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  • Writer's picturePaul T Sjordal

Pro-Virus Protesters: Your Freedom Ends at the Tip of Your Nose

Just in case any Republicans are reading this, let me introduce you to an American saying about civics: your freedom ends at the tip of your nose.

That is to say that your rights end the moment they impact on the rights of others. In this case, your right to get a haircut would be a reasonable right at any other time, but not when it takes away other people's right to not die.


The shelter-in-place orders exist because without a vaccine or other way to control the spread of this disease, the disease will spread at an exponential rate and quickly overwhelm our hospital system. Once that happens, doctors have to choose who gets critical treatment and who will be left to simply die. At that point, the mortality rate of the disease goes up by a lot.


If this sounds outlandish, this is essentially what happened in Italy. You can go back and read about how that went for Italy and for Italian doctors.


The goal of social distancing is to keep the infection rate below the point where your local hospital system can handle the influx of patients. This is what people mean by "flattening the curve." Without social distancing, the infection rate and corresponding death rate increases exponentially until a majority of the population is infected, at which point the disease has an ever-more difficult time finding new targets. By that point, the death toll will have surpassed a million.


Every public gathering increases the length of the lockdown. Already, some states are reporting a spike in COVID-19 infections due to the protests. If you want the lockdown to end sooner, pressure the government to procure more testing kits so that we can test a much larger number of people.

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