Coronavirus and "human rights"

[lightand]

I was thinking to start a thread about this, this morning, but couldnt think of quite the right words.
Now I have been on a thread, and with the permission of another poster, I am reposting her words here.

"A year ago if you'd told me what the rules would be I wouldn't have believed you. I would have thought it a human rights abuse. I feel scared, unsafe. I'm living in a world where the government can put law abiding citizens into solitary confinement. That's fucking terrifying. I couldn't escape it. I couldn't escape what they did. Nothing feels safe, knowing they can take everything. Take away your loved ones."
[She wrote it in the context of living alone and being separated from loved ones].

I think this will be one of the many enduring memories when people look back on what has happened in the last year. That what we think of as human rights, were, and still are, being easily taken away from us.

What, the brand new made up laws about not seeing our family, leaving the house or letting our kids play with their friends?

But these aren't "brand new made up laws"
We have had these kind of public health crisis laws before in our history. Quarantine works. It worked in the past and it still works now

@Flaxmeadow

What, the brand new made up laws about not seeing our family, leaving the house or letting our kids play with their friends?

But these aren't "brand new made up laws"
We have had these kind of public health crisis laws before in our history. Quarantine works. It worked in the past and it still works now

Of course they are brand new made up laws. Show me evidence that any government in the UK has EVER prevented families from seeing each other, whether during war or pandemic.

We have had many public health crises for hundreds of years. This has been the most extreme and over the top reaction and it isn't the worst disease we have faced by a very long way.

@Flaxmeadow

What, the brand new made up laws about not seeing our family, leaving the house or letting our kids play with their friends?

But these aren't "brand new made up laws"
We have had these kind of public health crisis laws before in our history. Quarantine works. It worked in the past and it still works now

We have had restrictions like this before? When? Genuine question - I'd be interested in reading up on that.

I always thought quarantine in the past was more along the lines of quarantining the sick.

Here is a fuller account of Neil Ferguson's comments, given the information gatekeepers didn't like my source. The original interview was from the Times:

"Professor Neil Ferguson has given an extraordinary interview to Tom Whipple at The Times, in which he confirms the degree to which he believes that imitating China’s lockdown policies at the start of 2020 changed the parameters of what Western societies consider acceptable.

“I think people’s sense of what is possible in terms of control changed quite dramatically between January and March,” Professor Ferguson says. When SAGE observed the “innovative intervention” out of China, of locking entire communities down and not permitting them to leave their homes, they initially presumed it would not be an available option in a liberal Western democracy:

It’s a communist one party state, we said. We couldn’t get away with it in Europe, we thought… and then Italy did it. And we realised we could.

• PROFESSOR NEIL FERGUSON, THE TIMES

He almost seems at pains to emphasise the Chinese derivation of the lockdown concept, returning to it later in the interview:

“These days, lockdown feels inevitable. It was, he reminds me, anything but. “If China had not done it,” he says, “the year would have been very different.””

To those people who, still now, object to lockdowns on civil liberties principles, this will be a chilling reminder of the centrality of the authoritarian Chinese model in influencing global policy in this historic year."
unherd.com/thepost/neil-ferguson-interview-china-changed-what-was-possible/

Of course they are brand new made up laws. Show me evidence that any government in the UK has EVER prevented families from seeing each other, whether during war or pandemic.

Wr had laws during the Black Death, the "Great Plague", the Cholera epidemic of the mid 1800s. During the wars we had laws related to the blitz and other laws on profiteering. We also have maritime and port laws on livestock and on smuggling certain animals. We have public nuisance laws, for example throwing sewage into the street. Seat belt laws, drink driving laws. All kinds of health laws

@dividedwefall

Of course they are brand new made up laws. Show me evidence that any government in the UK has EVER prevented families from seeing each other, whether during war or pandemic

No they’re not divided. Look up the regulations and management strategies of most notifiable diseases and they all include the same kinds of strategies for outbreaks that we’re seeing in action now. These restrictions haven’t been pulled from thin air you’re just seeing them on a massive scale.

