Tuesday, May 5, 2020

Anti-lockdown right-wingers seem to believe in libertarianism for pathogens, not people. It's Thatcherism for microbes.

Because I've been posting over the last few weeks in favour of social distancing, lockdown, testing, contact tracing, quarantining, etc, etc, I've been attracting a fair bit of hatred (and that's not an overstatement) in the comments section of this blog.  Much of the bile comes from a pseudo-libertarian angle, ie. I'm supporting restrictions on people's personal freedoms and I'm therefore a "neo-authoritarian" and a "curtain-twitcher".  As long-term readers of the blog can testify, the reality is that I'm a strong civil libertarian, but I'm puzzled by the notion that exactly the same principles must apply regardless of whether or not a deadly virus is going around, and that people can reasonably expect to have precisely the same freedoms irrespective of whether exercising them carries a non-trivial risk of killing others.

There's also a weird overlap between people who think liberties are non-negotiable in an epidemic, and those who wrongly believe that coronavirus is no more dangerous than the seasonal flu.  Those two beliefs ought to be completely unrelated to each other - if you really think you've got the right to go where you want and do what you want and to hell with the consequences, there's no need to try to convince yourself and others that the harm being caused isn't that great.  And yet one of this blog's resident trolls is forever selectively quoting an outlier expert (Dr John Ioannidis) who is almost alone in thinking the fatality rate may be 0.2% or lower.  Even if that were true, why would it matter?  Coupling such an argument with an attack on "authoritarianism" implies that restrictions are only inappropriate because the virus isn't as deadly as it could be, so does that mean our normal freedoms aren't actually quite so absolute after all?  If, for example, this was an epidemic with a mortality rate akin to SARS (10%), would lockdowns, social distancing, contact tracing and quarantining suddenly be justified?  If so, I think I'm entitled to ask why the high mortality rate we're currently seeing (some serological studies suggest it may be close to 1%) is acceptable when an even higher one wouldn't be.  Civil liberties are, after all, a fairly meaningless concept for individuals who die or end up seriously ill in hospital - and they could make up something in the region of 15% of the entire population if the virus is allowed to spread freely.  What the trolls are really arguing for is not so much libertarianism for people, but libertarianism for microbes.  Thatcherism for pathogens.  There must be complete freedom of movement for the virus to do its worst.  Let's get rid of all that ghastly red tape that is hindering the epidemic.

But as far as human beings are concerned, lockdowns are actually preserving freedoms in the long run by making it more likely that people will stay well.  Test, trace, isolate goes a step further and enhances freedom in the here and now by making it possible to lift lockdown safely - because by isolating the minority of people who really need to be isolated, the vast majority of the population can get back to something approaching normality.

On the other extreme, I also have a critic who has no problem with the suppression measures, but who thinks I'm being far too beastly to the UK government in suggesting that they were ever following a herd immunity policy.  He reckons that it was merely an idea that was considered but never implemented - or if it was implemented it was only for a couple of days, because the first social distancing measures were supposedly announced very shortly after contact tracing was abandoned in mid-March.  In truth, the government let the virus rip for at least ten days, which is why we'll shortly have the second highest death toll in the whole world.  Large public gatherings weren't even banned in England until the day of the lockdown - the ban was announced earlier but it took that long for it to come into force.

There's ample evidence that herd immunity had been firmly decided upon before the U-turn occurred.  A number of government scientists spoke about the plan absolutely explicitly.  Graham Medley's Dr Strangelove-style comments would almost seem comical if they hadn't been so outrageous - he essentially said "we'd ideally like to make people immune from the virus by vaccinating them, but as we can't do that we're going to make them immune by infecting them with the actual virus instead". 

