"American constitutional jurisprudence has long recognized a vast authority on the part of the states to regulate private social and economic activity in the name of the public welfare. Dramatic measures to address the spread of disease has long been a part of those police powers..."
That's coming from a libertarian writer in a libertarian magazine that both likely wish the truth were otherwise.
This is a completely reasonable order given the emergency situation. No reasonable person should object to it.
(I did not downvote you)
Don't underestimate contrarianism and people's willingness to fight tooth and nail for what they believe in, no matter how ridiculous it may seem to you.
Look at how long it took the Japanese internment from WWII to be ruled upon - and that was by modern standards not remotely beneficial to society.
Because of this, it is utterly uninteresting to observe the peak of government power, like compelling the draft. The draft is specifically legally authorized in the Constitution, in which the Government is lawfully granted the power to raise and support Armies. It can do so while obeying the law. This is not "the whims of the courts," and the courts are barely involved, because the law is so very clear.
Quarantine powers are also subject to the power of law, including both general police powers and Constitutionally protected rights. When these conflict, there are a variety of legal tests to determine which wins, and there is legal precedent for interpreting the laws. When the courts interpret this conflict, it will almost certainly not be on a whim.
Or for more specific examples, given, Gore v Bush, when exactly does the court have standing to intervene in a presidential election? Given DC v. Heller in 2008, what does the word "militia" mean now? Why, to everyone's surprise, did maritime law suddenly limit punitive damages with Exxon vs Baker (2008)? Why did the court narrowly reverse 200 years of convention and the near universal understating of speech with Citizens United?
Moreover, allow me to remind you that Citizens United is actually a nonprofit group+ and the thing this case was actually about was making an anti-Hilary movie, and being barred from distributing it. Anyone who has glanced at the Bill of Rights, and the history of this nation and its jurisprudence in the area of free speech, could have seen this result coming. (Somehow there are many people not aware of this fact.)
(+ not a charity, contributions aren't tax deductible; just a standard 504 not-for-profit.)
This may or may not be good policy. It's eminently open to debate. But hewing to precedent like this is supposed to be your evidence of the Court acting on a whim?!?
Isn't that the right thing to do? You can't have martial law forever. On the other hand, this set a precedent for government to reduce liberties when they see fit.
I'd much rather see a martial law.
Government power is relatively fragile anyway, and in times like these, this kind of notice can settle fears and give people some direction. They'll follow it given the alternative of chaos, and that's all the city needs.
I just want to remind everyone that H1N1 in 2009 killed between 150-600k people worldwide. Between 10 and 20% of the world population caught it at some point. The fatality rate was greater than Covid-19.
And yet, we got through it without panicking. People don't even give it a second thought today, and it was just 10 years ago.
This is categorically false.
According to estimates from the CDC, in the United States, H1N1 infected ~61M people and killed ~12,649 for a CFR of around 0.02%.
https://www.cdc.gov/h1n1flu/estimates_2009_h1n1.htm
Stats for the global H1N1 pandemic estimates estimate ~1B people infected with 500,000 deaths. That's a CFR of 0.05% worldwide.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_flu_pandemic
You should stop claiming that the CFR of H1N1 is larger than COVID-19, when all current data and epidemiological estimates show that it absolutely is not.
COVID-19: 0.6% CFR in South Korea (likely similar in other locations when we stop undercounting infections)
These aren't so dramatically different, are they?
But they are: H1N1 had a median death in the US of 37 years old, rather than 80+.
https://www.who.int/immunization/sage/1.Briand_epi_7th_July_...
This seems categorically false.
CDC estimates that ~61M Americans were infected with ~12,469 deaths. That would be a CFR in the US of 0.02%.
The best data sets so far are South Korea and the Princess Cruise ship, because they did widespread testing. Both show a CFR of about 0.6%.
> The fatality rate was greater than Covid-19.
