I think we mostly agree, and I think your question here really gets to the meat of the ethics dilemma of combating a pandemic in a democratic society. Namely how much inconvenience/burden can you place on an individual because of perceived public benefit. In an authoritarian system you might say anything where the community benefit outweighs the individual cost it should be borne by said individual, even if the individual personally suffers, but clearly we’re more complex about it in the US (for an extreme example it would be abhorrent for the government to force you to donate a kidney, or even just blood, even if it was to save a really important person).
While I sympathize with the notion that the government could put high caps on gatherings at private places because of the community benefit you describe I think that’s a government overreach, but I think reasonable people can disagree. I’d argue the at risk person basically owns their exposure. Sometimes that’ll stink for the individual (for example it sucked for my grandmother to basically be stuck in isolation when all she really does all week is look forward to weekly dinner) but, in my view, it’s wrong to prohibit individuals from something as innocuous as gathering at their own residence due to a potential risk down the chain.
Now schools is a complicated one, since it’s a sort of semi-forced public gathering that could be the key link in the chain. But that’s where I’d argue it’s fair the government regulate risk mitigation efforts at the public place but the fact that an at risk person could be at the end of some chain of exposure is ultimately that person’s issue, rather than the person on the other end of the chain. In an idealized world perhaps we’d deal with that but I’d challenge we go down a complicated path. Flu kills many older people and is little risk to kids, should we not do similar precautions annually for the same reason, to protect some anonymous relative of a student?
this notion is false. do residents in nursing homes own their exposure? A huge portion of covid deaths came from nursing homes. My father caught covid in a nursing home. not his fault he wound up there right as covid was exploding. Had my father been home like my mother was, he would have been highly unlikely to catch covid. In the nursing home though, caught it almost immediately.
I assume your grandmother is able bodied and therefore can isolate from all humans. many elderly people can’t.
I’d argue he does own his own exposure. Obviously it’s tough for him to limit exposure to 0, which sucks, but it’s unreasonable to burden society as a whole because of the risk of a chain of transmission. For example what if the COVID numbers were simple, let’s say 1 in 20 of those >= 75 die and 0 < 75 die. Is it right for the entire country to lock down for 18 months until everyone is vaccinated to mitigate that risk? I’d say that’s hugely risk averse and is a massive wealth transfer from < 75 to >= 75.
And she’s in assisted living, so she can mostly isolate from all humans. She has become less social as she has gotten older and AFIB has really slowed her down. She’d basically have food/etc delivered by my sister in a mask, etc and just watch WW2 history re-runs or read about Churchill. She’s vaccinated now though so back to weekly gatherings.
I’m not sure how you define “own his own exposure”. what does that mean? Does it mean he has control over it? He most certainly did not. Does it mean, that your family has a right to hang out more than elderly in nursing homes have a right to live? If you believe that, so be it. I don’t think the phrase “own their exposure” makes sense though. To me that implies they have control over their exposure. They don’t, at all. Insinuating that it’s his responsibility to avoid catching covid rather than saying, ya, my right to hang out with my family is more important than your right to live is insulting and also just not accurate.
I’d define it in a similar way to driving. I own the risk that I go drive to work and some 17 year old guy crashes into me and kills me. Is that 17 year old’s right to driving more important than my right to live?
was the 17 year old reckless? Everyone on the road has a responsibility to follow safety rules for other drivers. in this case, those rules mean limiting the exposure.
he had NO choice about going to the nursing home for rehab. He happened to get an infection in his foot that almost killed him immediately prior to covid exploding. Where was his choice here?
I’m fine with you claiming that your right to hang out with your family is more important than my fathers life, but your arguments of “owning his own exposure” make zero sense.
I think that’s the wrong tradeoff comparison. My position is that it’s unreasonable for society to burden individuals with limitations on their right to gather privately because of a perceived societal benefit in the form of reduced risk to COVID. By saying your father owns his own exposure means I don’t think it’s reasonable to pursue all mitigation efforts, especially ones that cause net harm to others, simply to reduce his risk. It’s his risk. As I’ve mentioned above though I’d draw a distinction between public and private places.
the term “owning his own exposure” implies he has control over his exposure and removes any responsibility from you to limit the spread. It’s a bad term. You can use all the words you want, but in the end, you think your right to hang out with your family is more important than nursing home residents right to live.
