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Residents take coronavirus surveillance into their own hands

24 Comments
By Thin Lei Win and Beh Lih Yi

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The respiratory disease - which emerged in China late last year - has infected roughly 1.2 million people and killed about 65,000, according to a global tally by Johns Hopkins University.

Yes, it "emerged" from China's wet market.

And it looks like they've re-opened shop.

https://thehill.com/changing-america/well-being/prevention-cures/491025-fauci-mind-boggling-that-chinas-wet-markets

https://www.sciencealert.com/coronavirus-discovery-in-pangolins-shows-why-wildlife-markets-need-better-regulations

-1 ( +3 / -4 )

Good for the community minded in Malaysia in exposing those who are selfish and put everyones life in danger. Their identities are now forever exposed.

it "emerged" from China's wet market.

Well, the official Communist govt line is that the virus "accidentally emerged" from a street market. Very convenient.

I suspect that, in time, evidence will emerge that this was an intentional rather than accidental outbreak. History will tell.

-2 ( +5 / -7 )

I'm a cyclist, and leisure cycling is banned in Spain and Italy but the main thing driving this is the risk of people crashing and needing treatment in already overloaded hospitals. Short solo rides are allowed in the UK, as are jogging and going for a walk, but people are advised to not stop anywhere to buy refreshments.

I'm pleased I live in the countryside with few neighbours to spy on me if we do go into lockdown here.

7 ( +7 / -0 )

Today while shopping in my neighborhood's narrow and crowded shopping district I watched a group of joggers wearing expensive, brand name gear, perhaps members of a running club, jogging together with zero regard for physical distancing from each other or passersby. The local train station was less crowded than usual, but included several groups kitted out for the day's hike. Each group huddled together in front of the station, zero regard for social distancing. It was impossible for others using the station to get farther than one meter from them. Maybe the joggers and hikers are so rich and well connected they don't have to worry about their healthcare. Or other people.

3 ( +6 / -3 )

Moral of the story: Don't tell people what you are doing.

4 ( +4 / -0 )

Let's snitch on our neighbors... for riding a bicycle.

Or instead rely on the state's facial recognition cameras like Russia does.

Russia Is Building One of the World’s Largest Facial Recognition Networks

https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2019/11/12/russia-building-one-of-worlds-largest-facial-recognition-networks-a68139

2 ( +3 / -1 )

State surveillance is one thing, neighbors peeping into each other's backyards and monitoring their behavior is another.

Got it. Big brother good. Individuals bad.

6 ( +6 / -0 )

No walking or jogging seems ill advised as it keeps you healthy and sane.

Survival in the short term is more important than being healthy in the long run.

If you need to move, you can exercise in your house/room. This is not a permanent solution... but all these lockdowns are also not permanent. The more the number of people following these tacit rules... Faster these lockdowns will go.

2 ( +3 / -1 )

Survival in the short term is more important than being healthy in the long run.

I remember you that is still not some super-Ebola. Being and staying healthy in the long term is not less important of staying healthy in the short term.

Obviously, people need to respect lenghty individual space and safety measure to refrain from increasing the number of people needing hospital care. But that do not mean having to deal with a lot of people developping health issue, psychological disorder and so on.

So jogging for a regular practitionner or walking in the vinicity of one place with keeping distance with other non part of household people should stay fine. Hiking, trail, ... should unfortunately be avoided as more risky.

Some people should just get a life instead of snitching at other. That include police state.

No need to try to empower yourself, just accept we are weak.

0 ( +2 / -2 )

I got lots of blogs today with photos of people out and about like now care in the world. Shopping, parks, walking, bicycling, exercising, group parties. Downtown was not buzzing but that's about it. So many residents in Japan have or not paying enough attention or just don't care enough.

4 ( +4 / -0 )

Unfortunately full lockdown might be needed because a few that have no discipline to keep social distancing or doing dangerous activities that may end up in already overwhelmed hospitals.

Otherwise, going for a walk alone will not increase whatsoever the contamination.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

“Valley of the squinting windows”.

I think @toasted heretic may remember the reference from his english short stories back in secondary school.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

If you are required to make some sacrifices for the greater good, but somebody else does not want to suffer the same sacrifices

If your kids, family and relatives' health, even lives, are threatened because of what somebody else is doing

"Doctors Over the World Are Begging You: We Stay at Work for You - Please Stay at Home for Us"

https://www.distractify.com/p/stay-home-doctors-beg

Still, both Watts and Lindsay said the balance between privacy and surveillance should be reset when the pandemic is over.

Others, like Joseph Cannataci, the United Nations special rapporteur on the right to privacy, fear surveillance measures ranging from facial recognition to phone tracking could outlast the current crisis.