If you want historical evidence then do yourself a favour and look into how TB and polio were managed. American example, but once people realised how typhoid was spread there was a massive push to contain cases. Typhoid Mary was identified as a superspreader and spent the rest of her life held in a hospital with other superspreaders. It’s sad really because they found out superspreaders were harbouring typhoid bacteria in their gallbladders and there was a surgical option to release her (although being the 1900’s that wasn’t an easy option). Unfortunately she wasn’t convinced by the science and died where she was held.

Of course they are brand new made up laws. Show me evidence that any government in the UK has EVER prevented families from seeing each other, whether during war or pandemic.

Look up Smallpox outbreaks in the UK in the 60's/70's. The link below is an interesting account.

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1079469/

There was also an outbreak in Harrow in 1973. The family lived in my road. I was only three at the time but was still talked about all through my childhood.

Emergency laws were used. There was talk of vaccination passports being required back then for people leaving travelling out of the country from London.

[quote Cornettoninja]@dividedwefall

Of course they are brand new made up laws. Show me evidence that any government in the UK has EVER prevented families from seeing each other, whether during war or pandemic

No they’re not divided. Look up the regulations and management strategies of most notifiable diseases and they all include the same kinds of strategies for outbreaks that we’re seeing in action now. These restrictions haven’t been pulled from thin air you’re just seeing them on a massive scale.

If you want historical evidence then do yourself a favour and look into how TB and polio were managed. American example, but once people realised how typhoid was spread there was a massive push to contain cases. Typhoid Mary was identified as a superspreader and spent the rest of her life held in a hospital with other superspreaders. It’s sad really because they found out superspreaders were harbouring typhoid bacteria in their gallbladders and there was a surgical option to release her (although being the 1900’s that wasn’t an easy option). Unfortunately she wasn’t convinced by the science and died where she was held.[/quote]
No, laws making visiting family illegal have never existed in the UK, or at least have never been used. We're talking specifics here - not quarantine of sick people, or areas to contain a disease. I can confidently say there are no UK examples of family gatherings being criminalised.

@mrshoho

*Of course they are brand new made up laws. Show me evidence that any government in the UK has EVER prevented families from seeing each other, whether during war or pandemic.*

Look up Smallpox outbreaks in the UK in the 60's/70's. The link below is an interesting account.

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1079469/

There was also an outbreak in Harrow in 1973. The family lived in my road. I was only three at the time but was still talked about all through my childhood.

Emergency laws were used. There was talk of vaccination passports being required back then for people leaving travelling out of the country from London.

Again this is irrelevant. Interesting. I am always interested in these things as you can probably tell. But they don't really touch on what is happening today.

You didn’t ask for laws you asked for examples of people being prevented by the government from seeing family.

@dividedwefall that's a fascinating article. My df used to work in environmental health in Glasgow around the same time and he told me about a suspected smallpox case in a family recently arrived from Pakistan. I thought he was over exaggerating it all but if they knew what had happened in Bradford, I'd imagine they'd have been panicking.

One interesting thing about smallpox is that contrary to our belief there has never been forced vaccination in the UK, smallpox inoculation was mandatory from the 1850s.

The law was very unpopular and it was fought tooth and nail for 6 decades, every decade seeing more and more exemptions until it was eventually repealed after the war. The exemptions could be bought if you got a sympathetic judge that would let you pay a fine instead. Even the very, very poor found often found the money to buy their way out the vax for their children.

There was a huge anti-vax movement particularly around Leicester. The British have never liked being coerced and manipulated by their governments.

I've just read about this. While it's currently being appealed, I wonder if it will encourage more legal challenges to specific Covid restrictions in some countries?

"A court in The Hague has told the Dutch government that an overnight curfew to reduce the spread of coronavirus should be lifted, ruling that it breaches the right to free movement.

The court said the 21:00 to 04:30 curfew was imposed by an emergency law when there was no "acute emergency".

Later, a higher court ruled that the curfew could stay in place pending an appeal on Friday."

www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-56084466

@ChocOrange1

I am particularly concerned about the fact that people are not allowed to protest or March at the moment. While not a "human right" the right to protest is so important in a democracy and this has been removed.

Completely agree.

[quote CornishYarg]I've just read about this. While it's currently being appealed, I wonder if it will encourage more legal challenges to specific Covid restrictions in some countries?

