Essay COVID-19 Pandemic has Devastated Global Public Health – Law Assignment Help

Assignment Task:

Task:

The COVID-19 pandemic has devastated global public health and deeply affected the world economy. Unsurprisingly given the serious economic, social and political consequences, differing government responses have been highly politicised. Various quarantine and infection case tracking methods have caused concern over state power intruding into private spheres. The usage of face masks, social distancing rules, and intra-state travel restrictions have aroused passionate debate over public health restrictions, individual liberty and human rights. 
An Australian State Government has passed a public health order that restricts gatherings in community centres and for religious services to 25% total capacity [whether indoors or outdoors]. People who attend these places and activities are required to wear a mask and social distance despite the 25% restriction. If participants do not wear a mask or social distance, the public health order prohibits all gatherings and religious services regardless of the amount of people who are attending. The orders restricting and prohibiting gatherings will not be lifted until all the individuals who would participate in the activities or religious services get vaccinated. 

Various remote religious communities in the State that have objected to the public health orders. They contend that the orders closing these facilities and services, and the requirements that they wear facemasks and social distance, are contrary to their religious practices and freedoms as well as their individual personal choices regarding the danger of Covid-19. For religious reasons, they avoid modern medicine. Instead, they use traditional medicines and various spiritual approaches to illness. They also oppose mandatory vaccinations on religious grounds and/or as a matter of individual choice. For the most part these communities live in rural and remote areas, are self-sufficient, and use few essential services such as groceries and hardware. 
Your task in this assignment is to unveil, following research in primary and secondary sources, the arguments for both sides [State public health and community preferences], and to present them in a structured manner, discussing them through the prism of some of the concepts encountered in the course (e.g. utilitarianism versus rights, the `no harm’ principle, the liberal concepts of autonomy and rationality, etc.).