20 minutes ago, birdguy said:

I am always very leery of government intrusion of any kind for any reason.

Probably with good reason.
But given the paranoia, if you read the quoted link in my post above (OK, OK I know no one seems to read other people's posts if they have an agenda to work through, but try) it seems to offer the best shot at something approaching a moderated response.  

U.S. Plans Massive Coronavirus Vaccine Testing Effort to Meet Year-End Deadline

https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/931028

Martin

Edited May 23, 20206 yr by MartinRex007

9 minutes ago, MartinRex007 said:

U.S. Plans Massive Coronavirus Vaccine Testing Effort to Meet Year-End Deadline

https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/931028

Martin

With all the appropriate cautions - that's very encouraging news.

And, noted in passing - whatever one thinks of government, that's a scale on which only a national government can operate.

1 hour ago, birdguy said:

We are not gong about business as usual.  Who said anything about ignoring what the experts tell us what to do.

This started with talk about wearing monitors and tracking and government regulations restricting us.  And how governments have a penchant for keeping restrictions and controls in place once the initial reason for them has gone away.

I am always very leery of government intrusion of any kind for any reason.

Noel

 

The only overt tracking I'm aware of is voluntary. Are you counting stay home orders as government regulations restricting us? I think the economy is tanking not because we reacted to harshly, but because we didn't react soon enough. All the restrictions I've seen are enacted for a finite length of time. 

2 minutes ago, bobbyjack said:

The only overt tracking I'm aware of is voluntary.

The exception would be mobility data derived from cell phone networks.  That's supposed to be aggregate data, not identifiable, and as long as it stays that way, the minimal risk would be worth the enormous gain.

My privacy concerns are general, not specific to covid, and in this case, I'd favor a level of tracking that helps us get the virus under control.

28 minutes ago, Alan_A said:

With all the appropriate cautions - that's very encouraging news.

And, noted in passing - whatever one thinks of government, that's a scale on which only a national government can operate.

This statement bothers me:

Quote

The U.S. government said on Thursday it would spend $1.2 billion to secure 300 million doses of the Oxford vaccine.

They are going to spend $1.2 billion for an as yet unproven vaccine?

Someone has to get the money, might as well be the pharmaceuticals. It's the next statement that would bother me. 'The Government will make the vaccine obligatory' 

1 hour ago, n4gix said:

They are going to spend $1.2 billion for an as yet unproven vaccine?

I'm going to bet (hope?) that that's contingent on the vaccine making it through to approval.

28 minutes ago, Ron Attwood said:

It's the next statement that would bother me. 'The Government will make the vaccine obligatory' 

It needs to be.  Leaving a part of the population unvaccinated endangers everyone.  This is about public health.

Edited May 24, 20206 yr by Alan_A

27 minutes ago, Ron Attwood said:

Someone has to get the money, might as well be the pharmaceuticals.

Who else is going to develop a vaccine?

The number of people here who support mandatory government monitoring tells me my country has changed.  It changed on 9/11 when we let the government form TSA to protect us from the boogeyman.  Now some want to surrender more control of our lives to big government because they fear the virus.   

I'm comfortably retired and live in an area with a very low incidence of the virus.  I don't worry about it.  The person who PM'd me a while ago, "I'd like to see you keep it up.  But your spitting in the wind." is right.  I'm giving it up on this thread.

Noel

I'm out of this thread too. I can't take any more of this "wrap yourself up in the flag and demand no government interference in your life of any sort regardless of the potential cost to others". In fact I'm just not out of this thread, I'm out of here completely until some sort of sanity returns..........Doug

9 hours ago, Alan_A said:

This is about public health.

But, for a lot sadly its about, me, myself and I. And of course conspiricy theory crackpots that make the world a more dangerous place. It's full of them here 🤪

Aside from the snide and crass remark about this thread being full of "conspiracy theory crackpots", I can understand that some contributors to this thread have gotten frustrated and decided to just give up.  I guess you have to ask yourself the question "what is my goal here?".  If your goal is to get everyone to agree with you then I can guarantee that you will be disappointed.  If, however, your goal is to use facts, logic, and reasoning in debating an issue and in so doing try to come up with solutions, then I think you will be rewarded in the end.  Heck, you might even learn something.  We will never agree on everything, but we can usually find some common ground on almost any issue.

I've learned a lot by reading the posts and contributing here.  I've even altered my position a bit in some cases thanks to well-informed arguments made by some here.  Like Alan has stated, I think that many of us are actually closer in our opinions related to Covid-19 than we think.

Unfortunately, any debate can get corrupted by the injection of politics, biases, personal attacks, labeling, etc.  I've done it myself by labeling some comments here "propaganda".  It really can't be helped because we all have biases and personal beliefs that influence our thinking on many issues and our overall worldview.  If we're aware of that fact, however, we can overcome it, or at least minimize it, by making a conscious effort to be open-minded, logical, and reasoned in our discourse.  We must also realize that we all have different backgrounds and experiences which influence how we see things, and try to put ourselves into the other person's shoes sometimes.

Dave

 

18 hours ago, bobbyjack said:

 And just how do we "fight" for our liberties?   

Do you remember a guy named Martin Luther King?

A very good concise article from Scientific America on "How the COVID-19 Pandemic Could End". Short and worth the read!

Martin

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-the-covid-19-pandemic-could-end1/