woodiewood1 said:
Some 65,000 persons die on the highway every year. Should we sign the same contract in order to drive? How about everyone that smoke, overweight, or have a poor diet sign the same contract?
We don't simply accept the risk of driving. We make efforts to make it safer and pay real money to do so. I'm old enough to remember cars without seat belts. Now every car has seat belts, and even airbags. ABS brakes are another safety system new cars have that old ones don't - it cost time and money to develop them, and they add to the price of the car. My point is everyone is already paying for improvements in road safety - you are paying to reduce the number of road deaths.
If you smoke, you are paying more for life insurance and medical insurance. States have raised taxes on tobacco, in part to discourage you from smoking. Again, you are free to do this, but you are paying somewhat for your societal impact. And we don't allow smoking anymore (e.g. restaurants) in places were other people who have not chosen to smoke would be impacted.
Look, I'm tired of being at home too, and I should have remembered that the internet is not a place to have a rational discussion, but I was curious about people's risk/reward trade-off in the case of Covid-19. Staying home forever is not what I'm advocating at all. Going out during a pandemic when you could become a disease vector does have a potential societal impact, and I was trying to see what people thought about who should pay for that impact.
And yes, people being forced to stay at home does have an impact on your business, and the government recognized that fact and started the PPP for small businesses. My point is not whether that is a good or bad program, but that society recognized that forcing people to stay home had an impact and attempted to pay for it.