More than eight months after Britain's first case of COVID-19, the country is still under acute restrictions. More than 700,000 have contracted the disease and more than forty thousand have died. With the highest case-fatality rate in Europe and the eighth highest in the world, it is widely accepted that the country's response to the virus has been a failure. However, many have erroneously concluded that the solution to the problem is a set of even more punishing restrictions. In response to the months of lockdown, political debate has erupted. A recent poll, courtesy of Sky News/You Gov, found that 67% of the country were in favour of a strict two-week lockdown. Any attempt to regress the country back into lockdown must be resisted; not only least because it is impractical, but because it is a poor response to the pandemic.
In Wales, First Minister Mark Drakeford and his Labour Government have come under increasing scrutiny for their draconian response to the lockdown. Individuals are restricted to making only essential journeys and "non-essential" items, including, controversially blankets, are not permitted to be sold.
In the spring, the technocrats told us that a short-lockdown was necessary to "flatten the curve". While it might not be possible to eradicate the virus, they said, a temporary lockdown would ensure that the healthcare system was not overburdened. Every major institution, from the New York Times to Imperial College London, lauded flattening the curve as a solution to all problems. "We will look again in the three weeks", was the initial word from Downing Street; more than two hundred days later, we appear to be facing even more stringent restrictions, with Wales leading the way. Despite the Government's fervent political desire to avoid a second lockdown, the window of opinion in England has shifted towards greater restrictions, with the Leader of the Opposition calling for a "circuit-breaker" two-week lockdown. Drawing on the lessons of more successful nations, as well as Britain-specific data, an argument against further COVID restrictions will be outlined.
More than five thousand miles east of London is Seoul, South Korea. Against the grain of global opinion, South Korean officials refused to put the country into lockdown, instead, investing their efforts into an effective track-and-trace system and into ensuring adequate personal protective equipment to its citizens. In a July opinion piece for the British Medical Association, Keith Cooper notes that each Korean was able to purchase two N95 masks per week, at an extremely affordable cost. South Korea has had less than five hundred deaths due to COVID-19, despite its close proximity to Wuhan, and, according to an OECD projection, will have a GDP contraction of just 0.8% in 2020.
Despite Korea's potent response to the virus, opponents of lockdowns in the UK are painted as impetuous morons, hellbent on killing the weak and elderly. Why? Our ideas are just as much motivated by public concerns as everyone else, and the record speaks for itself. Britain's obstinacy, its insistence on locking up the healthy, has left havoc in its wake. The country is at its worst debt-to-GDP ratio since Macmillan was in office; the economy shrank by more than a fifth in the second quarter; and thousands of young people had their careers halted or disrupted by the summer's examinations scandal.
The common feature of countries that have dealt well with the virus is a reliable contact-tracing system. This stands true regardless of the political party in power, lockdown severity or population size. Whereas Britain did not have a test-and-trace system, until early June, Korea had such a system in mid-March; by the 16th of March, more than 250,000 people had already been tested for the virus. In stark contrast, the UK Government does not display testing figures prior to the 29th of April, exemplifying how far behind they were regarding testing. Even when testing got to reasonable levels, the contact-tracing system, which cost £12 billion, was widely recognised to be a failure. On one occasion, it failed to record 16,000 positive coronavirus cases, distorting the public's perceptions of the virus. The test-and-trace system continues to underperform, with figures showing the results times are getting longer. It is obvious that the test-and trace system is a failure; an effort to rectify this should be the Government's priority, not imposing further restrictions.
Due to the gradual reopening of society, COVID-19 cases have surged. For many, this fact alone is enough to throw the country back into lockdown. Nevertheless, deaths from COVID-19 are at almost record-low levels. In an effort to manipulate public opinion, mainstream media outlets have devoted record coverage to the supposed danger, when most will go unaffected, even in if they contract the disease. The country's case-fatality rate has been falling, meaning it is becoming increasingly safer to engage normally in society.
While keen to remain liked by the electorate, it is key that the Prime Minister acts against public opinion. COVID-19 restrictions are killing public spirit, disrupting convention life and are, most importantly, ineffective.
Perhaps public opinion would change if Boris sacked Vallance and Whitty and stopped the fearmongering.
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