No, it wasn't. The fatality rate for H1N1 was about 0.2%. The fatality rate for covid-19 is tricky to work out at the moment, but 2% is a reasonable low estimate.
https://www.who.int/immunization/sage/1.Briand_epi_7th_July_...
https://www.bmj.com/content/339/bmj.b2840
> At first sight, the data seem to imply that this new virus is relatively mild, with case fatality ratios around 0.5%, similar to the upper range of that seen for seasonal influenza2 and relatively low hospitalisation ratios. However, the case fatality ratio seems to vary substantially between countries, and deaths have occurred in much younger people than is the case for seasonal influenza.3 4
> There are many reasons why simple interpretations of these crude figures at the beginning of a pandemic may be misleading both in terms of assessing severity and in making comparisons between countries. Here, we discuss some of the important mechanisms resulting in biases, propose study designs and associated statistical methods to estimate the case fatality ratio given these limitations, and show their strengths using simulated data. The two main sources of bias in estimates of the case fatality ratio we consider stem from shifts in case ascertainment (over time, efforts may become more focused on the most severe cases, leading to an overestimation of the case fatality ratio) and from the inevitable delay between symptom onset and death, which in the early phase of the epidemic can lead to underestimation of the case fatality ratio if it is not adjusted for.
> A natural definition for the case fatality ratio is the ratio of the total number of deaths from a disease divided by the total number of cases. In a fully ascertained (and complete) epidemic, this simple method works perfectly. However, in most infectious diseases there is underascertainment of cases as people who are asymptomatic or have mild infection will be less likely to present to health care, and if they do present they will be less likely to be tested and confirmed. It is therefore likely that there will be a bias towards diagnosis of more severe cases (fig 1⇓), with the result that the case fatality ratio and other measures of severity are overestimated. Furthermore, this underascertainment will change as an epidemic matures. Initially increased awareness by patients and doctors may lead to high ascertainment, but as cases increase and systems are overwhelmed, only a proportion will be tested (potentially those with links to other confirmed cases), making it difficult to understand the scale of under-reporting.
Which particular constitutional right do you think this violates, precisely?
A better statement would be: "... that the rest of the [insert demographic] of the World make fun of Americans for"
That is only a superficial understanding. What you left out is the manipulative hubris of your clumsy rhetoric pretending to command some kind of hegemony of opinion. It is no surprise to see a continuation of that in the further comments.
If merely raising the issue in such a note is sufficient to count as "freedom at all costs libertarian fetishism" these days, then by all means, sign me up for freedom at all costs libertarian fetishism. In the meantime, I am confident that our government is strong enough to withstand mild observations of this nature.
I think you are replying to the wrong part of the thread. The post you want was written by someone with the username `strawman` who was posting patriotic poems about dying for freedom. This thread is entirely unrelated and much, much more boring.
The fetishism I refer to is one that is distinctly anti-social, since the premise is entirely "others are telling me I shouldn't do this thing, and obviously I know what's best for me, so I will do it to exercise my freedom". You are falling into the same trap.
"The Constitution is not a Suicide Pact". Lincoln got away with throwing out Habeas corpus during the Civil War.
California will get away with this on the grounds of an unprecedented national emergency.
Can we at least wait til the US body count reaches 3 digits before saying stuff like this?
Median COVID-19 death age in Italy is 81.
Average life span for an Italian male is 80.
Chance of dying every year for an 85 year old American male is 10% for any and all causes. Because... well our bodies get old and frail at that age. And even then, the vast majority of them survive COVID-19.
I'm very impressed that some countries think they're above others.
Theoretically the most efficient approach might be to quarantine only the sick or elderly, but that’s unlikely to work well. Doing absolutely nothing would cost millions of lives. So, I really don’t see any good options only some hard choices ahead.
PS: The only state without known infections is not testing people. Exponential growth is a bitch at this point.
Looks like your comment was posted around 3 pm Pacific on Monday. https://www.worldometers.info/ says we are at 85 deaths. Unfortunately we'll probably be at triple digits within 24 hours.
I am curious to see how long this lasts, and whether there will be lawsuits to that effect.
(Also. I am being modded down for this for no apparent good reason. This is not a violation of my civil liberties, though there may be ways to make HN a better place that are more consistent with site guidelines.)