05-20-2022, 05:33 PM
(05-19-2022, 07:53 PM)Dill Wrote: If there were another pandemic on the COVID scale, but worse, with Ebola-type effects and death rate, in your view--Answering 'yes' to these questions really highlights and underscores why it isn't 'ok' for the Government to traffic in, accidentally or not, disinformation, even if it is 'just one guy.' There needs to be trust in the institutions in scenario's like these.
1. Should ANYONE AT ALL inform the public about it? E.g., if doctors and researchers dealing with it have information which, if generally known, might prevent its spread and save lives, how should that information be assessed and handled?
YES
2. If researchers discover the new plague came from Iceland, communicated by passengers from Iceland Air, should anyone be empowered to stop air traffic from Iceland? Infringe on passenger privacy by testing/quarantining them?
YES
3. What if there is a medical consensus that some activity many enjoy, like eating beef or fishing, has to be constrained to stop the spread and save lives? People who don't eat beef or fish are unaffected, but those who like these activities would have to sacrifice for the greater good, should they heed the medical advice; and their heeding would affect the bottom line of those who produce beef and sell fishing gear. In such cases, absent some central coercive power, the general good would be dependent upon the individual choices of beef eaters and fishermen. Maybe most would willingly sacrifice--though surely not if they have no trustworthy information about the disease, just rumors from people returning from Florida vacations.
This is a thinly veiled analogy about Covid. I hope you're not suggesting that Ebola and Covid are even remotely in the same ballpark.
4. Is there any point in the above where you think government should or could effectively "kick in" to insure that info about the disease is vetted and made public, and that its progress is tracked nation wide as well as globally to update citizens. Finally, is there any point at all where coercive power to ban activities and quarantine people should kick in? I.e., could the danger of spread ever justify the risk of powerful government officials tweeting misinformation? Or do you envision some kind of non-governmental entity accomplishing the above? E.g., corporations or ad hoc citizens groups, or professional organizations like the AMA?
Yes, but an extremely high bar needs to be met. So high that, beyond the first few months, it wasn't met during the pandemic and became exponentially decreasingly met after the vaccine became widely available. An Ebola-type scenario might warrant it.
(I have a felling that this thread is headed off on another tangent that is going to last several more pages)
**Im going to revisit and edit this**
There are several questions here and a simple qualified "yes" to all of them isn't the right answer.
'Info vetted' where? On social media? No, I don't ever envision anything bad enough to silence free speech.
'Coercive power to ban activities'....Yes, but a very very high bar has to be set. My original answer applies to this particular question.
"Coercive power to quarantine'.....No Absolutely not.
Dr Fauci is 'just one guy' but he has caused irreparable damage to the trust in government health agencies. Don't bullshit people about masks, tell them the truth. Even if it's a Noble Lie told because he was worried about having enough masks for HC workers. Then the whopper about moving the goalpost for reaching herd immunity just killed it. Don't lie and spread misinformation to the people like that. Be honest and straightforward.
