Earlier quoted context omitted.
You know, if the condition for giving up your rights is "the government says they have a good reason," then you never really had any rights at all. We're all smart, maybe there's a way to solve this without eliminating civil liberties - a way that we'll never discover if at the first sign of danger we yell "take our rights, oh wise rulers!" to the politicians who, of course, are willing to take them.
What civil liberties are you afraid of eliminating in a crisis like this?
Thousands of coronavirus tests are going unused in US labs
21–30 of 79 posts
Re: Thousands of coronavirus tests are going unused in US labs
#22Earlier quoted context omitted.
What civil liberties are you afraid of eliminating in a crisis like this?
Those willing to trade liberty for security deserve neither.
That's a thought terminating cliche, not a response, as well as a complete misinterpretation of Ben Franklin's intent[0], thus not even a valid argument from authority.
[0]https://www.npr.org/2015/03/02/390245038/ben-franklins-famou...
Re: Thousands of coronavirus tests are going unused in US labs
#23Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Quarantine and testing is the way to fight the virus and be able to return to the normal as soon as possible. What you are describing is a way to handle flare ups and it only works in police states. At the current time the only way to fight viruses is with vaccines. It is extremely unfortunate that even during this pandemic our experts keep avoiding repeating this.
Oh come on, please stop this “it only works in police states” rhetoric. It’s not true, nor is the slippery slope argument. Asking people to undergo testing and voluntary quarantine is perfectly within democratic bounds of civic duty and anyone with a iota of ethic is more than willing to collaborate. It’s also fair for a democratic society to compensate for any economic loss incurred. It’s not necessary to use the ir…
Vietnam is a police state. Singapore is a police state. South Korea is a police state. China is a police state. HK is a police state.
> Asking people to undergo testing and voluntary quarantine is perfectly within democratic bounds of civic duty and anyone with a iota of ethic is more than willing to collaborate.
Asking for a voluntary quarantine is different from quarantining people. US states have asked people to voluntarily quarantine. The argument that is being offered is that voluntary quarantine is not enough.
> It’s not necessary to use the iron fist except for the most egregiously anti-social deniers, but that’s the same as with the neighbors that refuse to turn down the volume of their music after 24:00
It is a civil and not a criminal violation.
Re: Thousands of coronavirus tests are going unused in US labs
#24Earlier quoted context omitted.
What civil liberties are you afraid of eliminating in a crisis like this?
Both the right of assembly and the right to bear arms have been repeatedly infringed. For example in CA: https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-03-24/l-a-coun...
Re: Thousands of coronavirus tests are going unused in US labs
#25Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Quarantine and testing is the way to fight the virus and be able to return to the normal as soon as possible. What you are describing is a way to handle flare ups and it only works in police states. At the current time the only way to fight viruses is with vaccines. It is extremely unfortunate that even during this pandemic our experts keep avoiding repeating this.
Vaccines might not work. There are four at this point being studied in humans (everything else is preclinical), with three of them just in phase 1, that means testing safety, and not yet efficacy. We don't yet know whether they will work, or if the immunity will last long enough. We need drugs before vaccines, to be able to treat the disease and/or its sympthoms and hopefully make sure patients don't end up in ICUs.
That's not the point I am making. The only solution to virus spreading is immunity. It can either come from a vaccine or it can come from infections themselves. This virus falls within a virus category.
Should the population not be immune to the virus, the flare ups will occur.
> We need drugs before vaccines, to be able to treat the disease and/or its sympthoms and hopefully make sure patients don't end up in ICUs
That's managing flare ups. Look at measles in non-vaccinated pockets of NYS:
https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2019/09/us-measl...
The immunity rate (mostly via vaccination) for measles in the US is over 91%. The immunity rate for COVID-19 in the US would be a percentage of people who were infected since there's no vaccine.
Re: Thousands of coronavirus tests are going unused in US labs
#26Earlier quoted context omitted.
Oh come on, please stop this “it only works in police states” rhetoric. It’s not true, nor is the slippery slope argument. Asking people to undergo testing and voluntary quarantine is perfectly within democratic bounds of civic duty and anyone with a iota of ethic is more than willing to collaborate. It’s also fair for a democratic society to compensate for any economic loss incurred. It’s not necessary to use the ir…
> Oh come on, please stop this “it only works in police states” rhetoric. It’s not true, nor is the slippery slope argument. Vietnam is a police state. Singapore is a police state. South Korea is a police state. China is a police state. HK is a police state. > Asking people to undergo testing and voluntary quarantine is perfectly within democratic bounds of civic duty and anyone with a iota of ethic is more than will…
Taiwan is not.
I'm not Taiwanese but one sentence I used to hear when I was little was:
"The extent of your personal freedom goes as far as it starts endangering other peoples personal liberties"
The reason why the US and Germany are resorting to police state techniques is because:
1. The countries have been pushing there boundaries for at least a decade now and this is the perfect opportunity to use.
2. Even though Germans are happy to police you crossing a red light in the middle of the night, there is no sense of communal unity in society and there is even less trust in Government because there is zero transparency in communication. Basically the Government assumes everyone besides them is an idiot. Social shaming is the weapon of choice in Taiwan.
Re: Thousands of coronavirus tests are going unused in US labs
#27Earlier quoted context omitted.
Vaccines might not work. There are four at this point being studied in humans (everything else is preclinical), with three of them just in phase 1, that means testing safety, and not yet efficacy. We don't yet know whether they will work, or if the immunity will last long enough. We need drugs before vaccines, to be able to treat the disease and/or its sympthoms and hopefully make sure patients don't end up in ICUs.
> Vaccines might not work. That's not the point I am making. The only solution to virus spreading is immunity. It can either come from a vaccine or it can come from infections themselves. This virus falls within a virus category. Should the population not be immune to the virus, the flare ups will occur. > We need drugs before vaccines, to be able to treat the disease and/or its sympthoms and hopefully make sure pati…
It is unclear whether Covid-19 confers SARS-CoV-2 immunity. There are conflicting data, with some for future immunity out of China and Germany and some against out of Korea [1].
[1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-04-09/coronavir...
Re: Thousands of coronavirus tests are going unused in US labs
#28I live in nyc and have a brother who lives in Vietnam. When a person in my brother’s building tested positive for the coronavirus the government quarantined the building, tested every single person who lives and works there, stationed police outside to enforce the lockdown, and delivered food for two weeks. If someone had tested positive they would be relocated to a hospital facility for treatment. When the tests for…
Quarantine and testing is the way to fight the virus and be able to return to the normal as soon as possible. Western countries fear it’s not possible to do this and regulate the people much more than they usually do. But the problem is, without quarantine the virus is going to spread and shutting down the economy like they did now will have much bigger consequences over the long run. Too many people live from payche…
Re: Thousands of coronavirus tests are going unused in US labs
#29I live in nyc and have a brother who lives in Vietnam. When a person in my brother’s building tested positive for the coronavirus the government quarantined the building, tested every single person who lives and works there, stationed police outside to enforce the lockdown, and delivered food for two weeks. If someone had tested positive they would be relocated to a hospital facility for treatment. When the tests for…
Thank goodness NYC isn't America, or even the best America's got.
Re: Thousands of coronavirus tests are going unused in US labs
#30Earlier quoted context omitted.
And in that time span about the same people died from the "regular" flu. Speak for yourself, the "concept of freedom" that you talk about is one of the many reasons the U.S is what it is. The freedoms we have do have costs at times like these but the benefits vastly outweigh the costs.
“It only killed as many as the flu” is a weird talking point. It killed that many with an unprecedented shutdown of the entire global economy to mitigate it.