As for the length of time that the herd immunity plan had been in place, Boris Johnson dropped a fairly heavy hint in a speech way back in early February that the die was already cast -

"And when there is a risk that new diseases such as coronavirus would trigger a panic, and a desire for market segregation that go beyond what is medically rational, to the point of doing real and unnecessary economic damage, then at that moment humanity needs some government somewhere that is willing at least to make the case powerfully for freedom of exchange, some country ready to take off its Clark Kent spectacles and leap into the phone booth and emerge with its cloak flowing as the supercharged champion, of the right of the populations of the earth to buy and sell freely among each other."

In other words, this is a mild infection and the Chinese attempt to suppress it is irrational.  If other countries follow suit, there is a golden opportunity for Britain to gain an economic advantage by letting the virus rip.  The Chancellor reiterated that point several weeks later on Budget day (by which time Nadine Dorries had already tested positive) by saying that Britain's approach would prove to be the right one - by implication a suggestion that other countries would be proved wrong.

On the day that the World Health Organization started using the word "pandemic", Matt Hancock took full advantage by falsely claiming this meant they were saying that nothing could stop the virus reaching every corner of the world.  In fact, the WHO had been at pains to point out that the virus was still containable and controllable.  The government were clearly scrabbling around for any justification, however dishonest, for sitting back and allowing the virus to spread.  At around the same time, Boris Johnson cynically made a comment along the lines of "countries all over the world are giving up on their efforts to contain the virus".  I recall that made someone I follow on Twitter burst into tears, because she knew it was a lie, and she also knew what the consequences of the lie would be for the people of this country.


36 comments:

  1. "There is none so blind as those who will not see."

    Which is exactly why the "pseudo-libertarians" try their damnedest to convince everyone (including themselves, one guesses) that the virus is "just another flu". With a supposedly-tolerable death toll to suit.

    Which it isn't, of course.

    Worst of all, though, are those who do realise the truth but are fully prepared to (have others) make the sacrifice "for the sake of getting the economy moving again".

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  2. I suspect the overlap between the brexiteers and the weirdo libertarians that you note also can include the virus checking app supporters, as we begin to see that ( broadly) the whole of Europe is going with centralised data as opposed to, er, the exceptionalist UK (and France)

    Coronavirus: Ireland and UK opt for different tracing approaches https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-52509258

    Key words:
    As countries around the world have raced to develop contact-tracing apps for mobile phones, two paths have opened up - one model which does the contact-matching on a person's device, and another where it is done on a central server.
    Privacy advocates say the device-based model is less intrusive and less open to abuse.
    The UK is understood to be working towards a centralised model, which it (asked us to say) believes will offer more insight into the disease.

    I’ve inserted 4 words of choice in brackets above.

    I’ll be interested in the tech arguments that we get to hear about when it’s too late to do anything else.

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    1. "we begin to see that (broadly) the whole of Europe is going with de-centralised data as opposed to, er, the exceptionalist UK"

      Sorted!

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  3. I'll be f'ked if I'm putting a UK government tracing app on my phone, that's for sure.

    I'm glad the Scottish Government TTIS plan is naff all to do with it.

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    1. How would they find the Scarlet Pimpernel paddy. Wee Knickerless is fully on board with Boris. She probably wants his child.

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    2. Covidia will install the app, then spend its time on the way to the fields wondering how its masters found it.

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  4. My response to people saying their tight to freedom of movement is being curtailed is your right to freedom of movement is a lesser right than the the right to life of people who are vulnerable due to age or health conditions and therefore it is right to limit freedom of movement

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  5. Your article is spot on again re the virus. I would add that the "grim reaper" Johnson said we should take it on the chin as a country and let it sweep through the nation. He also said we should prepare for loved ones to go before their time. The Tories have always been murdering bastards.

    Pity you cannot accept that the SNP/Scotgov needs a clear out of lying criminal conspirators who are not supporters of independence.

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    1. Can you provide written or video evidence. When he said we should prepare for loved ones to go before their time he was being honest and it is happening. That is what the virus does.

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    2. Why are there more dead in the UK than in Italy? The UK had weeks of warning and has a younger population.

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    3. Provide a Britnat turd with evidence? Ha ha ha . Away back to the sewer where you belong GWC.

