Locked down, without answers

Most European governments are turning to increasingly harsh lockdowns to confront the coronavirus pandemic. They did so in the wake of watching Italy’s attempt to stop the virus unravel. Italy tried regional local municipal lockdowns in late February, growing to the entirety of Lombardy in early March and then a total lockdown on March 9. Spain followed on March 15, then France, and then the UK.
The lockdowns are largely due to modelling that has come from China and South Korea and based on studies, such as the Imperial College study, whose early findings were shown to Western leaders. The lockdowns are seen as necessary because of the rapid spread of the virus and the curve of infections that will overwhelm hospitals. There are some questions about whether models in China, South Korea, and other countries that dealt with this crisis in January and February are applicable to Western countries.
Of interest, South Korea did not conduct a complete lockdown and Singapore did not conduct a lockdown either, and yet it has kept the virus relatively under control. It appears economically that Singapore, South Korea, and China are not experiencing the same economic disruption as Europe. They are reportedly returning to some normality. So what went wrong?
Much of the discussion about the right policy over COVID-19 is linked to how one reads the data. Discussions about “flattening the curve” and “herd immunity”, and “how long this will last” all rely on similar models and disputed outcomes. This relates to some key questions: How many cases are there? How many tests do we need to do? How many people have symptoms and will likely need intensive care? How fast does it spread? How effective are various measures such as school closures and social distancing?
A central problem for most governments has been an unwillingness to either plan ahead, discuss openly the mounting crises, or conduct fact-finding missions as the pandemic grew. Most Western governments didn’t conduct widespread testing or even surveys of areas to see who was infected until the crisis was upon them.
This was compounded by the lethargic response of the WHO which had claimed as late as January 14 that there was no evidence of human-to-human transmission of the virus and waited until March 11 to declare a pandemic. By that time, spillover had occurred, the virus was spreading quickly in Iran, Italy and other places.
There can be disputes about whether China revealed all it knew about the virus or allowed enough information about its struggle in Wuhan. However, there is no disputing the fact that the Western media had reported in late January that China was confronting the virus by building at least one large hospital in six days. Military doctors were sent soon after.
Italy’s neighbours continued with business-as-usual as the crises loomed. The reality of the impact of the virus was not well communicated to the public. The lockdowns that followed are largely the result of Western governments waiting too long and then punishing their citizens for their own mistakes. The extreme measures, which look to grow more extreme, are a result of some of the wealthiest, most advanced, and ostensibly transparent democracies not preparing for a pandemic, not preparing their hospitals, and not investing in means to confront the tidal wave of infections. There was also negligence or even potential criminal irresponsibility in some local cases.
It is not clear if the waltz toward lockdowns was caused by arrogance or naivety or a kind of 1913 “last summer before the war” feeling of indestructibility. The results are clear. As governments scramble to meet the threats they don’t have time to do due diligence, debrief, or even try to catch up. Since they have largely failed to craft policies that have worked so far, they have also failed to explain how long the lockdowns might last. A look at Italy reveals there is no “plan B” for the pandemic. The lockdowns are supposed to reduce the speed of the virus spreading and enable hospitals to cope.
The picture that is emerging is that most governments are not communicating to their people what their actual plan is. There is no magic “stopping” of the virus. Countries that put in place the full cocktail of necessary measures, such as Israel or Singapore, have not stopped the virus. Neither have regions, such as the Kurdistan region of northern Iraq that has one of the toughest curfews in place since March 13. There are still new cases every day and governments won’t say what an acceptable number might be to reduce the lockdowns.
The Imperial College study and its data, which most models of the growing crises draw on, notes that interventions to stop the spread might be relaxed in September but that the virus will then spread again. Data from Singapore also asserted that a combination of quarantine, workplace distancing and school closures could reduce infections by 99.3%, but was not sure if the end result still might be hundreds of thousands of infections. Other studies couldn’t dispute how long the virus remains on surfaces or and percent show no symptoms.
Governments have said they will lockdown for several weeks, from US promises that things might end in 15 days to 21 days in the UK. India has followed the same 21-day logic. Even if the models hold after three weeks and infections decrease dramatically to double digits, as opposed to thousands of new cases a day and hundreds of deaths, it’s not clear that the governments will be able to convince themselves that they can open schools again or return to international travel. No government in Europe wants to tell people they will be staying at home for a year or more.
There is also a lack of basic logic being discussed by publics that are being encouraged to panic. For instance, there are decrees about lockdowns without any discussion of regional differences. Why, for instance, is a lockdown policy the same in a crowded city as in the countryside? If social distancing is a key to slowing the spread, then why wouldn’t it preferable for people to take their summer holidays earlier to a rural location and observe social distancing? If the goal is to slow the spread, since it cannot be stopped entirely, a walk in the park is not the death sentence that it is portrayed as in some discussions of the need to “stay home”.
There have been some suggestions about isolating the most vulnerable or even exposing first responders to the virus as if this might inoculate them. The kind of technology that helps phones know if one is close to a colleague would seem to offer technological answers to helping people avoid danger (i.e keeping a minimum safe distance) and keep a distance. China already has a kind of Orwellian new ID card embedded in AliPay and WeChat apps that can be coded green for “healthy”  to enable travel to places that have re-opened. China says visitors to parts of the Great Wall should stay one meter apart and wear masks. Western governments should be able to provide face masks and aid people in something similar.
However, in the speeches of various leaders, there has been little of this planning or pro-active approaches. No attempts to “hack” the virus spread, to create Apps or even build new hospitals. Since the major problem with the virus was largely hospital capacity, it’s unclear why EU resources, of which there are billions of Euros, were not spent immediately to set up temporary military-style field hospitals to deal with quarantines.
Since sports stadiums, aeroplane hangers and hotels are closing up, there is ample space for innovative solutions. Unfortunately mass media trends toward fear and talking about death tolls than pushing for such solutions. Governments are encouraged to be reactive.
The reactive nature of the response to the crises is also driven by a desire by many governments not to be faced with their failures to manage the health system and prepare. If hospitals collapse they will elections. But the lockdowns could also pose a problem in economic crises and resulting social strife. Europe already has a problem with rising populism and extremist movements.
It’s unclear if this turn of events won’t fuel a worse crisis down the road. For now, such discussions about migration and undocumented workers or borders has been postponed. But it won’t be postponed forever. This could accelerate these other crises.