One of the most contentious issues at the moment is do lockdowns actually work? Are they worth it when stacked up against the other implications of a damaged economy, loss of civil liberties and freedoms, and of course people’s general mental health and well-being, not to mention the general NHS reduction in its capacity to cope with non COVID-19 diseases such as cancer, heart disease, renal failure, diabetes, and so on.
The ‘Great Barrington Declaration’ presents an alternative strategy and approach to dealing with COVID-19. It can be found here at: https://gbdeclaration.org/. What does this strategy propose? Simply a careful, sustainable approach to dealing with the pandemic crisis. The general public of the UK since the first lockdown on March 23rd 2020, are beginning to feel the drain of these ever changing ‘lockdown rules’. The governments try their best to chop and change their virus fighting strategy according to the “R” (reproduction) value of the virus tranmission – especially when it reaches above the all important 1 figure (i.e. reproduction is increasing).
Almost a year in to the crisis, I would argue that many people feel that a sustainable strategy is required. Sweden has been in the press for its ‘failed’ approach https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/jan/03/swedish-model-failed-covid-19. But is that really the case? Personally, I think that is a rediculous article, as it is far too soon to jump to that conclusion, and it is not really backed up by the figures. Sweden have continued to enjoy their freedoms in a relative, sensible fashion, and have sustained a COVID-19 casualty ratio per 1M people that currently is lower than the UK, Spain, Italy, USA, France and so on (these countries have used aggressive lockdown strategies). Granted they do have a higher death ratio than their neighbours such as Norway and Finland, who have used lockdowns more extensively, but the trade-off is that they have not completely lost their quality of life as a nation, they have a more considered and sensible long term strategy, and their civil libterties and freedoms are in relative tact. Do we really want our democratic society to be considered ‘law breakers’ for visiting a family relative? Personally I find that notion utterly insane for a so called ‘free’ nation … people can argue you are putting others lives at risk. But then, this is not the first pandemic to sweep the world is it? We are where we are, and need to deal with it in the most humane and sensible fashion. In several years time, then the pandemic abates (if there are no new variants or strains that bypass our innoculation and vaccine capability) then it will be very interesting to see the post pandemic COVID-19 analysis, which of course will be vast. I predict that the conclusion reached will be that lockdowns are not the best way forward (I could of course be wrong). Next and future comments will talk about death rates, the disease risk and severity and alternative strategies.