D&D and the rising pandemic

[CapnZapp]

Or seeing it the other round: the risk of getting an infect that may kill you is just part of the price of freedom.

The Bundestagspräsident (president of the parliament ) said the following in an interview:

" Aber wenn ich höre, alles andere habe vor dem Schutz von Leben zurückzutreten, dann muss ich sagen: Das ist in dieser Absolutheit nicht richtig. Grundrechte beschränken sich gegenseitig. Wenn es überhaupt einen absoluten Wert in unserem Grundgesetz gibt, dann ist das die Würde des Menschen. Die ist unantastbar. Aber sie schließt nicht aus, dass wir sterben müssen."

"But when I hear that everything else has to step back before the protection of life, then I have to say: This is not correct as such an absolute. Fundamental rights are restricting each other. If there is any absolute value at all in our constiturion, then its the human dignity. It's inviolable. But it does not mean that we won't die".


I am not allowed to punch you in the face. But that doesn't mean I have to walk with my arms tied to my side lest the swing of my arms while walking somehow accidentally hits you.

There's a point when me harming you is due to such an indirect cause as that you have to bear me being me being allowed to do it.

Sorry I have no time for crap like this.

Please don't elevate the stupid selfish behavior of neanderthals to angelic ideals.

I commend your posts for helping me put up a counterpoint to the theoretically scientific best courses of action that completely ignores how people act in real life, but democracy can and do violate the rights of its citizens on a routine basis, and everybody agrees that is just as it should be.

Arguing this should not be one of those cases is just stupid. When the only thing that works is instructing the police to prevent you from going to the shopping center (or a nightclub etc), then obviously that is what we should do.

 

[CapnZapp]

Even they aren't; the difference is that the flaws there involve inability to acknowledge error.

True.

 

[Maxperson]

Or seeing it the other round: the risk of getting an infect that may kill you is just part of the price of freedom.

Freedoms stop at harm to others. You are not free to drive a car through the middle of a preschool, or even drive 150 miles an hour through a neighborhood. You are not free to hurl a baseball into a crowd as hard as you can.

I am not allowed to punch you in the face. But that doesn't mean I have to walk with my arms tied to my side lest the swing of my arms while walking somehow accidentally hits you.

Which is a False Equivalence to Covid. Refusal to wear the masks when necessary is more like the above driving 150mph down a surface street. It's recklessly dangerous and if you should hit someone accidentally, you are directly at fault.

There's a point when me harming you is due to such an indirect cause as that you have to bear me being me being allowed to do it.

It's not all that indirect, though. We have a very deadly virus that is contagious before it ever starts to show symptoms and if if you are not symptomatic at all, so if you have it, and it's very contagious, you WILL give it to others. This isn't like a normal flu or cold.

 

[Mirtek]

Freedoms stop at harm to others. You are not free to drive a car through the middle of a preschool, or even drive 150 miles an hour through a neighborhood. You are not free to hurl a baseball into a crowd as hard as you can.

Yet I am allowed to drive my car despite the fact that as soon as I turn the key I add another miniscule part to the air polution that as a whole kills thousands each year in Europe.

. Refusal to wear the masks when necessary is more like the above driving 150mph down a surface street.
[...] It's not all that indirect, though.

That's for the courts to decide and at least tin Germany quite a few C19 regulations have been overruled by courts due to going too far, even though they would have certainly been effective.

Fact is that your right not to be hurt only goes so far and does not demand absolute submission of anyone else. There's a point below which you have to accept that anothers action simply run contrary but are allowed nevertheless.

Being forced to wear mask may, at a certain point in immunization, or worst case after the realization that this goal may forever be out of reach, be part of those.

That will differ from country to country based on it's specific laws and in Germany at least the requirment for maks is swaying and may very well fall soon.

if you have it

And even at the height of our worst wave we never had more than 0.5% of the population actually having it at once. So 99.5% have been restricted on a "just in case" basis as a prevention meassure and critics have been questioning this stretching of the law form day 1.

Now given the contagious and tricky nature of C19 it may seem reasonable, but it still leaves a sour tast in many people mouths. We're not locking up everybody just as prevention meassure in case they might become a bank robber after all.

