Covid: why didn't the old lie down for the young ?

dazed

It's clear that covid's impacts are much more severe and felt by those over 50.
Yes there are anecdotal stories of younger people being seriously affected, but the odds are similar to being struck by lightning.
So the reality is that our policy response to covid is aimed at protecting those over 50.
I can't help but wonder why those over 50 didn't lie down for the young.
The arguably irreversible damage done to children and teens by the restrictions and changes to their freedoms is huge. They have suffered and continue to suffer so much.
Yet they are clearly at very little risk from this virus. The flu is in fact a greater threat to them.
So they are made to suffer these restrictions, not for their own protection, but rather to protect those in the plus 50 group.
I wonder though if you asked all those parents and grandparents in the above 50 group whether they would WANT their children and grandchildren to make that sacrifice for their sake, how many would say yes?
I have no children but can say without a doubt I would have chosen to face the risks that come with a lack of restrictions on children to protect the freedom and happiness of children.
I know without a doubt that my grandparents and parents would have done that for me.

I wonder if we had given people a choice, how many in the over 50 group would have asked children and teens to give up their freedoms and happiness?

Baden

↪dazed

Because death is a more serious affliction than not being able to get a haircut maybe? Because most under 50s are not selfish rats? Because the chaos of letting COVID run riot would not be limited to one age group? Because the under 50s did not entirely give up their freedom and happines but merely mitigated it along with everyone else? Because watching their parents and grandparents die would not generally make young people happy anyway?

Pantagruel

The arguably irreversible damage done to children and teens by the restrictions and changes to their freedoms is huge. — dazed

Like spending more time with their parents? A large percentage of children surveyed in Canada now identify their parents as their "best friends". Like learning the value of sacrificing trivial personal freedoms for the greater good? Like being forced to utilize their minds to come up with creative alternatives to habitual rituals?

Human beings thrive and grow and learn through challenges.

Jack Cummins

↪dazed

I think that your suggestions of suggesting that older people should lie down and just allow for younger people to thrive would be asking for them to become martyrs. Also, you speak of all over 50s and that would mean a significant proportion of the population. Most people at 50 are working and may live for 30 or 40 more years. If an ideology that the older people should just be allowed to get sick and died had developed during the pandemic it would have been one of ageism. Also, it would have been in complete opposition to the life instincts of people.

counterpunch

I think a herd immunity approach was considered and rejected as a non-viable strategy - and the lockdown measures put into place, and immunization of the most vulnerable first then emerged as - what I think is, actually - a fairly well balanced approach considering all the competing interests, the very, very least of which is freedoms and happiness of teens!

javi2541997

↪dazed

Your opinion of letting die older because they already lived so much is somehow selfish. It does not respect the human nature of individualism. I don't have to die for others neither others for me. The solution is the accessibility vaccine for all the citizens not just let others die because we are not good enough to make a strategic plan in the pandemic

frank

So they are made to suffer these restrictions, not for their own protection, but rather to protect those in the plus 50 group. — dazed

I disagree with this. Where the virus was out of control, restrictions were meant to keep the hospitals from being overloaded.

If they became overloaded everyone would suffer including young people in motor vehicle accidents, for instance.

In places where the virus remained controlled, restrictions were meant to keep it that way.

NOS4A2

The lockdowns and restrictions were a failure of government. Even with all their resources, they were unable to devise a plan that would protect the aged population and while maintaining the freedoms so many have fought and died to attain. So I would prefer that bureaucrats, politicians and public health officials had lied down for everyone else.

schopenhauer1

↪NOS4A2

You mean the coordinated effort of the Civil War and WW2 and the like by federal GOVERNMENT? :roll:

You mean the UNION of the states to come together to form Committees of Correspondence to fight the Revolutionary War?

NOS4A2

↪schopenhauer1

No, I mean the covid restrictions.

synthesis

"SAVE ME!! SAVE ME!! SAVE ME!!," cry out the people, for I do not wish to grow-up and take responsibility for my own life.

This last year has been a pathetic example of the incredibly weakness of people in the West, adult children infected by a culture of intellectual bewilderment and victimhood.

It's time to put on your big-boy pants, folks!

tim wood

The lockdowns and restrictions were a failure of government. — NOS4A2

Disregard, another unsupported claim by our resident fabricator of same.

NOS4A2

↪tim wood

Disregard, another unsupported claim by our resident fabricator of same.

Another example of Tim’s bigotry.

Hanover

"SAVE ME!! SAVE ME!! SAVE ME!!," cry out the people, for I do not wish to grow-up and take responsibility for my own life.

This last year has been a pathetic example of the incredibly weakness of people in the West, adult children infected by a culture of intellectual bewilderment and victimhood.

It's time to put on your big-boy pants, folks! — synthesis

And so on your island of self-sufficiency, do you refuse all treatment for all diseases and just lay down and die because to do otherwise would rely upon someone else for your safety? Would you pathetically walk into an emergency room with a broken arm and say "SAVE ME!! SAVE ME!!," or would you heroically try to set your own bone and deal with the infection the best you could?

Sometimes the solution is a vaccine, sometimes a cast, sometimes a mask, and sometimes quarantine. What is your principled distinction between these where some are pathetic reactions and some are not?

