[ExI] Is the USA doing too much to prevent COVID-19?

[SR Ballard]

Government intervention was required to allow the wearing of face masks. Government intervention was required to force my workplace to allow (now mandated) the wearing of masks and gloves. 

I quit working two months ago, as earlier this year I was nearly hospitalized for pneumonia (again, perhaps the fourth time in my life) so I thought “let’s just not”. The last straw was when I had a man openly cough in my face, full spray, without so much as an apology. And I had my face coughed on earlier that same day. No masks at work were allowed, no gloves. It would “scare” people.

In my local area, people are already going back to work today. I started back to work Wednesday. 

We were never under house arrest here. We were always fully able to leave our homes and travel around as much as we like, just everything was closed. It’s not the same. I know it was different in other regions, but my region there was no house arrest. It was just “pretty please”.

My boyfriend was “laid off” and is receiving unemployment, but he has a job waiting for him in two(ish) weeks when it reopens (and it will). 

Many, many people have jobs to go back to.

But rent and debt is another story all together and will have lasting repercussions.

And we can always lose our jobs or be laid off in any economic conditions, not just now. Yes, it’s more likely now, but it’s always been possible. And just like always people will fail to plan for it and it will such and people will suffer just like in ‘08 all over again. 

SR Ballard

> On Apr 30, 2020, at 10:29 PM, Rafal Smigrodzki via extropy-chat <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
> 
> 
> 
>> On Thu, Apr 30, 2020 at 11:21 AM SR Ballard <sen.otaku at gmail.com> wrote:
>> As a note, without government intervention, us “cowerers” are not allowed to stay home. Due to government action, I was allowed to stay home without losing my job. 
>> 
>> AND in the South, we were not legally allowed to wear face masks, because KKK, before government intervention.
> 
> ### Let's not conflate different issues. 
> 
> I am against government-imposed lockdowns, orders forbidding hospitals to admit patients, hairstylists to cut hair and scientists to do science.
> 
> I strongly *support* reasonable infection control measures including wearing face masks. If there are laws that interfere with such measures, the laws need to be eliminated - but you do not need to order mass house arrests to achieve that.
> 
> The decision to withdraw from some activities must be made by the individual citizens, organizations and businesses. Only individuals have the particular knowledge needed to make correct trade-offs. If you believe your life is in acute danger at work, you may decide not to go to work (unless you specifically signed up for a dangerous job, like a soldier). Contrary to what you say, staying at home is always an option. You were allowed to stay home even before the lockdowns. As to the ability to keep one's job, lockdowns caused the largest spike in unemployment in the US ever, so no, none of us should count our chickens before they are hatched - all of us could yet lose our jobs to layoffs and bankruptcies if this madness of locked-down crowds continues.
> 
> Rafal
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