"A court in The Hague has told the Dutch government that an overnight curfew to reduce the spread of coronavirus should be lifted, ruling that it breaches the right to free movement.

The court said the 21:00 to 04:30 curfew was imposed by an emergency law when there was no "acute emergency".

Later, a higher court ruled that the curfew could stay in place pending an appeal on Friday."

www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-56084466[/quote]
Good news.

The government only has these powers for a specific period of time- was it 2 years? I doubt they will win the vote to continue them.

They won't. There will also be increased pressure from the Covid Recovery Group if Boris doesn't remove all restrictions by the end of April, when all the over 50s have been vaccinated. They're a very powerful group, previously the ERG.

So I think things will open up in the summer at the latest.

Farage has started some kind of anti-lockdown party, hasn't he.
Let's not mock him just yet - he was pretty effective with Brexit.

@Wildswim

Farage has started some kind of anti-lockdown party, hasn't he. Let's not mock him just yet - he was pretty effective with Brexit.

Really? Hugely interested if so.

*They won't. There will also be increased pressure from the Covid Recovery Group if Boris doesn't remove all restrictions by the end of April, when all the over 50s have been vaccinated. They're a very powerful group, previously the ERG.

So I think things will open up in the summer at the latest.*

They are 50 or so MO’s invested in their own interests. The rest of parliament incl Labour will support measures for lockdowns. And they are a much bigger number than the CRG who are just basically areseholes

I see the goal posts have changed again today. cases must be less than 1000 per day, regardless of whether they are false positives or not.

At the same time they have announced a new testing campaign, sending out 3 million tests per week to families and encouraging them to test whether they have symptoms or not.

What a charade.

@ArseInTheCoOpWindow

I don't like these people, they're only out for themselves. But they are very close to Boris and he listens to them far more than he should. Also, Tory Party leaders are as often ousted by their own party as they are by the electorate.

Yes, the Labour Party support the lockdown, but only as long as the furlough scheme is in place. It's due to end in April at the time when all the over 50s will have been vaccinated. There won't be nearly so many people admitted into hospital who are under the age of 50, so the pressure will reduce on the NHS. So the high cost of furlough will be harder to justify, especially for a Tory PM.

I think there will be plans to open up the economy after that.

Anyway, Boris has said that he'll be providing us with a 'roadmap' next Monday, so hopefully we'll know more by then.

But they can’t do much at the moment. A leadership battle isn’t likely to happen now. And the majority of the Tories and Labour support lockdown.

My fear is we’ll open up too early and start all over again. The American take on the U.K. is quite interesting. They think cases of the old variant are falling but that there is an underbelly of new variants waiting to take off.

Even the news today says opening up too soon will swamp the NHS.

Yes that's true. They shouldn't open up too quickly. I was disputing other posters' claims that the government is planning to keep us in lockdown forever. They're quite clearly not. That certainly isn't something a Tory government would want! What motive could they possibly have???

They're more likely to open up too quickly, as happened in June. Either way, we'll find out soon enough.

It also depends on the success of the vaccine rollout.

Re the new variants, I think they're simply being extra careful after the impact of the Kent variant. They messed up badly there.

@Deliaskis

I'm surprised to be the first to reply to this (bet I won't be by the time I actually hit post!), as there is a strong narrative on here that everything and anything is justifiable, because 'it's a global pandemic'/killer virus/unprecedented etc.

But I totally get your point. That all those things we are ordinarily entitled to enjoy under zero scrutiny, suddenly became criminal, with relatively little discussion or debate about what was reasonable or proportionate....that was truly terrifying. That it became illegal for my child to play with another ever, or for me to have a cup of tea with my Mum. That is considerably more terrifying for me than catching the virus. Now it's been done once, those that have ulterior motives will always be able to come up with some kind of reason why it is necessary again.

I trust and hope that there will be much legal debate in the coming years, to establish which of the measures imposed, were truly necessary and proportionate.

A separately terrifying element is the people prepared to report others for minor infractions, when they know nothing of the circumstances, but that's probably a tangent too your thread.

And I've kept to the rules for the most part, I'm not a denier or a 'this doesn't apply to me' kind of a person. But I'm incredibly uncomfortable with 'pandemic' being used to justify anything at all.

Well said