To think the govt has no right to tell me who I'm allowed to have in my home?

[HumanFemale1]

Anyone else feels the same? I just don't think this is OK. Govt making the rules of who I am allowed to have in my home or how many people I'm allowed to have in...

Especially when it's to keep a virus from spreading when the average death of a virus is higher than the life expectancy. But for any reason really. If the govt was making this rule for any other reason people would be horiffied.

@JinglingHellsBells He has not recommended that people break the rules. He has suggested people become more actively politically engaged by joining political parties.

@MarieInternette It is a world pandemic. Other countries are having to do the same and more than we are asked to do.

The point you are missing is no one is and island.

You or your parents doing what they choose are putting others at risk.

These are people who may also be vulnerable.

You cannot condemn them to a life of hiding away just because you want your 4 weeks (now 3) of freedom.

Nor can you condemn them to an NHS which will not be there to offer them treatment they may need.

The lockdown is to slow the rate until there is a vaccine.

It's pure selfishness though you won't have it, will you?

Genevieva Clearly you didn't listen to him on Radio 4 a few months ago or read his article in the Mail.

For those of us in civilised, democratic countries, the amount of freedom we can have to do whatever we want, whenever we want, will always be limited by the adverse effects our behaviour and actions may have on our fellow citizens. If doing whatever we want puts the lives of others at risk, then we cannot expect to be able to just carry on regardless. None of us has the right to knowingly put other people's lives at risk particularly when, as in this case, what we want to do is not in any way necessary.

@JinglingHellsBells you don't know what ignorant means.

seeing him described upthread as a fool was quite a surprise!

But it's easier to dismiss someone than to actually engage with their arguments.

@chickenyhead

It’s been a while since I studied it, but there is a lot of academic debate on what the limits of law should be. I think most people accept that the government can’t just enact whatever laws it pleases without regard for the rights of citizens. This is why it’s important we have an independent judiciary and if is government acts in a way which is unlawful, they can be judicially reviewed.

“Do not murder” is fairly straightforward and uncontroversial. I don’t think these laws are comparable and just because they have been passed by an elected government, it doesn’t automatically mean these laws are proportionate. Banning people from going for a walk with their parents is extreme.

In my opinion, it is also reasonable and proportionate given the extent of the threat from covid, but it is legitimate for people to question the extent of the restrictions imposed by the government and their implications for our legally guaranteed rights and freedoms.

Marie Do you not understand staitistics?

The 0.2% fatality is not true, even, for fit and healthy people. The 'crude' fatality rate for all ages is 3.6%. (British Medical Journal www.bmj.com/content/369/bmj.m1327 ) those are April 2020 figures - the second waves looks in some ways to be more dangerous, but we don't know yet.

I don't know how old your parents are, but for the over 80s as a rule the mortality rate in April 2020 was getting on for 8%. That means one in 15 of the older people you or your parents know are likely to die.
But all in the name of freedom, OK???

@ChocBeforeCock

I absolutely agree, but the place for that argument is in a court of law, not in citizen's individual homes.

For clarity I am following both law and guidance in both letter and spirit.
Following the rules doesn't stop me from questioning them. It did occur to me today that he if the government start to impose significant sanctions, someone will take it to court. Under the UN Declaration of Human rights, we all have a right to a family life. It is the basis for a lot of successful immigration claims. It seems incompatible with the Covid restrictions against having extended family in the home.
It will probably be a lot cheaper to pay the fine than launch a legal challenge, but someone probably will.

@florascotia2 The medical side is not so much what interests me, but I believe the 3.6% published in April is now out of date. The largest study, by John P A Ioannidis, looked at 60% of the world's coronavirus cases and concluded that it has a mortality rate of 0.15%-2%. Flu has an average mortality of 0.1% so it could be as much as double the flu morality rate, which is high for a communicable disease, but it is worth remembering that different strains of influenza have different morality rates and some flu strains are as severe as Covid-19.

@florascotia2 Surely ‘all in the name of freedom’ is misleading. Of course we can all cope with limits on parties and gatherings. The issue is the use/abuse of power which tells us that businesses cannot trade, healthcare has to be rationed and our children’s prospects gravely limited.

🤧

jinglinghellsbells
I’m not condemning anyone to anything. I think you are missing the point. My point is that as grown adults, able to evaluate risk, we should all be able to do what we feel comfortable with. If you don’t want to go out, don’t. If you do, do.

And don’t give me that NHS bollocks. Billions of pounds were spent setting up Nightingale Hospitals which have never even been used.

Not to mention the decimation of the economy for future generations.

In the meantime, treatments for other illnesses are not being met. People are dying of undiagnosed cancers and a multitude of other illnesses because the whole world has ground to a halt due to a virus with 0.2% mortality rate, a virus that 70% of people who have it don’t know they have it unless they are tested for it. You couldn’t write it!

I’ve scrolled through these comments a hundred times now and I still can’t find it!

If anyone could help me find my tiny violin for OP?

🤦‍♀️

@PriceEmUp

🎻

I think the problem here is that in the uk, we police by consent, but this requires trust and a sense that laws are enforced fairly, with everyone on the same level playing field.

This particular government, was so partisan and untrusted by millions - think Brexit, oven ready deal, johnson’s behaviour etc - that they never had sufficient levels of trust to start off with.

Successive actions, Cummings, Harding etc etc have given people the impression that the laws don’t apply to some, and that the virus is an opportunity for advancement for others so what little trust they enjoyed has been squandered.

So now, Unless police are going to start going house to house and arresting infringers in a very public way so as to promote enforcement among others, and/or making the penalties for having someone in your house frighteningly high, we won’t get compliance in the uk.

This is why the whole cummings affair was so corrosive.

@chickenyhead ah thank you!

@HumanFemale1 do you have any special requests? Other than letting an aggressive virus kill off another umpteen thousand people?

@whattodo2019

Umm. Well, you carry on as usual, but don't go running to the NHS when you need some medical help!

This. Over and over again.

I actually agree. I get why it’s needed but I don’t feel comfortable with it being illegal to have someone in my house that I own. Or being told who I can or cannot see. I don’t think a lot of people will comply if this goes on next year, it isn’t right.

florascotia2
Yep. I do understand statistics. Thank you for trying to be patronising.

I’ll tell you this much. My parents, along with many other elderly people I know who are in their eighties, would prefer to see young people, starting out on their lives, to be able to live and experience life whilst they’re young, have a career, be able to afford to buy a house etc. All the things that they had. They would not like to see young people’s lives and life options inhibited like they will be for the future generations just so they can have another couple of years. I don’t know of any elderly person in my life who would prefer this as an option.

Now who’s being selfish?

Yes fight for your (and others) right to die!

@MarieInternette my elderly relatives feel the same way. They have said they’d rather isolate and let younger people live their lives. They hate that people’s lies are being ruined whilst they sit comfortably with a pension just waiting for it to blow over.

@BarryWhiteIsMyBrother We take for granted that the NHS will be there. It is relatively new (1948?) and stretched more than was ever anticipated. Life expectancy has skyrocketed and treatments for diseases such as cancer are advanced and costly.

The U.K. will not be able to pay for it in future if the economy is not allowed to recover. This is what many commentators are concerned with - loss of services because workers are not allowed to work, businesses are closing and income for the country is plummeting.

We might protect the NHS now by not straining it, but ensuring that there is no money in future will kill it.