Writing for the Spectator in the UK Dr John Lee explains his ten reasons why he believes the lockdown must end immediately.
Writing in this magazine a month ago, I applauded the government’s stated aim of trying to follow the science in dealing with Covid. Such promises are easier made than kept. […] The chosen narrative – that lockdown has saved countless lives – has been doggedly followed by all spokespeople. No doubt is allowed.
[…] It has now become a matter of faith that lockdown is vital.
Even if one could understand why lockdown was imposed, it very rapidly became apparent that it had not been thought through. Not in terms of the wider effects on society (which have yet to be counted) and not even in terms of the ways that the virus itself might behave. But at the start, there was hardly any evidence. Everyone was guessing. Now we have a world of evidence, from around the globe, and the case for starting to reverse lockdown is compelling.[…]
1. You cannot understand the significance of this virus simply by looking at the raw death figures
Lockdown was enacted on a prediction of 500,000 deaths in the UK, rapidly reduced to 250,000 and then to 20,000. As I write the UK death toll is 30,150. […] This pandemic is unique in the way it has been observed and measured. […] yes, Covid is a nasty new disease. But even if you assume 40,000 Covid deaths, its death toll is in the same ballpark as diseases we live with, not something so extraordinary as to justify the lockdown reaction.
[…] The majority of cases are asymptomatic. The most common symptoms are not fever, cough, headache and respiratory symptoms; they are no symptoms at all. The typical case does not suffer respiratory fibrosis; the disease leaves no mark. Somewhere around 99.9 per cent of those who catch the disease recover.
2. The policy response to the virus has been driven by modelling of Covid – not other factors
[…] In this case, it has been bedevilled from the start by poor data and flawed assumptions.[…] There was an assumption that 80 per cent of the population would rapidly catch the disease, when in fact 15 per cent seems nearer the mark. […] The very models that put us into lockdown – on the basis of predictions no longer believed accurate – are keeping us here despite their known flaws.
3. We don’t know if lockdown is working
[…] Many counties with very different approaches to lockdown seem to have similar curves […] Sweden’s model of voluntary social distancing seems equally effective, but with much lower costs.
4. We should ease the lockdown to save lives
The economic and direct health costs of lockdown are enormous.[…] economic downturns are a direct cause of ill health. […] the direct health effects of lockdown and economic downturn have a disproportionate effect on younger people with many more QALYs [Quality of Life Years] left, so comparing deaths between Covid and other causes such a suicide does not do justice to the scale of the health effects attributable to lockdown. […]When you factor in all the lockdown-attributable mental and physical health effects short of death, as well as the deaths, it is clear that lockdown is having a huge impact on QALYs across the population that far outweighs those caused by Covid.
5. Lockdown is not sustainable
[…] No one thinks this virus will be eradicated. It will be present within the population and will spread in its own way.[…] The impact of this pathogen will be measured, like flu, over years. Some years will be worse than others. There is no guarantee or even probability that this lockdown will have made any impact on the overall numbers of deaths in say five years time. […] Countries that are now pleased to have a low incidence of the virus will have to face it later unless they are to enter a North Korea-like state of isolation. […]
6. Lockdown directly harms those most likely to be affected by coronavirus
Coronavirus affects mainly the elderly and those with pre-existing conditions. But the large majority of this group who catch the disease recover. In the meantime lockdown is preventing many of the things that make life worth living: seeing children, grandchildren, and friends; eating out, hobbies, charity work, travelling. Doing all the things that people work so hard to be able to enjoy. Isolation is dangerous for everyone but particularly the elderly.
What about people who have died during this period of Covid or – many more – of other diseases? Is it right that they should have had lonely deaths, that they and their loved ones should not be able to say goodbye? […]
7. Lockdown directly harms those who will be largely unaffected by coronavirus
The vast majority of people under 65, and almost everyone under 50, will be no more inconvenienced by this disease than by a cold. They are being asked to make huge sacrifices for something that will not affect them. Education, jobs, businesses: these are not abstract concepts, they are people’s lives. This group includes the people who are the most productive part of our society and whose efforts support everyone else, including those who are ill. Why is removing them from activity a sensible thing to do? The argument that they might unknowingly pass the virus on to others and so are best kept at home – the ‘stay home, save lives’ message given to us by government – is spurious (see also 9 below). There is no evidence that self-isolation of those at special risk is a worse option. Lost education, lost job opportunities, and destroyed livelihoods cannot necessarily be made good.
8. The health service has not been overwhelmed nor likely to be […]
9. The virus is almost certainly not a constant threat
[…] an evolutionary view suggests that the virus is likely to change quickly, with less virulent forms becoming dominant. Lockdown could potentially slow this beneficial tendency. On this view, asymptomatic people spreading the virus is a good thing because it means that the disease becomes milder more quickly.[…]
10. People can be trusted to behave sensibly […]
[…] ‘following the science’ on Covid is not at all easy or even really possible. One thing has become clear: Covid is not, in fact, an extraordinarily lethal pathogen, just a nasty one, similar to many others. So it makes no sense whatsoever to follow the science on Covid to the exclusion of everything else. The government should rapidly lift the lockdown to a condition similar to that of Sweden’s.
The first step is often the hardest. It will be much easier to plot a course back to normality from there. And despite the fears that we continue to harbour over this virus, our new normal should look very much like our old, perhaps with the addition of some social responsibility in the face of respiratory illness. It is the only way for us to live in the world.
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