| Hoofdstraat |
15 februari 2023 10:12 |
The Guardian: de prijs van lockdowns is colossaal, was dit echt de enige oplossing?
Larry Elliott van The Guardian reflecteert op de 'colosale' kosten van de lockdowns die nu naar boven komen en nog steeds groeien. Economen werden niet geraadpleegd toen ze de economie stil legden en dat is er aan te zien.
Voor corona was er geen enkel "pandemic preparedness" scenario dat voorzag in steden die afgesloten werden, laat staan hele landen. Dit was nooit gezien, nooit eerder gedaan en nooit aangeraden als oplossing. Nooit, ever. Toch heeft men dat erg vlug en lang aangehouden zonder enige zorg over de gevolgen.
Hij pleit ervoor om dat niet kif kif te laten en te onderzoeken of er echt geen andere oplossing was, zeker nu ze wel moeten luisteren naar de economen nu de economie in de slump zit en de wereldwijde armoede extreem gestegen is.
https://www.theguardian.com/business...ity-stagnation
The response to this is that there was no alternative but to take draconian measures, in order to provide a breathing space before the arrival of vaccines. A single narrative in which policy makers had no choice but to impose lockdowns has largely gone unchallenged.
... the idea of entire countries being placed in lockdown was something entirely new. They note that in a report on pandemic preparedness produced by the World Health Organization in November 2019 there was no notion of city-wide, let alone country-wide quarantines being conceived of. The word “lockdown” was not mentioned once.
Perhaps the WHO was right that Covid 19 represented an unprecedented challenge. Yet as time has worn on the harms from lockdowns have been harder to hide. A pair of self-confessed lefties, Green and Fazi express bewilderment that the liberal left has not kicked up more of a fuss. As they note, an aggressive form of authoritarian capitalism resulted in poor people everywhere suffering enormous losses while rich people everywhere became immeasurably richer.
Meanwhile, evidence is mounting of the long-term consequences of quarantining the country during lockdown. There were warnings at the time that keeping people under a form of house arrest would lead to rising loneliness, mental illness, domestic abuse and childhood obesity; a growing school attainment divide between pupils from rich and poor homes; an increase in hospital waiting lists and a rise in undiagnosed cases of cancer. All of which have come to pass. Only last month, for example, a report by the House of Commons Library expressed concern that the estimated rate of absence from school in the current academic year was 7.8% – compared with 4.8% in 2019-20.
Britain’s flirtation with recession and a new era of austerity, alongside semi-permanent economic stagnation are the consequences of a policy response to the pandemic that was far-reaching in its scope and severity. Given that the price paid for lockdown was colossal and is still rising, a period of deep reflection is needed. The argument that there was no alternative should be closely examined.
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