Originally Posted by AnalogMan
COVID deniers, maskholes, and anti-vaxxers are ultimately a self-limiting problem. By their actions, they will take themselves out of the gene pool, and will not survive to reproduce.
That's fine with me. Those mindsets often howl about 'personal choice'. I think it's perfectly OK if they choose to preferentially remove themselves from the planet.
The virus does not give a pass to the stupid. The virus is completely equal opportunity and infects deniers and believers totally equitably. Of all the many interventions that have been tried against SARS-CoV-2, denial has not been shown to be effective.
What most definitely is not fine is the risk they place on the rest of us. Everyone has the right to expect to be reasonably safe in going about their lives. It's not OK to put other people unwillingly at undue risk when they go to supermarkets, pharmacies, and other places to live their lives just because someone decides to turn themselves into carriers of contagion by not taking reasonable, basic safety precautions.
Whether someone wants to believe it or not, the SARS-CoV-2 virus is spread by people. The reservoir is us. The home of the virus is not the air, soil, or water. It's inside us. That's the simple fact, and overrides any ridiculous howling about 'personal choice' and 'rights'.
In the past, in areas with greater awareness, knowledge, or enlightenment, people with typhoid, malaria, smallpox, or plague were quarantined or isolated to protect others. It's basic public health, decency, and respect for other people's lives.
There have always been idiots of all flavors. Even a century ago there were the 'Mask Slackers' in the 1918-1919 flu pandemic, and called masks muzzles, germ shields and dirt traps. Then, as now, masks worked to help slow the spread of disease.
Deniers, maskholes, and anti-vaxxers scream about their 'rights'. Yes, they have rights, as does every person. But their 'rights' do not include the right to infect other people with a potentially lethal virus. Other people's right to live supersedes the right to be stupid.
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