However, those who lose loved ones might not agree — and that is why I’d wait until the empirical evidence is almost overwhelming before giving the go ahead.

Fair enough….although I would point out that a person who is quarantining is really not any risk from those who are not. Between grocery delivery and Amazon, nobody who is at risk needs to go outside anymore. Nasty way to live, in my opinion, but it’s possible.

But I can assure you that the European Court of Human Rights would have no problem derogating from rights if the emergency that so necessitated continued to operate and the measures continued to be proportional.

Yea….I don’t doubt this at all. From other “rights” debates that have arisen in the past, such as the “hate speech” or “pictures of Mohammad” issues, it seems to me that the ECHR has a lot more latitude in their decisions in this regard than do the US Courts.

I think you can see from the news reports here (Michigan, for example) that Americans in general have a low tolerance for policies that carry the scent of human rights infringement, even if those policies are in their best interests. Europeans are probably a bit more tolerant of these matters.