Are you speaking about the protesters? I believe most of them want others to go back to work so they can go out to eat, go to the movies and get their hair done.

yeah, I am only talking about the protesters, not the people that have to work through this.

I would have them sign a liability agreement to cover the costs of anyone they infect.

YES

The thing about going back to work is a tough one. We are on a spectrum right now. On one end is “do nothing and let the disease run its course” and at the other end is “lock everyone down until they can be lined up, tested, and inoculated” All other options are somewhere in the middle. And the odd part is that unless you do the lock down option…the farthest end on that side…you will eventually end up moving farther to the other side naturally. Partial lock downs, partial closures, etc all lead to the disease still being out there and still being transmitted. Eventually, if you open things up, more people are exposed and the disease will spread. It is inevitable. So I guess the question is not if you should punish people for wanting to make a living, it should really be when would you say it is safe to go back to work?

A lot of people I’ve talked to think the protesters who are crowding together should be denied access to medical card. I probably would never go that far, but I might threaten them with it to scare them.

I’m all for protesting, but they need to do it in a safe organized manner, which is completely possible, but these people are just stupid.

I assume they haven’t been getting permits to protest.

The US has the highest infection and death due to Covid19 in the world right now, so the US is doing something very wrong when it comes to dealing with this outbreak.
Some will say that is because of the population OK, but lets look at Canada the US has ten times the population we have if you take our infected and multiplied it by 10 you still are not even close to what the US is.
How many innocent people have to die and get infected by Covid for the GOP to say we need another way at dealing with this out break?

@seawulf575 You do understand that locking people or the country down is so you don’t over whelm your health care system, and give researchers time to get a vaccine going?
Nobody wants to be laid off, wait in a spaced line just to get groceries ,but what is the alternative
Hospitals so full they will only take the ones they know will survive letting others to just die?
We all just want to go to work, and on the weekend go to a ball game ,or show not wait in spaced lines and hide but if we don’t comply we take a needless risk at infecting or getting infected you want that I don’t?

@SQUEEKY2 There are very vocal people who say the 2%- 5% that die are worth it to get the economy back on its feet.

The mayor of Las Vegas wants the city to be a “test case” to demonstrate it is safe to reopen cities. She called Anderson Copper “alarmist” when he said Vegas would become a petri dish.

(this is not my opinion, just sharing the news.)

These politicians calling for such measures should be the first ones diving head first into that petri dish.
Thanks for sharing that @zenvelo and these people saying 2% – 5% is and ok death number just to get the economy back up, wonder if they are fine if they or a loved one is in that percentile ?

@SQUEEKY2 Yep, I understand that entirely. But again, the question remains. When would you say it was safe to open things up again? It’s a basic question, but in the end, there is no answer that doesn’t end up putting people at risk. You could say when hospitals aren’t overwhelmed. What does that look like? You could say when a vaccine is available, but what about people that don’t get it? In the end, there is going to be a period where the virus gains steam again, at least for a while, and when more people will die. I don’t mean to sound heartless, I’m really not. But I am realistic.
As for the US having the highest rate in the world, let’s dig a bit deeper. There are 7 states that never issued a “shelter in place” notice. And none of those 7 show any higher incidence of Covid-19 than any of the other 43 states…lower than some. Now, these states are not the highest population states…Arkansas, Utah, Nebraska, South Dakota, Wyoming, and a couple others. So population density probably plays a role. Which might also explain why the USA is so much higher than Canada. Take away NYC and we suddenly aren’t higher than many places. But if you look, it hits denser population areas harder, as you would expect. But these things all contribute to whether or not shutting down was the right action.

It doesn’t matter about some states not having high counts, the US as a whole country has the highest infected and dead in the world right now.
Yes some states have very low numbers and that is good,maybe look at how much travel is being done in and out of those states?
AS for being realistic I don’t want to be at fault for infecting someone who could die from this outbreak.
Or getting infected by someone who just wanted it over and get back to work before it was safe to do so.

