The Disease or the Cure?
The fear that the cure might be worse than the disease is very real. This was understood by governments very quickly and caused delays in lockdown in some cases. However, after a short period of analysis, almost every government went ahead with lockdown. Why?The answer which is put forward is that we go ahead with lockdown in order to avoid large numbers of deaths. I put it to you that this is not the reason. I believe (this is my conjecture, without any evidence or supporting data) that in fact governments enact lockdown because the economic effects of other courses would be worse. I believe that governments have compared models of the likely outcomes of lockdown vs "do nothing" and various other programmes and found that lockdown is the likely least expensive.
Lost Years
First: how can they ignore the huge numbers of deaths? If you let yourself think it through, this is obvious. It may sound callous, but in terms of lost years of life, given Covid-19 affects the aged and ill disproportionately, the numbers would be much less shocking than the numbers of lives lost that are projected.Factor this against the cost - the worst economic shock since the Great Depression at least - and the public might actually be persuaded to accept much more limited control - protection of the weakest, but let the fit go about their business and the economy continue.
Why Lockdown?
Imagine the scenario, in, say, London, Paris or New York: normal life continues - with nursing homes protected. Nevertheless, many elderly and a few - proportionally but that's many in total - younger fit people get very ill. They fill all the hospital beds. They fill temporary hospitals. For a period of a couple of months at least, they fill stadiums.A possible sequence of events as a society proceeds up the exponential curve:
Week 1 - no fuss.
Week 2 - sad stories about elderly grandparents passing away.
Week 3 - memes of aghast outrage as ill people told there's no room at the hospital die at home.
Week 4 - fear, distrust, rumour. Neighbors pitted against sick neighbors; people dying on the steps of hospitals; calls for ambulances not responded to; car accident victims left to die.
Week 5: bodies put out in the streets and left; thousands dying at home alone - people lose confidence; mob protest with corresponding police reaction; looting, army involvement, shootings... society begins to fall apart.
Week 6... 7... 8...
The economic cost would be great - most likely greater than lockdown even in the short term. In the long term, the cost of the shock, actual damage and lost confidence in government and rule of law is hard to project but would be surely be massive.
That, I believe, is why we are in lockdown. And we're right to fear alternatives.
