Government Covid Response, part 1: Lockdowns
Of all the responses to the rona, the most dramatic was the "lockdown". I put lockdown in quotes because while most people stayed home, a large minority of people never locked down. Retail, trades (such as plumbing, electrician, HVAC) and home improvement never locked down. Health care settings partially locked down as elective surgeries were delayed. There is no doubt that the lockdowns caused significant personal, social and economic distress. Whether they did any good for the virus is debatable, which undercuts the rational for doing the lockdowns in the first place. If the first principle of medicine is to "do no harm", the harm part must be considered before the benefit. In previous posts I mentioned exercise, diet and vitamin supplements. In each case, the benefit was modest, but the harm was negligible. In the case of the lockdowns, the benefits are negligible to modest (maybe) and the harm was enormous. It is my contention th...