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    4. I stand at the sewer exit watching Nat si excrement pollute our rivers.

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    5. Covidia has moved from beneath bridges to the depths of the sewer. No wonder its ravings are so diseased.

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  6. By allowing people to die, the Tory government in London have surely acted criminally.

    Utterly terrifying that the 'UK' are in talks with the U.S this week on trade deals. It could hardly be worse, during a pandemic, hold trade talks with the most unstable country in the goddamn world, while rejecting your 27 neighbours' fair and free trade and, even their support in dealing with this terrible disease ripping through your communities.

    How can anyone in their right mind think for one moment that is in any way a good thing.

    Imagine if this terrible situation had been dealt with in a humane, reasoned way, following advice from the countries who were screaming out to test, trace and isolate and lockdown. How different the situation would be looking now, but no, it's looking bad, very bad for the UK's population.

    Scotland is in great peril, even more than usual, and anyone who believes that the Britnat government will not do anything they can to stifle ( or reverse if necessary) Scotland's progress in dealing with CV19, is a fool.

    Keep writing James, always interesting to read your measured articles on all sorts of things including the ( mainly UK EngGov's) terrible and destructive handling of this pandemic.

    As an aside I spotted a few people arriving at what has seemed to be a temp closed guest house, very near us in Edinburgh, luggage and all...hadn't thought about guest houses, looks like people are still holidaying in Scotland's cities and countryside though.

    Lockdown should really mean what it says, do not travel to an area of your country where you do not normally live, or more importantly perhaps the country next door, until you are told it is OK to do so. Seems some people think rules only apply to others and not them. Thanks folks for spreading the virus around Edinburgh's communities, well done eh.
    H.

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  7. Can I just check something please? Is the social distancing not to do with controlling hospital admissions as opposed to 'hiding away' from the virus? I thought (but I could be wrong) that the idea is to prevent deaths of those who could survive IF there were, say, enough respirators available. To simplify, those who contract Covid 19 and die of it presently would most likely have died of it (if contracted) in any case, but our social distancing measures are designed to reduce the strain on the NHS and its supply of respirators in order to ensure that unnecessary deaths (those who would survive if equipment was available) are kept at low to nil. Is this not the case and the reason for the lockdown? I ask as I have spoken to some people who fear the virus itself in the same way as people fear a contagion in a zombie film. I am not trying to make a point here I just would like some clarification if possible. Thanks.

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    1. No, you're incorrect. If we take the Scottish Government at their word, and indeed even if we take Matt Hancock at his word, the objective is not merely to keep the numbers within NHS capacity, but instead to properly suppress the virus and to keep the numbers as low as possible. That's entirely as it should be, for a number of reasons. Firstly, the death rate among elderly and vulnerable people who need a ventilator is extremely high. The way to keep them alive is to prevent them catching the virus in the first place. Having facilities and equipment available for them once they become ill is very much second best, because the risk of them dying would still be far too high. Secondly, a failure to properly suppress the virus causes immense economic damage by making an in-out sequence of repeated lockdowns inevitable. It's a real lose/lose - economic collapse and tens of thousands of avoidable deaths.

      "Hiding away from the virus" as you put it is an entirely rational thing to do for as long as there is a non-trivial chance of being exposed to it. It has up to a 1% death rate and a 20% hospitalisation rate, and yet you can catch it more easily than the common cold.

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    2. You cannot hide from the virus. That is like putting your head under the blankets.

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    3. The lancet suggests a crude 5% hospitalisation rate varying amongst different age groups comorbidities etc.

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    4. Jeez, a 5% hospitalization rate is crazily high. The NHS would have collapsed with a week without the lockdown. Shows you much worse than flu this is; orders of magnitude worse.

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    5. Poor Covidia. Such a shame to be so hard of understanding.

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  8. Yet the UK had a good few weeks warning from Italy.

    And Italy has a notably older population.

