In the US we are now finally starting to see the legality of quarantining people who are not sick being contested in the courts. Wisconsin has already ruled it unconstitutional.
As is the case in the United Kingdom under our Bill of Rights – the 1688 English one, not the wishy-washy neo-totalitarian European one which is so hedged with qualifications that it allows governments to trample on the Rights and Liberties of the Subject any time someone says “public safety”.
Silvaire wrote:
In the US we are now finally starting to see the legality of quarantining people who are not sick being contested in the courts. Wisconsin has already ruled it unconstitutional.
Jacko wrote:
As is the case in the United Kingdom under our Bill of Rights – the 1688 English one, not the wishy-washy neo-totalitarian European one which is so hedged with qualifications that it allows governments to trample on the Rights and Liberties of the Subject any time someone says “public safety”.
I might add that one of the reasons for the Swedish coronavirus strategy being based on recommendations is constitutional limitations. The Swedish government simply could not have ordered a lockdown such as the one in England precisely because that would have restricted the individual freedom of movement which is guaranteed by our constitution. Quarantining a limited area would be possible, but not the whole country. Even the decisions to close campuses of secondary schools and universities and go to distance education were made independently (but of course coordinated) by municipalities and university managements.
After much discussion, the Swedish parliament eventually agreed on an law to that gives the government more discretionary (but still limited) powers to make decisions that would normally require a separate law with the proviso that every decision the government makes must immediately be put to Parliament for approval or rejection.
Down here in Sussex it is going down quite well
I think the website is a closely guarded secret 
which, if it got widely known, would drive a lot of demand for localised relaxation of the restrictions.
The new infection numbers are miniscule. Remains to be seen if they start to go up again, but it won’t matter because the economy is almost dead and this cannot carry on. The 80% salary paid by taxpayer is a trap for the govt which will be hard to get out of.
Peter wrote:
The 80% salary paid by taxpayer is a trap for the govt which will be hard to get out of.
It’s a trap or a strategy depending on your view of political gamesmanship, but in reality it’s probably both.
As a result of new Federal programs now in force, some people in the US are now collecting more of other people’s money than they previously made on their own, including one particularly fat and stupid young woman we know, who thinks this is the best thing that has ever happened to her. She has never held down a job for more than a couple of months without being fired so this looks like the best kind of steady, lucrative income to her, thanks to the taxpayer. Quite a life lesson at age 23, and her voting patterns probably don’t need to be discussed.
In addition to the US constitutional issues in relation to quarantine of the healthy being properly resolved, like everybody else I hope that the US pharmaceutical industry will come up with a vaccine soon, further saving us from this outrageous flood of overactive government stupidity and spending.
Mooney_Driver wrote:
Ted wrote:
No country has eliminated this, as in gone! So no this would not be over mid march.We will never know but chances are pretty good that with a lockdown as it was enforced in some of the successful countries in this outbreak, the time involved would have been shorter, massively so. The incubation time for this thing is max 14 days, so when the first infections turned up, the country should have been sealed and shut down as it was later on immediately. IMHO this would have kept the spread to much lower figures and had allowed to keep up contact tracing all over. With a new infection rate of maybe 100 per day or lower, this is possible and is done now in Switzerland.
Where the western countries got it wrong was to take a soft approach, no masks, lame restrictions at first, basically letting the thing explode before they could justify harsher measures. Now we are in the third month of a shutdown which could have gone back to what the June 15 deadline now is set to be by mid march or early April.
What I do not see coming back anytime soon are mass venues such as sports events, theater, concerts, cinemas. But then while they are popular, most of them are not really vital for any economy. What is more critical is how to deal with public transport and also airline travel (which of course also is PT) and which countries to isolate further. And in case of 2ndary outbreaks, authorities need to act VERY fast to not repeat the same mistake.
I agree, but you avoid the fundamental question I raised.
If you are NZ or St Lucia what do you do over the coming months IF there is no vaccine or improved treatment?
In many ways a nice challenge, but still a challenge that gets more difficult to resolve the longer times goes on, and the incident in the world’s population grows.
There is an analogy with lost tribes in South America – you keep them free of the disease through isolation, but they are left hellishly vunerable should the virus find its way in, and you face the same cycle of lock downs to control the virus as you open up to the “outside” world.
Fuji_Abound wrote:
If you are NZ or St Lucia what do you do over the coming months IF there is no vaccine or improved treatment?
