We have a right to education, a right to personal liberty, a right to family time, or we did before Covid.

[Treesofwood]

But not any more. So how do we decide when some people's rights (including right to life) mean that others lose their rights. There have always been people who could get very sick and even die if they were to catch anyone of a number of viruses that circulate every year. No one suggested everyone should give up their right to personal liberty to prevent that. There have always been people who are killed on the roads every year. No one suggested that non essential car journeys should be banned to reduce or prevent this. Why are people with cancer's lives seen as less worth saving than those who might catch Covid? Why are people OK with this? How can the government make it illegal for me to see my parents?

Porcupineinwaiting I can't see that being the case. They haven't chosen to wear masks for example. The only school children educated virtually were age 15 plus.
There are other differences between Sweden and its neighbours that could account for a large proportion of the difference in death rate. There has been a clear acknowledgment of a failure in managing the situation in care homes. On top of which they have a quite different pattern of providing elderly care than their neighbours including larger homes.
Added to that there is thought to have been more and later travel to alpine regions in the winter. Including to Northern Italy.

Namenic None of that is actually removing your right to liberty? Reducing the risks of death maybe, but not removing it. We must all believe that there is an acceptable number of deaths for our freedom to travel. Or people would be protesting. Etc.

Lastgoldendaysofsummer Why would you not use hypothetical questioning to explore issues? Don't think for one minute that there are not conversations that go on about collateral damage in government office. There is a line that is seen as acceptable when it comes to trading some peoples rights for others.
We could always have allowed people on cancer treatments to participate in society in the way we did before if we all wore masks, sanitised, stayed in at the first sign of illness. But that is not seen at as an acceptable trade off either by society or the government. Those people have to live like we currently are for the duration of their treatment.

Hypothetical points are only useful if they fall within the bounds of possibility.

When they become silly they are useless.

What about modelling by hypocritical professors. Do they have to fall in the bounds of possibility too?

We are talking about trading some peoples rights for others. Children have and are missing out on substantial amounts of their education. If the state was their parent they would have taken themselves to court and fined them. Or even imprisoned them. Is this worth saving 2 lives? 400? 10000? Where's the line. Because there is one. I know I am simplifying it, but I do think what I am saying is fundamentally the decisions that are being made somewhere, at some level.

@queenofknives yes exactly. If you work in Starbucks then another lockdown is likely to cost you your job. Makes the whole debate a bit different. I hate the way people act like abject poverty is a price worth paying, because you didn't die of COVID. It's not. People seem to have no idea what a depression will do to society. Suicide has a 100% fatality rate, funnily enough...

As others have said, it is not really that we are prioritising preventing deaths from Covid over deaths from other causes. It is that, due to its capacity for exponential growth, Covid is different in its potential to overwhelm the health service and devastate society.

I'd happily wear masks forever in shops and continue sd in public, using hand gel regularly, if it meant cancer patients were more protected and people who work in shops wouldn't lose their jobs.
Masks were standard in some countries pre Covid - we could do with measures to prevent spread of colds and flu generally.

@MrsHuntGeneNotJeremyObviously

I'd happily wear masks forever in shops and continue sd in public, using hand gel regularly, if it meant cancer patients were more protected and people who work in shops wouldn't lose their jobs. Masks were standard in some countries pre Covid - we could do with measures to prevent spread of colds and flu generally.

Public transport as well through the winter. You can't get on a train without someone around you coughing and sniffing through the journey.

Agreed. We could all do without getting coughed and sneezed on on the bus!

@Thisismytimetoshine

We're in the middle of a fucking pandemic, nobody really cares about your rights to "personal liberty" or family time.

This is what I struggle with the part "we're in the middle of a pandemic". In the past a pandemic was left to run through society, people take precautions and end of pandemic. My concern with this is, due to the nature of locking down etc, this pandemic could run forever because we're delaying spread. I wouldn't mind the restrictions if there was some initiation of what we're aiming towards and the goal otherwise 10 years from now we could all still not be allowed to see family as 'we're in a pandemic' because we're all still susceptible to Covid and it hasn't gone anywhere!

Mrshunt Why haven't you then? You could have done. Keep your children at home if they are ill at all, as well as yourself and the other measures outlined? Why has this not been our usual practice?

Blueblancmange I would say there is now evidence that it would not overwhelm society. We are actually testing people to see if they have it! 1300 people confirmed with having it in Leicester in July. Seven in hospital
T cell immunity. Treatments now available. Huge empty field hospitals. It is not going to overwhelm us. Just like it didnt overwhelm Sweden.
The saving lives thing is propaganda I guess.

@LastGoldenDaysOfSummer

It really is time people stopped droning on about Sweden. The comparison is stupid as has been pointed out many times.

I feel the same about New Zealand. Also a stupid comparison and, we don't live in fucking New Zealand. Or 'Asian countries'. We live in the UK.

Tootletum, Queenofknives Some people really have no idea what it is like to be in the edge, and genuinely fearful of not being able to feed your children. Making comments like "it's not hard, sitting in the sofa watching Netflix etc etc" Plenty of compassion for those directly impacting by severe illness or death from Covid and none for those who lose their house/job/mental health because of the measures taken to stop the spread. Wearing masks to save lives... They are wearing masks because the government told them to, or they would have done this precovid. 75% of people infected with flu are asymptomatic. Wonder how many people we have unknowing infected in our lives.

