Why are we not allowed to be adults?

[Mumlove5]

Throughout these forced restrictions, this is what has been the most troubling for me. SAGE has written that citizens should be treated as “rational actors”. We as people have been allowed to take personal risk during past pandemics. My grandfather and other family members became very ill during the 1968 pandemic. In the end, all survived thankfully. However, everyone went on with their lives and took common sense precautions. They were treated as adults. What has happened?

unherd.com/2020/06/was-the-two-metre-rule-one-big-lie/?tl_inbound=1&tl_groups%5B0%5D=18743&tl_period_type=3

In a pandemic, as new understanding emerges by the day, clarity is even more important. As early as February, scientific advice to the government about how to handle the Covid-19 pandemic included the importance of being clear and definitive, coherent and consistent, not only to improve compliance with helpful actions, but to discourage pointless or counterproductive ones.

But this is no excuse for dishonesty about the basis for official advice or rules. Where the scientific basis for policies was uncertain, it would have been far better to say that the science was uncertain, but the government had made a decision for these reasons: erring on the side of caution until more was known, or recognising that human life is about more than medical health.

When the WHO switched its advice to one metre, what was the rationale for sticking with two? Fear of looking indecisive? Lack of faith in British people to know what a metre looks like? In mid-March, the UK’s scientific advisory group, SAGE, was invoking behavioural science to argue that the public is mostly rational and altruistic in a crisis:

“The behavioural science points to openly explaining to the public where the greatest risks lie and what individuals can do to reduce their own risk … Greater transparency will help people understand personal risk and enable personal agency, send useful signals about risk in general and build public trust. Citizens should be treated as rational actors, capable of taking decisions for themselves and managing personal risk.”

Of all the expert advice given to the government, it’s a pity this paragraph has been so often ignored.

Early in the lockdown, I heard the same phrase from someone who wanted libraries to be open. The problem is, even if we treated her like an adult who could make her own choice, she couldn't do that without a bunch of other adults working there. Those workers weren't being treated like adults, they were being treated as employees who should be at that person's whim. Unless the government and wider society protects vulnerable people not going into work or for a child registered at a school to be kept home by their parents, those adults won't be able to make those adult risk assessments about their and their family's well-being freely.

As much as I agree that it's beyond time for governments to put out risk assessment tools for daily life things like visiting people, we can't really treat a pandemic like it's an individual's problem. How many of the 'common sense' choices made in 1968 were made because people didn't really have protection to make any other and a bit of fingercrossing? There are plenty of other pandemics before and since where government measures were put in place. As much as a clusterfuck as it's all been, at least some effort has been made to protect people, if only financially. Imagine the issues if we were all allowed to make adult choices which meant the government didn't put out what was needed to enable insurance claims. We can see the lack of adult choices possible in areas where that has happened.

And as much as I know this sucks, it really isn't house arrest. I've lived with someone under house arrest and unless you've an electronic tag on sending out your location, unable to use parts of your house or garden because of issues with the signal getting to a flashy box, and the police can show up at your door and investigate what you and those living in your house are doing at any time, it's really not the same thing. I think part of the anxiety for many healthy young people is us older adults' lack of perspective from both the world is ending and let me run wild and free sides being fed to them so much.