Common sense: quarantine is for sick people

Complaints about the details of these standards miss the point we've been isolating everyone for four and a half months, and anything less is not something to complain about unless you're offering even less restrictions, which I would happily consider the merits of.

But I've been challenged on my logic in this debate with shallow emotional manipulation arguing for total lock down of healthy/asymptomatic people. For example, it is not my responsibility if the guy who takes my money at the pizza shop gets the virus from me, goes home to his wife with a respiratory condition and she dies alone on a ventilator. Why should everyone be locked down and isolated instead of just her, or even both of them? Why wasn't he working out the back in a controlled environment & PPE instead of handling cash and interacting with the public? If her risk was so high, why wasn't she better controlling her environment?

Instead, such arguments propose we hold an entire nation of people hostage in their homes so people with higher morbidity risk can be protected from life and all its inherent risks, as if they would have more freedom under that scenario.

I get it. No one wants to die, and no one wants to be locked down in their homes. But everyone suffering doesn't ease anyone's suffering. It multiplies suffering, and reduces the nation's ability to care for those suffering long term, further multiplying suffering.

If the choice is between locking down those over 60 or everyone, those over 60 get the same result either way. But if we let the vast majority of the workforce get back to it and life as normal, except for interactions with people over 60 or otherwise at high risk, then the social safety net they need to survive lock down or infection will itself be maintained. What's good for the health system is good for the original objectives, preventing deaths and preventing overwhelming the health system.

If I may turn a terrible accusation back on those who suggest dissent from the official dogma equates to wanting people dead, where is their concern for the deaths caused by the quarantine of millions of otherwise healthy or asymptomatic people? Why aren't they listening to the experts?

A letter has been written and signed by dozens of the nation's leading experts on economics, law, mental health and industry which underscores the immense human cost being wreaked by these ill-advised lock downs. It's an experts showdown, one side against the other, and the governments have their fingers in their ears chanting "La la la la laaa," to any contrasting advice.

Some people simplistically imagine greed and profit when they hear the word "economy", compare that fallacy to the value of human life, and consequently ignore human tragedy of unreported proportions.

You see, there's a shortsighted fixation on the theoretically high number of lives saved by lock downs, but myopically ignorant of the millions of lives destroyed by lock downs. If very senior lives in nursing homes are cut short maybe 3 years early, each and every one is undoubtedly a tragedy. But who is to say that other lives also reduced by 3 or more years in years to come by the significant consequences of lock down are less important? Are their premature deaths less tragic?

One of the experts giving more moderated advice on the usefulness and consequences of broad lock downs is that of Professor Paul Frijters. Professor Frijters is an international expert on Wellbeing Economics at the London School of Economics. He is in the top 1% of most cited economists, an objective academic accolade of credibility and respect by his peers.

He says economic lock downs are causing up to 70 times more life years lost than coronavirus otherwise would.

And he's not alone.