"Dictatorships and authoritarian societies often start in the face of a threat," he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation this week.

Even Russia is implementing surveillance and facial recognition to track people who violate the lockdown

"Moscow To Launch Mandatory Surveillance App and Facial Recognition To Track Residents In Coronavirus Lockdown"

https://tech.slashdot.org/story/20/04/02/1958259/moscow-to-launch-mandatory-surveillance-app-to-track-residents-in-coronavirus-lockdown

Under restrictions in place since Monday, most of the city's 12 million residents must remain indoors, barring a few exceptions — like trips to the supermarket or pharmacy, taking out the trash or briefly walking the dog.

But starting Thursday, Muscovites will have their movements tracked through a mandatory app required on their smartphones. Don't have one? The city says it will lend out devices.

Security videos and facial recognition will also track where people go. Within minutes of going where you're not supposed to go, the police will be there to stop you, bring you home, with likely a warning and a fine.

2 ( +2 / -0 )

I've posted several photos online, but not snitching on people or anything like that, it was to point out the crowds of kids at McDonald's and nearby parks during school closures, showing how pointless the closures were without any stay-at-home order to go with it. Some were upset with the postings, not because they were in the photos or that it was reporting people or anything, but because they were embarrassed I would show such photos to people from other countries who would see them and that I was "hurting Japan's reputation" and others such nonsense.

I think there is nothing wrong with doing what these people are doing in taking photos and posting, but they have to make sure of what they are shooting and publishing online, because I suspect a lot of the photo takers are out and about themselves while doing it, and perhaps their main goal is going to get essentials, but them stopping to take a photo means they are outdoors for unessential purposes and they may as well turn around and take a snapshot of themselves, too, for publication. Also, they have to be sure they don't get it wrong, because they can damage a person's reputation if for example they see someone running and claim the person was out for a leisurely jog, but turns out he had an emergency and was running in that direction. You know what I mean. There should be a record of who posts what so that they can be contacted for information, and also so that they may be charged if someone got in trouble as a result of misreporting and misinformation.

4 ( +6 / -2 )

Yes smith. But you're wrong posting photos of strangers without consent. period. You still haven't answered my questions about what you are still doing in Japan from other posts. If you are this vociferous about a Lockdown what are YOU doing out and about?

Before people thumb my post down, please search other posts where I have challenged 'smith' who is a rather large overweight Canadian probably in the high risk segment of Covid19 infection and ask him what HE is doing outside the house when he quite clearly should have departed these shores LONG ago (he has been telling us to get out or lockdown 2 months ago) or be self isolated as a matter of health right now.

-3 ( +0 / -3 )

This is a truly confounding issue. As a former jogger (can't anymore because of bad knees), I have to believe the lungs of the joggers are in mighty fine shape. And as long as you keep you distance from anyone else, you're not breathing the virus in and out.

And on top of that, if joggers really want to get their exercise, they should do it in the very early hours of the morning, when it's still dark and no one is out and about.

As for me, I've had a treadmill for the past seven years, and it suits my needs just fine.

Still, it's a conundrum, and I don't think we should be spying on them, photographing them, and trying to shame them. That's too far into the gutter for me.

3 ( +3 / -0 )

People going outside for jogs, hikes or cycling by themselves are actually very much considering the health--both short-term and long-term--of society and of themselves.

It is not either/or.

The fact most modern people have become so disconnected from Nature has weakened their immune systems and made them susceptible to CV19 and so many other health issues that burden the health care system.

Such folks should be applauded for taking their health seriously, not shunned.

And no, doing such exercise indoors is not the same thing. Being exposed to Nature has other benefits for our bodies, minds and spirits.

We've got to respond to these health crises not by more Fear and disconnecting from Nature. Social distancing is already a BIG sacrifice to our natural behaviors and instincts. Let's not go overboard.

3 ( +3 / -0 )

Hence, I am enjoying my daily bike ride to work this past month. I leave early, avoid the traffic. I am NOT going to give that up, especially as I am unable to work from home. As mentioned elsewhere, let's be sensible and not go overboard. Everyone has to be responsible now, and not be scaremongered into extremes as some would wish for.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

I walk about 5 miles every morning around the nearby neighborhoods. Once a week, I'll see someone else out that early, usually one of us will step out into the completely empty road. It has been that way the last 15 yrs.

The rest of the time, we are at home, inside or working in our yards, "sheltering in place".

Certain religions have laws just because, with no scientific reason, and most people under those non-secular political systems are used to following religious orders without question. Someone who doesn't, clearly needs to be punished. Clearly.

/s

-1 ( +0 / -1 )

Before Covid-19, we had a word for these kind of people: busybodies.

2 ( +2 / -0 )

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