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Originally Posted by Chris
If you’re going to make an argument from morality then you have a duty to be much more thorough than you have been here. Asking whether covid presents a serious ongoing risk is a valid starting point but if that’s all you’re asking then you aren’t going to arrive at a morally defensible conclusion. Covid isn’t the only risk to immunocompromised individuals and it must be evaluated alongside those other risks, which offer some valuable context. Our long-term response to it must be calculated with due regard to the way we have historically mitigated those other risks.
For example, I was at university with an immunocompromised person (due to medication) and when they were in the middle of a course of those drugs they requested that the rest of us be especially careful about coming too close if we had so much as a sniffle. This was how those responsible for this person’s medical care proposed the risk be managed ‘in the wild’ - a generous dose of personal responsibility on this person’s part, augmented with a polite request for additional caution from those they spent the most time with.
Covid is going to become endemic, just like flu and the common cold, and it will continue to pose an abnormal risk to certain individuals, while most of us shake it off. We have never considered it immoral that there are no laws forcing people to self isolate with these viruses, though as a society we do frown on those who sneeze all over others and, for the most part, encourage personal responsibility (though I think some advertising around cold and flu remedies has bordered on irresponsible in the past).
Using the law to shortcut anyone’s personal responsibility and especially to curtail their freedom should be an exceptional response to extreme circumstances, yet I worry what we’re seeing here is a far too eager slide towards using legislation to enforce everyday morality. This is not good; as well as infantilising people it also creates an authoritarian streak in government that once established, may not easily be removed.
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You raise some good points. Some are predicated on information not being fully available so any choice would be made on a basis of perceived risk. Your example of your University colleague is an interesting one however you knew he was immunocompromised and so could act accordingly. When people go out, they have no ability to discern risk.
The point I am making is that it not yet clear, beyond reasonable doubt, that the vulnerable are not disproportionately at risk. The number of people with Covid are still large in number and so the chances of encountering an infected person, when they have no obligation to isolate, is significant.
I feel the parallel with drink driving is a good one. Some people would argue that they can perfectly drive after 2 pints and so the law is curtailing their "freedom" but society disagrees. The balance of probabilities has been weighed against the driver who wishes to drink. In the same way, until we have clear data on the real world risks to the vulnerable, we should err on the side of caution.