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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: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 06 2020, @05:57PM
Simple question for you. How many people do you think these "protesters" spread corona to? We can just stick to direct transmission, though an honest answer would also include indirect transmissions. If you're not keeping up with the numbers the US is just about pass 1% of the entire country confirmed to have corona. Many of the "protesters" were engaging in zero precautions and are presumably also going to be somewhat more likely to be carriers of the virus than people who thought to themselves 'Joining dangerous mass gatherings during the worst pandemic in a century is probably not a good idea.' The numbers are almost definitely going to be in the millions which is why now we're seeing 40k+ new cases *per day*, disproportionately weighted in areas with demonstrations.
So how many people have these "protesters" just effectively killed? Of the 6.6 million current cases of corona worldwide, half a million have died. So the overall death rate is around 8%. Maybe half that if we just pretend all current cases will end without a single death. Any way you shake it, these protests are going to now result in the agonizing deaths of what will be "only" tens of thousands of people in the best case scenario. That is far more than cops have killed in their entire existence.
And what did these "protests" achieve? The involved cops in this case were all rapidly fired and the killer charged with homicide, almost certainly all exactly as would have happened anyhow since this was one of the few cases where it was clearly homicide. The protests themselves saw massive numbers of assaults, numerous murders, countless businesses destroyed and on a macro level - a divided nation just got *much* more divided. It was just such an incredibly stupid idea on so many levels. Self righteousness is a hell of a drug. It encourages people to turn off their brains and just do whatever they want, partying like it's 1941.