Why is it more grown up to behave as if you are entirely in control of your destiny as opposed to behaving as if others also control your destiny, especially considering the latter is true and the former is false?

tim wood

For various materials, there are agents that when applied reveal their grain or highlight various structures. We the material and Covid the agent. And Covid has revealed an extraordinary graining of stupidity and pride in that stupidity.

And so seeming great is that stupidity that I'm forced to wonder if the humanity in, of, an individual is not qualified and reduced by the degree of that stupidity. I am not referring to intellectually challenged people, but instead those of intelligence who are abyssally stupid. And along those lines I wonder if the greater blessing would be to let those who deny Covid, or vaccines, or safe practices, have the harvest of the fruit of their stupidity, and just die.

I have become a believer, that when I encounter a person who manifestly wants something, works for it, earns it and gets it, that I am under no obligation to rescue him from himself.

schopenhauer1

No, I mean the covid restrictions. — NOS4A2

Oh because you said:

while maintaining the freedoms so many have fought and died to attain. — NOS4A2

And I thought it ironic that fighting for those freedoms involved coordinating on a federal level in exactly the way that you seem to be opposing. I gave examples of it including the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, and certainly WW2.

synthesis

Sometimes the solution is a vaccine, sometimes a cast, sometimes a mask, and sometimes quarantine. What is your principled distinction between these where some are pathetic reactions and some are not? — Hanover

All the time people should be figuring things out for themselves by using clarity in their powers of observation and critical thinking instead of allowing these morons in the media and government to decide for them.

tim wood

these morons in the media and government to decide for them. — synthesis

All such moronic? Isn't there a more likely different reality?

synthesis

↪tim wood

I believe 5000 years of recorded history suggest that you're on your own.

tim wood

I believe 5000 years of recorded history suggest that you're on your own. — synthesis

Meaning? Your point? In your admirable effort to be terse you left those out - or I'm just not getting them.

NOS4A2

↪schopenhauer1

And I thought it ironic that fighting for those freedoms involved coordinating on a federal level in exactly the way that you seem to be opposing. I gave examples of it including the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, and certainly WW2.

By saying “fighting for those freedoms” I didn’t necessarily mean war. Personally, I wouldn’t use the example of a federal coordination towards mass death and destruction as an example of good government.

Tzeentch

I don't see why those who deem themselves vulnerable cannot isolate themselves, or have the government facilitate such isolation on a voluntary basis.

This is just another example of governments treating their citizens like children. Wear a coat when it rains outside! Don't run with sharp objects! Wash your hands before dinner!

A while back there was a thread that talked about how western society seems inhabited by adult children. My reply was; treating people like children, makes them act like children.

And that sums up this whole situation. Governments playing the role of overbearing, controlling mother and turning its population into dysfunctional children.

synthesis

Meaning? Your point? In your admirable effort to be terse you left those out - or I'm just not getting them. — tim wood

Meaning that the people who have seen the most success in life throughout the ages are those who are willing to take complete responsibility for themselves. This allows the individual to develop to their full potential, a state of being which benefits all in society.

Baden

All the time people should be figuring things out for themselves — synthesis

Next time you go to the emergency room, I hope you get this response. You don't just "figure out" every health issue for yourself. If the powers that be get a pandemic wrong by listening to those whose egos considerably outweigh their intellect, the consequence is death and economic destruction on a far greater scale than we have now. So, maybe put your pecker back in your pocket and leave it to those who have a clue.

tim wood

↪synthesis

No doubt much truth, but not as much as I think you're trying to get out of it. Are you a Thrasymachus, or a Maslow?

synthesis

Next time you go to the emergency room, I hope you get this response. You don't just "figure out" every health issue for yourself. If those in charge get a pandemic wrong by listening to those whose egos considerably outweigh their intellect, the consequence is death and economic destruction on a far greater scale than we have now. — Baden

One of the solutions to the health care crises in the West is for people to take responsibility for their own health. If you make the effort, you can educate yourself about almost everything you need to know. Prevention is the number one factor everybody has control of.

Believe me, the folks who run the health care system (be it corporate of government) are NOT your friends. The only solution is taking responsibility for yourself no matter the issue. Educate yourself to the point where you can use the so-called "experts" as people who will further your knowledge, but rely on your own brain because nobody cares as much about you as YOU. The experts have sold you out long ago...

synthesis

↪tim wood

I'm not sure what that means.

Hanover

All the time people should be figuring things out for themselves by using clarity in their powers of observation and critical thinking instead of allowing these morons in the media and government to decide for them. — synthesis

I'm a moron when it comes to virology. Did you figure out a cure on your own or maybe you relied on someone else?

Hanover

The experts have sold you out long ago... — synthesis

I'm going to need names, dates, and details. Otherwise this is mindless conspiracy theory telling me what the undefined "they" did.

NOS4A2

↪Tzeentch

Well said.

Entire generations have been taught to leave their responsibility to protect themselves at the feet of the paternalistic government. In that sense they are unweaned.

Hanover

don't see why those who deem themselves vulnerable cannot isolate themselves, or have the government facilitate such isolation on a voluntary basis. — Tzeentch

That's because you don't think covid is a serious threat. If you thought it was like ebola and going to kill indiscriminately and quickly, you'd demand the infected be quarantined. Do you think it'd be a reasonable response to Ebola to just tell people if they're worried about getting it from the infected folks on the street, then just stay inside?

That it to say you're not a freedom fighter, but just someone who doesn't think this disease warrants much concern.

Covid: why didn't the old lie down for the young ?

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