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NY partygoers get subpoenas after stonewalling COVID-19 contact tracers:
Test, isolate, trace, quarantine: these are the bedrock public health measures proven effective at stamping out an infectious disease before it flares to the point where the only option left is to foist draconian lockdowns on whole populations.
[...] On Wednesday, officials in Rockland County—just north of New York City—reported a cluster of cases linked to a recent party of up to 100 people largely in their early 20s. At the time of the party, the host was infected and had symptoms but held the party anyway.
So far, at least eight attendees have tested positive for the virus. But many partygoers have refused to work with public health officials to track the potential spread and notify others who may have been infected and could go on to spread the disease further.
"We are not receiving the necessary cooperation when we contact those who are positive for COVID-19 or those who have been at some of these gatherings," Dr. Patricia Schnabel Ruppert, Rockland County's health commissioner said at a press briefing Wednesday.
She explained:
My staff has been told that a person does not wish to, or have to, speak to my disease investigators. They hang up. They deny being at the party even though we have found their name from another party attendee or a parent provides us with the information. Many do not answer their cell phones and do not call back. Sometimes parents answer for their adult children and promise that they have been home consistently when they have not been.
This must stop.
In response, Ruppert announced that the county will issue subpoenas to anyone who refuses to cooperate with contact tracing. So far, the county is processing eight subpoenas. In addition, those who do not comply will face civil fines of around $2,000 every day they are out of compliance.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by linkdude64 on Monday July 06 2020, @11:51AM (8 children)
Yes, I do, but semantically what is the cut-off point?
You know why no administration should be trusted to spy on their entire population, right? Because it's only one policy change away from being unleashed as a weapon against political opponents.
So is a similar policy change inconceivable for something equally as deadly as influenza? "Let's save as many people as we can - even one death is too many."
Can you understand the value of the devil's advocate? It's something I'm having to do a lot of here, lately.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 06 2020, @01:34PM (3 children)
Wear a aluminum foil hat, shinny side out. That will protect you from The Rays.
Influenza is not a cold. Also, if something is as deadly as the 1918 influenza, you may want to track that so it doesn't kill as many people. Someone asking you where the fuck you were for purposes of COVID control is not the same as someone asking you without context. It's so they can stop the chains of transmission. If you have HIV and they are asking you who fucked you or who you fucked without a condom is NOT a slippery slope. It's a matter of life and death. Same here.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by HiThere on Monday July 06 2020, @02:22PM
Unfortunately, this isn't an "either or" situation, it's a "both and". If you can be tracked, you can be tracked. Warrants are a perfectly reasonable intermediate "solution", because both problems are real.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 06 2020, @06:33PM (1 child)
Studies have shown that the shiny and dull sides are equally effective at shielding. Shiny-side-out is basically just a fashion choice.
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 06 2020, @07:44PM
Pffft. You believe “those” studies.
(Score: 2, Touché) by Opportunist on Monday July 06 2020, @03:30PM (2 children)
No. You don't have to be devil's advocate here. You assume that we didn't think of that. We did.
Just because we're not paranoid doesn't mean we didn't ponder the option. We just noticed that it's not a real one. And yes, I know, I know, you're the all wise men and we're just the sleeping sheep.
(Score: 2) by linkdude64 on Tuesday July 07 2020, @06:43PM (1 child)
What a strawman, to think I'm assuming you're all entirely fools, but since that was your claim and not mine, let's see how willing you are to extend your persona's reasoning. I'll cut right to the chase: I will assume that you would claim to believe in the First Amendment. How many people would you be willing to directly kill to preserve that first amendment?
I'm not asking this for no reason. I'm asking this because I understand that all of the Constitution and its Amendments were written in human blood so to claim that you're "not sheep, blah blah" because you're already "enlightened" enough to "know" that human life is more valuable than any hypothetically important freedoms is truly naive. No. Human blood is not more sacred than the freedoms it has been used to create, any more than a drop of oil is more an art piece than the painting it is a fraction of. The death rate is down to something like 2% for this virus. How many more lives were claimed in the World Wars for which freedom was fought for and preserved? Do you think it "wouldn't be worth it" to do that again? If you haven't thought of death as something to be accepted in this historical manner, you are certainly not qualified to call me naive, though of course many others certainly are. "This isn't an attack on our freedoms, idiot!!" How do you know that??? Did the Germans know what Hitler would do when it was easier to oppose him? What about your Orange Boogey Man? Did John Oliver, when he begged Trump to run for office, know what "tyranny" he was advocating and begging for? "That's different!" Is it, though? Is it, really? You will claim to know that you always know when the unexpected is coming?
(Score: 2) by Opportunist on Wednesday July 08 2020, @08:10PM
I'll let you in on a secret: The Germans knew what's going on. They knew theat the Jews get killed. They knew that Hitler would remove their freedoms. And they didn't give a fuck. Mostly because when you have nothing to eat and no future at all, you don't give a fuck about freedoms. You care about living the next day. You don't care about the livelihood of the guy living next door. You care about your own.
You're afraid of losing something because you have something to lose. But this is not the assault on your freedom. Your freedom is already lost. What's left of your constitutional rights is just the privileges that you didn't lose yet. Freedom of speech? Yeah, well, mostly. In "free speech zones". And wherever nobody can hear you. Because you have the right to speak, but no right to be heard. You gotta read the fine print. Your right to bear arms? Only exists because it's meaningless. Do you think bringing a gun to a drone war will do you any good? The reason this privilege wasn't taken from you is simply that it doesn't mean jack shit when it comes to your freedom. The third mostly still exists because it's ENTIRELY meaningless today. The fourth has been gone for a long, long time by now, especially since "on the internet" does not apply at all to it, it seems. Searching your phone? Or your computer via remote access? Not a violation of the fourth? C'mon. The fifth? Do you really want to get into that one, with the question of whether you have to unlock your phone and hand it over to be searched?
Do I have to walk down the rest of the constitutional privileges?
You consider that a threat to your freedom? At best it's the smokescreen for the real threat.
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Monday July 06 2020, @08:14PM
Sounds like that would take *no* policy changes when an administration considers them the same demographic.