Both of these are island states, right? And I suppose you rise them because they are now Corona Free or nearly so?
In practice, the goal must be to stay that way. That means strict control who comes in, 14 days quarantine and compulsory testing for anyone who enters the island. Other than that, as long as there are no cases, go on with your life. That is what I am on about. If you have low or no cases, it has to stay that way. The only way to do that is to contain the sick, to make sure that nobody enters who can spread the thing and therefore keep the population safe. That is basically what most countries have done for now, albeit late.
I would think islands are the best to keep safe for obvious reasons, as long as the influx of people is subject to strict quarantine rules or testing. From what I read here, with now being enough testing available, quarantine may well be less than 2 weeks in the future: Test upon arrival, if negative test again 5 days later, if still negative release.
Jacko wrote:
As is the case in the United Kingdom under our Bill of Rights – the 1688 English one, not the wishy-washy neo-totalitarian European one which is so hedged with qualifications that it allows governments to trample on the Rights and Liberties of the Subject any time someone says “public safety”.
Something like 170,000 Europeans have so far died of Coronavirus, and I think time will show that the authoritarian response in many areas says more about the values of the people who carried it out than it does about its effectivity.
Blaming China and the WHO is scapegoating to avoid responsibility by incompetent government.
The Indian State of Kerala immediately got test kits when the virus was first mentioned. In January they were testing, isolating, and treating people arriving from China. Until they had migrant workers returning from Arabia, their deaths were in single figures, for a population more than half that of the UK.
Future historians will marvel at the Brittish belief in the efficacy of mass clapping.
Mooney_Driver wrote:
Both of these are island states, right? And I suppose you rise them because they are now Corona Free or nearly so?
In practice, the goal must be to stay that way. That means strict control who comes in, 14 days quarantine and compulsory testing for anyone who enters the island. Other than that, as long as there are no cases, go on with your life. That is what I am on about. If you have low or no cases, it has to stay that way. The only way to do that is to contain the sick, to make sure that nobody enters who can spread the thing and therefore keep the population safe. That is basically what most countries have done for now, albeit late.
I would think islands are the best to keep safe for obvious reasons, as long as the influx of people is subject to strict quarantine rules or testing. From what I read here, with now being enough testing available, quarantine may well be less than 2 weeks in the future: Test upon arrival, if negative test again 5 days later, if still negative release.
Yes, but ..
St Lucia survives economically almost wholly from tourism. A two week quarantine, and almost no one will come. New Zealand is not that dissimiliar.
That is the problem. Economically isolationism has been tried – but it doesnt work, in any sense we would currently recognise. Go abroad with compulsory quaratines both ends for two weeks and the vacation becomes 5 for 1, which fits into no known model, including one which people would want to do, or could afford to do.
These are the problems that would have to be confronted eventually by any State wishing to rejoin the international community.
Maoraigh wrote:
Blaming China and the WHO is scapegoating to avoid responsibility by incompetent government.
The Indian State of Kerala immediately got test kits when the virus was first mentioned. In January they were testing, isolating, and treating people arriving from China. Until they had migrant workers returning from Arabia, their deaths were in single figures, for a population more than half that of the UK.
It is, but there is a real purpose as well.
COVID originated in China, so did SARS, so did MERS, so did the rabbit virus that is desimating rabbit populations world wide with a mortality rate and a level of transmission that makes COVID look like a pussy cat.
I am a great believer in the adage once is bad luck, twice is suspicious, three times is a slam dunk that there probably is not much luck involved.
China’s wet markets, and their secrecy are recipes for future repeats, and must be dealt with otherwise a time will come when the virus will be many multiples worse, and it will be a real threat to our species as we know it. That is a very real possibility.
Other changes and lessons hopefully will be learnt, but these things need to be stopped at the outset, that much is clear, it is I suspect like a stroke, there is a golden hour, miss the opportunity and you may already have lost the battle.
These are the problems that would have to be confronted eventually by any State wishing to rejoin the international community.
You’re reminding me of that infamous newspaper headline that read something like “Fog in the English Channel. Continent cut off.”
You’re assuming that the infected countries are the “rest of the world”. It might well turn out that the infected countries end up desperately trying to clean up their act to join the “rest of the world” which is virus free.
I don’t see international tourism being being a big earner in countries where the pandemic isn’t under control.