 

[Maxperson]

Yet I am allowed to drive my car despite the fact that as soon as I turn the key I add another miniscule part to the air polution that as a whole kills thousands each year in Europe.

There's a big difference between that and infecting several people directly with Covid.

That's for the courts to decide and at least tin Germany quite a few C19 regulations have been overruled by courts due to going too far, even though they would have certainly been effective.

No it isn't. The Courts have no ability to decide whether or not that analogy fits. Nor do they create law, so any potential punishments would have to come from the legislature first.

Fact is that your right not to be hurt only goes so far and does not demand absolute submission of anyone else. There's a point below which you have to accept that anothers action simply run contrary but are allowed nevertheless.

Nobody has asked or demanded submission from people during the entirety of Covid, so...

Being forced to wear mask may, at a certain point in immunization, or worst case after the realization that this goal may forever be out of reach, be part of those.

So nobody and no country grants absolute freedom. You aren't losing freedoms by having to wear a mask. You already are required to wear clothing in public, so why aren't you complaining about lost freedoms there?

And even at the height of our worst wave we never had more than 0.5% of the population actually having it at once. So 99.5% have been restricted on a "just in case" basis as a prevention meassure and critics have been questioning this stretching of the law form day 1.

You act as if 4 million people is inconsequential.

Now given the contagious and tricky nature of C19 it may seem reasonable, but it still leaves a sour tast in many people mouths. We're not locking up everybody just as prevention meassure in case they might become a bank robber after all.

And when they start locking you up for Covid, get back to me. Having to wear a mask doesn't even begin to come close to being the same as being imprisoned.

 

[Umbran]

A number like "93% effective" (or 88% etc) might be interesting to immunologists, but I care about the number that tells me if the vaccine will keep me out of the ICU. For the life of me I can't understand why the news are so obsessed with the way less interesting number...

Because they express pretty much the same thing. And, in fact, the real number is 1) not a universal number, and is highly situation-dependent, and 2) likely to mislead people into risky action, because they don't understand odds and risk worth a good gosh-darn.

If they say it is 93% effective, that means you are 93% less likely to get it than a similar person in the same circumstances. And by "get it" they don't mean "become infected and detectable by some particular test". They mean, "become symptomatic", actually get sick.

But how likely is that, exactly? There are too many variables for anyone to tell you that. The more abstract number can be found in statistics over large groups, the detailed version for an individual cannot be.

 

[Umbran]

Yet I am allowed to drive my car despite the fact that as soon as I turn the key I add another miniscule part to the air polution that as a whole kills thousands each year in Europe.

Logical fallacy: Tu quoque (aka Whataboutism) "You say this is true for X. But what about Y?"

Lack of consistency with other matters doesn't say anything about this one matter. Yes, you are allowed to add to pollution. And maybe that's wrong too, but that is beside the point under consideration here.

 

[Mirtek]

No it isn't. The Courts have no ability to decide whether or not that analogy fits. Nor do they create law, so any potential punishments would have to come from the legislature first.

The courts ultimately watch that the legislative does follow the laws which are of of prime importance, and one of those is the proportionality of new laws. And quite a few C19 rules passed by the legislature were taken back by the courts because they were ruled to be disproportionate. Just because it would reduce C19 risks doesn't mean that everything can be done.

You act as if 4 million people is inconsequential.

That's the total. But they were not all infected at the same time. The height was ~320k at once being infected.

Lack of consistency with other matters doesn't say anything about this one matter.

Actually it does. At least in German law. That's one of the common reasons why certain C19 rules were revoked by courts. Because the lack of consistency with similar matters was ruled to be arbitrariness and that's not legal

 

[Zardnaar]

Government actually surveyed people's thoughts.

New Zealand is done thinking about Covid-19, finds government study

The country is over Covid and just wants nice lie down and a rest.

thespinoff.co.nz

People want to travel (during pandemic wtf). Easy to leave getting back might be difficult.

There's diminishing returns on lockdowns and compliance.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

C19 has found itself in the sweet spot of the minds of modern humanity. Currently, it’s between being contagious and dangerous enough for a sizeable number of people to recognize it as a threat, but also not being dangerous enough that each person infected is at a serious personal risk of death or long term disability, so another largish group is somewhat more cavalier to its actual threat level.