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Comment by jkubicek | Hacker News Reader

I don't think there's any chance at all this is going to happen. Security theater in airports is perpetuated by an agency that depends on fear to secure its funding and a government that depends on us fighting the "bad guys" (even if they aren't any close to as dangerous as they want us to think).

COVID fear isn't being perpetuated by any government agencies at the national level. If anything, the federal government desperately wants us to forget that COVID exists. Once the actual risks are gone, we're going to go right back to normal, though hopefully we will have learned a lot of lessons about pandemic preparedness.

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Airport security is very similar (if more efficient) in non-US airports, so rent seeking can't be the whole explanation. As far as I know, in most countries security is done by private contractors and not a government agency.

IIRC, if you want to fly through US airspace (say, to land an international flight in the US), the airport you are leaving has to comply with US airport security rules, so the rules are pretty standard everywhere.

Major differences: no ID checks at security, and boarding passes aren’t scanned by humans in make-work jobs, no shoes to be taken off. If it was mostly the US imposing on the rest of the world, you would see separate security for US flights in airports whose layout allow it (and international flights to USA already have lots of annoying extras, like adversarial interviews at the gate (e.g. AA at LHR), and hand searches of cabin luggage).

Flying within EU, the security theater boils down to restricting fluids to individually less than 100 ml in hand luggage, having all metallic stuff removed from your body as far as possible in order to be screened and maintaining a certain posture while being body-scanned.

Occasionally your shoes will be scanned. That's it, at least from my (quite frequent within-EU flying experience) perspective.

And annoying though the liquids thing is I can see an argument if terrorist types are thinking nitroglycerin or anything along those lines. I'm glad they allow nail scissors again (in EU) - that was kind of dumb.

The federal government doesn't promote the covid fear only because of which party is in power right now. One of the presidential candidates promises a nationwide mask mandate, and, judging from the actions of authorities in NYC or other places, there will be other severe restrictions on freedom of business, assembly and travel.

So yes, I also tend to agree that many people will continue supporting the health theater and fears for the foreseeable future.

What plan do you favor for ending the pandemic?

Unless the IFR of covid is shown to be significantly higher than other common diseases that we accept and don't fight by locking down cities, it doesn't seem that any major, world-shattering intervention is needed.

Please wash your hands for 20 seconds though, and don't come to the office if you're sick.

This isn’t proof that those measures will stay in place after the pandemic subsides, as they have for travel. Since you brought up political parties, it’s worth noting that the party who lead that round of fear is the one in power.

> One of the presidential candidates promises a nationwide mask mandate

Fearing polls, Biden has run away from his position (made multiple times on record) of a national mask requirement. The other day he lied and said he never said it in the first place, claimed he's a constitutionalist and wouldn't seek a mask requirement because of that. This was all on video. So who knows what to believe from these clowns.

I fail to see how this is "health theater", especially mask mandates, which show high effectiveness and relatively low imposition on personal freedoms, considering the pandemic is currently ongoing.

Citation needed. Where are deaths increasing?

I’ll answer my own question:

India. India is a big country and deaths are going up there.

The US and Europe seem past it to me.

Here in Philadelphia, cases and deaths are both spiking. Not as bad yet as the peak from April but the pandemic certainly is not past us.

I just looked it up and there were 4 deaths in all of Pennsylvania yesterday.

The pandemic has stopped. Sure, there are more and more infected people, yet the hospital admissions are stale. It’s really hard to understand why governments that first reacted like there was no problem when the situation emerged and the virus was totally unknown are now acting like it’s a deadly threat when the data clearly shows it’s only a real issue in aged population. Sure taking precautions is good, imposing authoritarian sanitary rules is not.

At least in France the situation is clearly being used to control opposition, which was strong before the pandemic since the government tried to push a lot of economic reforms. Now, the economy was purposely destroyed there, so harsher reforms will be imposed and people will be really angry when they’ll discover the lockdown was not needed (for the record, I live in Japan where there was no lockdown and things went totally fine). The sanitary rules will be used to control those revolts too. The fact it is a political only move was made super clear when the government allowed huge demonstrations that mimicried BLM in June.

Not to mention that mass media is an agency nearly entirely dedicated to promoting health theater.

"You and your children will die soon and there's almost no way to stop it" is the dominating message on the front page of many media organizations.

Name one, please.

EDIT to add: with a link or screenshot.

Have you read any news recently?

CNN:

"A whole generation wiped out"

"China still vulnerable to deadly second wave"

"Covid-19 tests could encourage workers to play Russian roulette"

"Stories of discarded bodies reveal a city totally overwhelmed by covid-19"

"Coronavirus may lurk deep in lungs after patients recover"

"Nearly all patients put on ventilators died"

"Welcome to the house of horror"

"Covid-19 causes sudden strokes in young adults"

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