - read your history - or racist (???) to make pandemic control measures mandatory. That's been the norm since the dawn of civilization. Whatever the color of your skin, whatever your religion, whatever your age or gender, wear a mask and socially distance. Oh sure, these policies single out members of the human race. Is that what you mean by racist?
reply
share