    And is a country where the elderly commonly co-habit with the young in multi-generational homes, which was a big contributing factor to the rapid spread, unlike the UK.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-52549860

    Coronavirus: UK death toll passes Italy to be highest in Europe

    The UK now has the highest number of coronavirus deaths in Europe, according to the latest government figures.

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    1. What happened to the almighty EU warnings. Was there any! WHAT happened to the Unity. THE EU is dead and gone. When this shit is over the EU should voluntarily disband without any payouts. Picking fruit in Scotland for them.

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    2. Nah Skier your worshipfullness Knickerless is fully on board with Boris. We should be concerned who will pay the price for the forthcoming austerity. It will not be the political class.

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    3. If so, why's she not putting London's spyware app on her phone?

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    4. She is in a sheltered environment so no requirement. Someone does her shopping and feeds her. She rarely visits the plebs in Govan/Govanhill. So no one will become within six feet of her.

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    5. Covidia will be compliant in adding its masters' spyware to all its tech. Then, sitting in the van on the way to the fields for mandatory crop harvesting, it will wonder how its overlords tracked it down.

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  9. There was no herd immunity plan for two reasons being: herd and immunity.
    (There was a back of a fag packet idea when the UK GOV was confronted with the virus or the economy and acted like a rabbit in the headlights.)

    We still don't know whether contracting the virus provides immunity from it, or if it does the extent and duration of that immunity and the severity of the condition required to provide it, intuitively it would and studies are promising but we still don't know. Patrick Vallence stated this today.

    You also can't guarantee the herd, you can't just suppose 70% of the population will willingly contract a deadly virus. A significant proportion will resist and take measures to protect themselves and prevent them from contracting it. Vaccination programs even suffer from lack of take up if a significant risk is associated with the vaccine even spuriously such as MMR.

    Pro Ferguson himself stated that the measures introduced on the 16th of March amounted to a voluntary lockdown.

    Countries that haven't adopted the full lockdown approach have been as successful in controlling the spread with social distancing measures.

    The plan has always been to stop the NHS from becoming overwhelmed.

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    1. Why the very late lockdown that's led to the most deaths in Europe?

      Why wait until such high levels of infection were reached?

      Italy started locking down infection hotspots when just 2 people had died. That's only a couple of hundred infections 4 weeks previously.

      The UK government refused to lockdown the outbreak epicenter of London, and waited until 335 were dead before imposing a lockdown; that's 33.5k infections 4 weeks previously.

      Of course we now know that infections in the UK were over 1 million by lockdown; something that the UK government would have known from modelling. Why did it wait? What was the reason for allowing so many to get infected?

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    2. Why would the UK government have known this from modelling, this is a new disease, even today a case has emerged from December in France.

      Being precise with modelling real time info is very difficult without high levels of accurate data when something is growing exponentially. The UK didn't have this

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    3. Unknown: This is getting silly now. The reason we know there was a herd immunity plan is that government scientists like Patrick Vallance and Graham Medley went ON TELEVISION and stated there was a herd immunity plan. They used the ACTUAL WORDS herd immunity. It's on YouTube - look it up.

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    4. The plan if there was one never happened. So move on.

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    5. GWC it would be good if you didn't move on and just stayed in the sewer with your fellow Britnat turds where you can discuss how many Britnat turds you killed due to your fellow incompetent Britnat turds letting the virus rip. Murdering Tory turds.

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  10. BREAKING NEWS: Imperial Master James Kelly forced to step down from his high horse after GWC shock lockdown tryst allegations

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  11. In case anyone is interested. The UK has now far surpassed Italy in terms of deaths per capita.

    55 days after the 10th death, UK has a death toll of 29,429.
    55 days after the 10th death, Italy had a death toll of 23,660.

    UK population = 67,817,138
    Italy population = 60,478,861

    So, at the same stage of the virus (it hit Italy first, remember):

    Deaths per capita UK = 433.95
    Deaths per capita Italy = 391.21



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