By looking at everyone's choices, not just the one person you want to pick on.
Suppose Person A is an asymptomatic COVID-19 carrier and doesn't know it. They go to the grocery store without a mask. Person B also goes to the grocery store without a mask, and gets infected by Person A.
You could say Person A is responsible because they should have worn a mask. But you could also say Person B is responsible because they should have worn a mask. Yes, if you know there are a lot of asymptomatic carriers, you should take into account the possibility that you might be one. But you should also take into account the possibility that someone else might be one. So the appropriate rule in this case is that anyone who doesn't wear a mask in a public place where they can't social distance takes the consequences if they get sick. Someone who gets infected because they didn't wear a mask can't pawn off the responsibility on the person who infected them that also wasn't wearing a mask.
In other words, your scenario where "a few people who don't take care not to infect others can kill millions* simply cannot happen unless those millions of other people also don't take care not to get infected. So putting all the responsibility on the person who unknowingly infected someone else, instead of sharing it equally among all the people who didn't take common sense precautions, is wrong. Justifying invasive surveillance and tracking of everyone on those grounds is basically saying you want the government to make sure you don't have to take any prudent precautions or exercise any common sense at all in your daily life in order to avoid having anything bad happen to you. That's not reasonable.
If we all could take proper precaution this whole thing would be over much quicker and we could return to something that's close to normal. We could get to a place where we have few enough cases that we can test and trace. Other countries are on their way to accomplish this.
I disagree. They do both.
> that doesn't give me full protection from the a-hole who almost ran me over at the UPS store the other day who wasn't wearing a mask and was keeping no distance whatsoever
Nothing will give you "full protection" in the sense of guaranteeing that nothing bad will happen to you. But you were a lot better off wearing a mask in the situation you describe than if you hadn't been.
Also, you were wearing a mask, and the other person wasn't. That puts more of the responsibility on him if something bad happens.
Indeed, in what you describe, the issue isn't just that the person wasn't wearing a mask. It is that he took no precautions whatsoever to keep distance, and showed no sign of even being aware that he ought to be taking such precautions. That puts even more of the responsibility on him, since there are other prudent precautions besides wearing a mask that a person is expected to take in a situation like this, and keeping distance is one of them.
I do think that people who are at risk should be able to get unemployment so that they are not forced to work.