You can not compare Sweden’s death rates to other countries yet..... they ripped the plaster off fast and their deaths happened quicker. All these idiotic lockdown countries have just done it slower.... the deaths in the end will be similar.

And why only worrying about Covid deaths? Lockdowns cause thousands of deaths, not just immediately when people are too scared to go to hospital or worried to overwhelm the NHS but through all the cancelled cancer treatment etc. People are so desperately ignorant

OP, there's little value to cancer patients in one person walking around wearing a mask. To be effective it has to be societal. Pre lockdown it wasn't part of our cultural norm to do these things. Going forward perhaps we will see the sense in adopting these measures.
I do (and always have) kept my children home from school when they are ill.
I don't think any reasonable person sends deliberately sends a child with an infectious illness (chicken pox, for example) into school, although you will obviously always get the type of parent who only thinks about themselves and not their kids or anyone else.

Mrshunt the point is, that you personally could have transmitted illnesses unknowingly. Covid is not the only disease that can be asymptomatic. And the next person and the next person. If you believe masks etc work, and that you wouldn't wish to unknowingly pass on illness then you should have been wearing them. Regardless of what others were doing?
Have you kept your children home with a runny nose and associated cough? Did you keep you children home for the incubation period of chicken pox after they were exposed? It's very infectious before the spots come out and can be very dangerous to some.

Would you give up your job, and income in order to save lives? Make your children hungry, damage their life chances? Lose your home? Should you do that if you can? How many lives is it worth doing it for? Hypothetical perhaps. But people are being asked to do exactly this. Especially with the end of furlough. It is not just staying home for 2 weeks playing xbox. Or putting a piece of material in front of your mouth and nose. Or being a bit lonely (or sadly heartbreakingly lonely for some, especially in care homes)

I’m not saying the Swedish approach is right on wrong but if people are going to point to an -8% Q2 drop in their economy (Q1 wasn’t bad at all by the way before the rest of the world slashed their wrists) then at least have the decency to acknowledge that because of globalisation, if Sweden’s trading partners get burned, so does Sweden.

I could have unknowingly transmitted illness. Pre Covid, as a society we didn't really think too much about vulnerable people, to our shame. Now that we have had that drummed home, we all ought to do what we can. Me wearing a mask on my own won't protect those people, but everyone doing it, probably would. Which is why it needs to be all of us.
Keeping up with masks and hand sanitizer will help protect those people in retail or hospitality, whose jobs are under threat. If we don't, then we get more infections, longer lockdown and redundancies.
In all honesty, no I'm not going to let my children go hungry to benefit someone else, nor should I - as a parent my primary responsibility is to them. But I am willing to do what I can. Wearing a mask and maintaining SD doesn't hurt anyone and may well help lots of people.

And yes, I did keep my kids off school as soon as it became apparent that one of them had chicken pox. They were home until the spots went, even though the school said it was unnecessary.
Maybe if everyone covered their nose and mouth in public, colds wouldn't spread so much. I'd certainly be willing to keep mine home if a child in their class was having chemotherapy or something.

How can the government make it illegal for me to see my parents?

Eh _ when did this happen?

Trees of wood - I actually would compare the deprivation of liberty in driving to covid regulations.

You are not allowed to drive if you have certain conditions. This is very restrictive to people who live in isolated, rural areas.

Maybe it does mean you cannot access shops, entertainment, socialize. We also do not allow people to drive if they have not passed a test.

I would argue that this is more restrictive than not letting people into shops without a mask (currently there are exemptions and no ‘licence’ to do this).

I think the difference is the risk of harming others. Different people are prepared to accept different amounts of risk. I agree that things are a balance between the needs of different people - and different groups conflict. However I disagree on the balance of risks.

The govt CAN implement other measures to mitigate the risk for other people - eg they can legislate to ensure there is shelter for everyone, introduce rationing, extend furlough. In WW2, people put up with many more restrictions, including blackout, curfew.

UK have the ability to do what Asian countries do. The govt chooses not to - perhaps because there is no appetite in the population.

@Treesofwood

Blueblancmange I would say there is now evidence that it would not overwhelm society. We are actually testing people to see if they have it! 1300 people confirmed with having it in Leicester in July. Seven in hospital T cell immunity. Treatments now available. Huge empty field hospitals. It is not going to overwhelm us. Just like it didnt overwhelm Sweden. The saving lives thing is propaganda I guess.

I don't think we can yet say for sure that that's the case, that it won't overwhelm society. It would be great if so, but behaving as if we know that for sure right now could be a very dangerous mistake. The trouble with exponential growth is things can go from 'under control' to 'oh shit' in a very short period of time. If you do manage to do something stop that last doubling that would lead to catastrophe, it will still look to lots of people as though there was no problem, because there was still spare capacity at the point when you took action.

It's quite true that there are trade offs all the time, which is precisely why it makes no sense to talk in terms of absolutes like in the thread title. We all have our freedoms restricted in ways that benefit wider society and other people, all the time. Obviously these restrictions are worth debating, and sometimes they will change over time due to circumstances. But the idea that we've ever had some kind of absolute freedom that we've now suddenly lost really doesn't make sense.

Mrshunt Others are being forced to do exactly that with regard to their children. But because it saves Covid lives it's apparently a trade off that others are happy for them to do. For the greater good.