I think that’s a strawman. Before buying any insurance I own all the exposure to losses related to my house. I don’t have control over much of that risk which is why insurers are willing to underwrite it for a premium, but I still own the exposure and I pay a premium to transfer most of it.
That’s a vague scenario, it would depend on the details. If our gathering was the true causal event that resulted in some otherwise fine individual dying we wouldn’t gather because of altruistic feelings. In practice it’s a lot more complicated than that with far lower risk values.
How do you think COVID spreads to people, intentionally? Gatherings DO kill people, and strangers. Hopefully yours hasn’t, and hopefully it doesn’t, but the difference between the family gatherings that killed people and yours? Nothing but luck.
I’m not saying “don’t visit your family” but it seems like you think your actions are inconsequential in this regard. I disagree. We rely on each other and no one owns their exposure, we as a society own our exposure, and our weakest link is our biggest liability.
Well this is where we get into the ethical dilemma, imo, and why the real numbers matter. What if rather than my gathering guaranteed kills one person it’s more like a gathering has a 1 in 10,000 chance, or 1 in 1b chance? And then there’s the issue of the government mandating an individual accept something that’s a net negative for them personally to help someone else.
What if my blood could cure COVID? Is it OK for the government to mandate that I give blood as often as I’m physically able to save old people? Are the lives of these old people not more important than my discomfort? I’d argue that’s the wrong question. Is it right to burden an individual with a net negative outcome for a societal benefit? I think we answer that question depending on the details in a democratic society, but as the societal benefits become small we become less tolerant of bearing the burden, rightfully so.
I think you’re changing the question from, “does the government have the right to prevent me from killing someone” to “does the government have the right to force me to save someone.”
We’re not talking about a one in one billion chance, either. Over 1 in 1,000 of our citizens have died from this thing. Yes, at some point the numbers tilt the scale. Yes, we’ll disagree on what that number is.
Are you pro-life? I am, from the womb to the tomb, including quality of life and healthcare. That’s why I vote blue. That’s why I wear a mask, that’s why I sacrifice, because I matter less than others around me. I hope my actions in life prove that I believe that.
Ironically, most of the pro-life people I know don’t seem to think pro-life applies here, and I’m not sure why that is. We force women to carry a pregnancy to term in some states but think death is a sacrifice grandma should want to make, without her consent, for her grandkids’ right to make zero sacrifices. It’s puzzling.
I have mixed feelings on the government mandates. some of them are stupid. like, why would the chance of contracting covid increase at midnight for restaurants to have to close by midnight? Are restaurants cinderella? I also have mixed feelings on dictating how people live their lives. The government isn’t exactly stopping your family from gathering though, despite the mandate. It’s not really enforced anyway.
I mostly have a problem with using the term “own your own exposure”. To me that says, you entirely relinquish any responsibility you have for keeping society healthy.
I think that’s fair, I did move the goalposts a bit there. I think where we disagree then is on that causal link between private gatherings and someone else’s death. If I gather and receive a virus from a relative, then go in person to work while following all mitigation rules (masks, etc.) but someone else catches it all the same who then ends up dying of it or passing it to someone else who dies I’m part of a chain that resulted in someone’s death. Personally I think preventing the my gathering part of the chain is closer to trying to save someone, rather than trying to stop me from killing them, especially if we accept the mortality risk of COVID is something like 1 in 1,000.
Completely agree on the incoherence of the pro-life argument though, although I think that all just boils down to controlling women, imo.
That’s true, it wasn’t really enforced at all, but presumably that’s just an enforcement issue rather than they didn’t really mean to make the rules.
And I didn’t mean any offense by the phrase, just how I think of it in my head. And I get as NerdAlert describes that to some degree with public health it’s a lot more efficient to think of exposure as being shared across society, but I think that’s always going to be challenging to some degree in a democratic/individualist society because there’s limits to how much burden you can place on an individual even with really large societal benefits.