COVID-19 Ushered in Attacks on Human Rights and Things They Said They Had Introduced Temporarily Are Still in Effect/Operation Today
Ventura beach beginning to see visitors post COVID-19
DEPENDING on whether you believe the "market/bat theory" or the "lab theory" or whatever, COVID-19 turns 5 (half a decade) in a few weeks. To me, COVID-19 did not cause much disruption because I worked from home (my job, my hobbies, my activism). The main impact was, I stopped going to the gym and started working out from home. But to a lot of people it had a profound impact/change - almost always a very negative change.
The worst thing from my point of view is how human rights were suspended, sometimes not temporarily. The reality of this varies across nations, but here in the UK we still have a censorship unit originally commissioned to deal with national health and is now dealing with racists and bigots instead (under a similar premise and pretext).
COVID-19 changed a lot of things. COVID-19 is still a problem. COVID-19 still infests and infects many people. It's killing people and here in the UK mortality rose by over 10% (every week in 2024 we see deaths at more than 10% the prior levels).
From a "rights" perspective, COVID-19 can have a corrosive effect for many decades to come. More people ought to talk about it (against it). Once you lose rights it is very difficult to regain them - that's history's lesson.
When analogue activities became digitalised we lost many rights. For instance, if people pay "by card" (sometimes the sole option, at least in some places) they lose the ability to pay anonymously or not have their purchasing data sold. Now we see a pandemic (COVID-19) being exploited to worsen things some more in the digital realm. People are forced to do more things "online" or with an "app" (e.g. banking), having signed some horrible contract/TOS.
Where does all this lead to? See Helsinki for clues. █