I feel this is rather unempathic towards the previous poster. Human contact – affection and love in particular – are primary human needs, and they can't just be handwaved away.

You may be reasonably comfortable in your situation (as much as this entire situation gets, anyway) but not everyone is so lucky. This is not "special-case snowflakes", just a recognition that people, their circumstances, and experiences greatly differ. I'd argue that almost everyone gets treated "special" at some points in their lives and rightfully so. Always treating everyone the same is deeply misguided as people are simply not the same (equality shouldn't mean "one size fits all for everyone").

Merely travelling wouldn't cause a "chain of deaths", when done with with appropriate precautions and care. That's an extremely wild and panicked exaggeration, and not based on what we know.

Besides, I'm not entirely sure what you're exactly proposing to achieve with your "hard lockdown"; it's already well established that the virus is impossible to contain, and in many ways a "hard lockdown" will make it worse. There needs to be some balance.

I don't disagree with you that human contact is important for a great deal many of people. However, cynically speaking, death and debilitating, potentially long-lasting illness from Covid also can't be hand-waved away. It's an issue of balancing the needs of the many against the needs of the few, and unfortuantely in this instance the actions of individuals can cause incredibly amplified levels of suffering for a great many people.

There's countless examples of people all over the world not taking appropriate precautions and care when dealing with Covid. I think it's pretty obvious that you cannot trust everyone to do the right thing, and indeed there's enough people not doing the right thing for it to cause major problems.

Additionally, note that the current outbreak in Melbourne - 12500 cases, and 175 deaths (and counting) - can be traced back to a handful (i.e. 1-3) initial outbreaks due to lapses in quarantine protocols. It is absolutely, demonstrably true that individuals can cause a 'chain of deaths'. Individaul leaked cases through a lockdown can cause an explosion of cases to spiral out of control if allowed to get any traction. I would not call that wild or panicked exaggeration at all, and is most definitely based on what we know.

Lastly, it's very obviously false to claim that a hard lockdown cannot help, see New Zealand as a shining counter-example. Extremely aggressive lockdowns and widespread testing can indeed control it.

> it is absolutely, demonstrably true that individuals can cause a 'chain of deaths'

"Can" is not the same as "will". I already said "when done with with appropriate precautions and care" in my previous comment.

The thing is, just because there are some Oz bogans returning from their coma drinking holiday in Bali acted in an idiotic fashion doesn't mean we should prevent everyone else on the planet from travelling at all, no matter the personal circumstances. Lockdowns also cause real harm, see e.g. [1], although the full effects won't be known for certain with time.

"There's enough people not doing the right thing for it to cause major problems" with many things: cars, guns, knives, etc. It's always a matter of balancing different interests and trade-offs.

> Lastly, it's very obviously false to claim that a hard lockdown cannot help, see New Zealand as a shining counter-example. Extremely aggressive lockdowns and widespread testing can indeed control it.

That's not exactly that I said either. What is your long-term plan with this? Institute a draconic hard lockdown every time there is a single case? It doesn't seem that any of this is just going to disappear from the world any time soon, if ever. It's not a solution, just a stop-gap measure (which is what people have been saying pretty much from the get-go).

The real question is what will happen in 6 months, a year, or 2 years time with New Zealand. Remember, we've managed to eradicate exactly one disease in the history of humanity, and that was a far more serious one, although we've been close with Polio for years.

New Zealand had great success in the short term (being a fairly sparsely populated island more than 3 hours removed from any other significant landmass probably helped with that), but you can't lock everyone indoors every time there is a new case and it's almost certain this will happen unless NZ commits to a long-term multi-year border lockdown.

[1]: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapsychiatry/fullarticle/...

> "Can" is not the same as "will".

Well, you don't know. Therefore you must act as if "can" = "will". Otherwise, you're playing Russian roulette.

> draconic hard lockdown

Travelling ban is not a draconic hard lockdown; in fact it'd allow the country to function mostly as normal. Draconic lockdown would be shutting down all non-essential services (what Norway did in March) and even more drastic measures that other countries used (curfew, home confinement, you're allowed to go out only with a concrete purpose and not "too far away" from your apartment... like it was in France for a while.).

The desire to be with your life partner, that's something I wouldn't put in the "extremely egoistic" category.

The situation is going to last a long time regardless of what people feel like. Countries that want to suppress the coronavirus will need to keep substantial travel restrictions in place for years, so it's time to think about what the shape of a sustainable policy is. "Nobody go anywhere cause the virus might spread" isn't going to work for that long.

Amen. The moral superiority is insane. Berate and strip them of any ounce of humanity, anyone who dares to even suggest that indefinite draconian measures are unsustainable or possibly ineffective.