I hope you will agree that we are all virtual friends here, and more so in the current adversity.
Whilst it would be good to take the calm outlook of the feline illustrated above, this is not humanly possible every day, and in every circumstance.
For discussion today and tomorrow, here is an extract with some thoughts on the wisdom of the lockdown, from 'a well-known commentator'.
SYA does not necessarily agree with it, but is still intrigued by Prof Ben-Israel’s theory.
When Britain’s closures were announced, they had a clear goal: to buy time for the NHS.
It worked: we were spared the horror that overtook parts of Italy. The government believes that fatalities peaked on 8 April, suggesting that the rate of infection peaked around 18 March – in other words, when Britain was still pursuing a Swedish-style policy of maintaining distance and hand-washing.
So why not return to that policy? How did “flattening the curve” morph into “avoiding a second peak”? It is hard to see how ending a mass quarantine won’t lead to some uptick – just as it will lead to an uptick in common colds and traffic accidents. Our goal, surely, should be to ensure that this uptick does not overwhelm the system. In other words, we should aim to prevent people dying for want of medical attention, not to prevent all deaths – which, in the absence of a cure, is impossible.
One of the most dangerous human biases is the sunk costs fallacy, the idea that we have sacrificed too much to give up now. That notion can lead to disaster.
…But listen to the phrases we hear at the 5pm daily briefings. We must not take our foot off the pedal, we keep being told, or everything we have achieved so far will have been for nothing. We have, as Matt Hancock put it on Thursday, “travelled too far together to go back now”.
But what if the harshness of a lockdown has little bearing on the overall rate of mortality? In Europe, France, Spain and Italy, all of which imposed heavy restrictions, have suffered worse than, say, Sweden. There may, of course, be other explanations: demographics, population density, cultural habits. But, to repeat, it is for proponents of unprecedented state coercion to prove their case, not for their opponents to prove a negative.
Could it be, as Professor Isaac Ben-Israel argues, that the disease traces a similar arc however strict the lockdown? According to the Israeli scientist: “It turns out that a similar pattern – rapid increase in infections that reaches a peak in the sixth week and declines from the eighth week – is common to all countries in which the disease was discovered, regardless of their response policies.”
He may be wrong, obviously. But it will not do to respond by saying: “Let’s keep the lockdown going a little longer, just to be sure”. The default position should be to retain our freedoms unless there is solid evidence that abandoning them will make a significant difference. In any case, at £2.4 billion a day, time is a luxury we don’t have.
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