orthogonal does not mean what you think it means given your usage. orthogonal means its entirely unrelated. but the fact is disease control and being able to make personal choices w/ respect to living your life can be in direct conflict means its not orthogonal.
apologies for this correction orthogonal is just one of my favorite words. =)
People understand that is their mission. Some find it scary.
Everyone has a different threshold at which they start to object to the CDC overriding people's freedom in the pursuit of disease control, but everyone will object at some point. For example, would you accept a Shanghai-style lockdown?
1: https://www.cdc.gov/quarantine/pdf/Public-Health-Order_Gener...
Their purpose is to increase the overall duration of healthy life we have, both individually and in aggregate. Limiting how you live your life is, again, orthogonal to that.
For example, how is their campaign to control mosquitos and eradicate malaria in the US limiting how you live your life?
The CDC's campaign to control mosquitos and eradicate malaria in the US probably does not limit how people are living their lives, but ordering an immediate nationwide halt on evictions of any renter for nonpayment of rent would be an example of applying limitations on people.
But no biggie.
> Supporters argue by presenting evidence that smoking is one of the major killers, and that therefore governments have a duty to reduce the death rate, both through limiting passive (second-hand) smoking and by providing fewer opportunities for people to smoke. Opponents say that this undermines individual freedom and personal responsibility, and worry that the state may be encouraged to remove more and more choice in the name of better population health overall.
The main thing that public health agencies do is promote healthy behaviors, like, for example, washing your hands. You could say that their primary goal is convincing you to “live your life” in a healthy way.
They collect data and make recommendations.
The rest of the world is out here waiting for you, please wake up. We need everyone to make this work.
The CDC's mission is fundamentally the same as the mission of the Chinese disease control agency. The difference is how that mission is balanced against people's freedom to live their lives.
Please don't misunderstand; that doesn't mean that I oppose everything they do. Everything they do limits freedom, but sometimes that is necessary.
It's a scientific question as to whether a specific limit on freedom (of movement, of contact, etc.) is effective.
But it's a general approximation that greater freedoms mean higher mortality rates during lethal pandemics. And vice versus.
What level of mortality we're prepared to accept, and what level of limitations on freedom, is a political question in a democracy.
That's the eternal question. Not just for disease control, but for everything.
> What are the criteria for determining necessity?
In a democracy, ultimately: elections.
Ahh, I see where the confusion is. They actually have authority to issue legally binding orders.
"To help prevent the spread of COVID-19 and help our country cope during the pandemic, CDC has occasionally issued legally binding orders and regulations."
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/cdcresponse/laws-r...
Not all such orders are listed on that page. For example, "CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky today signed an order determining the evictions of tenants for failure to make rent or housing payments could be detrimental to public health control measures".
https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2021/s0803-cdc-eviction-o...
https://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/about/index.html
> In 1979, the U.S. Surgeon General identified violent behavior as a key public health priority. In 1980, CDC began studying patterns of violence. This effort grew into a national program to reduce the death and disability associated with injuries outside the workplace. In 1992, CDC established the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control (NCIPC) as the lead federal organization for violence prevention. The Division of Violence Prevention (DVP) is one of three divisions within NCIPC. DVP is focused on preventing violence and its consequences so that all people, families, and communities are safe, healthy, and free from violence.
They've been saying "Spanish Flu - give us money" for years and we find out that they didn't bother to research how any of the flus are transmitted.
It's not like flus haven't been killing 35-75k Americans every year for as long as anyone has counted.
Speaking of the Spanish Flu, Fauci's PhD was on how improvised masks made it worse...
Also, one of the big Spanish Flu outbreaks was "credited" to a parade, aka "a bunch of people walking down the street together." What did the CDC say about such events? (Hint: it praised them if they were BLM.)
Note that Covid-19 is SARS2 - SARS1 was 10 years ago.
No, influenza is not a coronavirus.
> Note that Covid-19 is SARS2 - SARS1 was 10 years ago.
I don't know what this has to do with my comment, but if we're going to be pedantic, Covid-19 is the disease caused by the SARS‑CoV‑2 virus.
Do you really want to argue that the public health community was saying "hey, we're only interested in influenza" when they used various pandemics to argue for funding for the last 80+ years? (Influenza wasn't even distinguished until the mid 30s.)
Yes, Covid-19 is SARS2. My point is that SARS1 was 10 years ago, which is plenty of time for the public health community to do relevant research and yet ....
Do you want to bet that they didn't fundraise off of SARS1 specifically? And yet...
Ok, that's enough for me. You're clearly just trolling
How long then?
If you consider this the epitomy of gish galloping then you haven't been near conspiracy forums with pages and pages of garbage links.
Most everything that is wrong with modern discourse is due to ad hominem and labeling rather than discussion of facts.
If my local fire department behaves in a way that manifests immense mistrust in the neighborhood, sure as hell I wouldn't want them to exist.
Fortunately, around the country, fire department people are the nicest, kindest, inspiring leaders.
Their charter is disease control. How you 'live your life' is orthogonal to that mission - they're responsible for stopping you from infecting other people with communicable diseases. That is also your own responsibility, and just because responsibilities aren't always things you want to do doesn't mean they're oppression.