The pandemic has eroded democracy and respect for human rights

Re:The pandemic has eroded democracy and respect for human r... by ryandrake on Sunday October 18, 2020 @10:56PM (#24822966)

Let's for a minute live in this world where mandating masks, social distancing, and business closures is not allowed because it's authoritarian and violates people's freedom. So what happens when the hypothetical COVID-2 comes around in a few years, which is 20x deadlier than this pandemic and kills people uniformly across age groups. What do we do?

Do we just have to die, because heaven forbid we infringe on people's rights to go out to restaurants and buy their khakis? We can't make people wear masks, and we can't make them stay home? So everyone just gets the disease and a big proportion of the world just dies. This is what people want??

Honestly, I think we are lucky this one didn't turn out to be as deadly as it could have been. COVID should be a wake-up call, and it should cause us to come up with an actual pandemic plan--so that when a more deadly one comes, we can shut up and save lives rather than argue about whether someone has a constitutional right to get their nails done without wearing a mask.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:The pandemic has eroded democracy and respect for human r... by makomk on Monday October 19, 2020 @09:16AM (#24826052)

A hypothetical Covid-2 which is 20x deadlier than this pandemic and kills across all age groups would be a really good candidate to contain via contact tracing well before it reached the point where we needed mass lockdowns - assuming that Covid-19 hasn't totally destroyed trust in the scientific and medical establishments by that point. Remember, 20x deadlier means a lot more people showing up in hospitals, which means a much higher proportion of cases can be detected early on in the pandemic without needing mass testing. Covid-19's fatality rate is probably close to optimal for causing the most damage overall.

[ Parent | on HN ]