But back to the other topic of the original question: Should people have to sign a waiver bypassing medical treatment if they want to open up again? Here’s a question that brings to my mind: Do we make people sign waivers for doing other foolish things? Let’s even go somewhere that has socialized medicine…Canada for instance. Do you make people sign waivers for having unprotected sex? So if they get pregnant accidentally or get an STD, they can’t apply for medical treatment? After all, aren’t they showing gross negligence, doing something that they know has risk? How about driving drunk? Do we withhold medical treatment if someone had a couple drinks and got behind the wheel of the car and had an accident, even if it wasn’t their fault? So we accept bogus behavior all the time and don’t want to hold people responsible for their actions, why is this different?

@seawulf575 I don’t care if the person who wants to go back to work gets sick, I just think they should be held responsible if someone else gets sick because of them.

To use your example, if someone has a few pops and gets in an accident that wasn’t even their fault, we still put them in jail, take away driving privileges, and hold them responsible.

@zenvelo But that is different from what the original question asked. It asked if people that want to go back to work should have have to sign a waiver saying they won’t get medical treatment if they get Covid-19.
As for you answer to the drunk driver, yep, we do those things. Because they broke a law. Those punishments are for breaking that law. Right now there are no laws in place about keeping companies shut down. There are emergency measures put out by the state and these people are trying to get those measures lifted so they can go back to work. So if they get the measures lifted, there is not even the guidance from the state to stay closed that would prevent them from going back to work. Also, if a person has a few and gets into an accident, he/she might find themselves in trouble for breaking the law, but they are not denied medical treatment. What is being suggested by this question is that if people are allowed to go back to work (no more restrictions), they should be prevented medical treatment if they later get sick. And my point is that we don’t do that to people that are grossly irresponsible and it is being proposed that we do that to people that want to earn a living and put food on their table and roof over their head.

@zenvelo Also, your idea of holding someone accountable for getting someone else sick is silly as well. There is no real way to know where you got the disease, if you got it from social contact. You could get it from someone that exhibits no symptoms. You could get it from someone that thought they were okay and touched something you later touched (within a minimal time). So I’m not sure how you would hold someone accountable for getting someone else sick, unless they purposely tried to get someone else sick. I’m reminded of the guy that found out he was HIV positive and then started having unprotected sex with many, many others and not telling them, specifically to pass the disease along. And I think it is a Loo-o-o-o-ng stretch from wanting to earn a living to purposely trying to spread the disease.

Guess I should have added for those that only see black and white, should they be denied medical help if they become ill with the virus for returning to work before it was deemed safe to do so?

Wulfie could you hold your little conservative head high if you found out down the road YOU infected someone and they died from it?

@SQUEEKY2 Here’s the question: How would I know? If I started feeling even the least bit sick, I’d quarantine myself. That is the responsible thing to do. I did that a few weeks ago when I had the flu. Not knowing for sure, I immediately called work and went to the doctor.
I converted the dining room into a bedroom so I could move myself as far as possible away from my wife. There are ways to do it. Could I have infected someone before I knew I had it? Sure, I guess. Would I know I had infected someone? Nope…probably not. Would that person know I had infected them? No, probably not. You are looking at this as something like I have a broken pen in my pocket and I got it on someone and we could all just go back and look at who had the broken pen. It isn’t that obvious. And if I caught it, wouldn’t that mean that someone else gave it to me? Do you think I would go up and hug someone that was feverish and coughing? Nope. So I would be able to hold my head up just fine since I wouldn’t ever know I had infected anyone and had taken all proper precautions as soon as I felt ill. Talk about seeing only black and white! You are doing that exact thing. All or nothing. But this isn’t an all or nothing game we are in.
Let me ask you this: could you hold yoru little liberal head high if you took all the precautions and found out down the road YOU infected someone and they died from it? Would you know you had infected them? And if you did, why did you infect them?