End the lockdown. End the tragedies.
- Dania Frag
- Jun 15, 2021
- 4 min read
In March 2020, we went into lockdown for ‘only three weeks to flatten the curve’. A new, novel virus from Wuhan has entered the country, and we knew very little/nothing about it, to how it spreads, to how to cure it. A reasonable conclusion surely? Until it got to the point where we had THREE lockdowns in total, never-ending restrictions, and still no hope of getting out of this; even when the countries that were the worst hit are now either somewhat or completely back to normal. Northern Italy, China, the majority of the South East, are all enjoying their lives free from restrictions, and many of these were some of the worst hit places. So why are we still under lockdown restrictions, despite record low deaths? What does this mean for business owners and students? Will we ever get out of this?
First of all let’s look at the data, in March 2020, It was hard to find someone that opposed the first lockdown, hundreds of deaths had suddenly appeared from this new virus that no one had heard about before. Therefore the lockdown was accepted, and those who questioned it were outcast from society and made to look like fools, and arguably rightly so. On April 10 2020, the virus had killed 1122 people, The entire country shutdown, the majority of the population took it seriously, and no one even questioned ending the restrictions. But what needs to be understood here is that this was because there was no vaccine, we still had limited knowledge on the virus and how it’s spread, and although this may be debated by some, the ‘stay at home’ mandate was necessary in limiting the spread of the virus as much as possible. However what is extremely strange is how international travel into the UK was still allowed as late as January 2021, with even some passengers coming from high risk countries, with no sort of COVID testing or quarantining whatsoever in some cases. The fact that many high-risk countries such as Italy closed their borders to UK Passengers during the pandemic, yet the UK did not, shows a major error was made. Surely anybody would think about closing borders to prevent the virus mutating and new strains appearing.
However things were looking up in the summer of 2020, at this point, many of the restrictions had been removed, and although masks had to be worn and extremely crowded places where social distancing was not possible, such as nightclubs, had to remain shut, pretty much everything else was somewhat normal. Then back to school period started. And thousands of children and young people flooded back into schools, with some travelling across the country to attend university, and again, no COVID testing or quarantining was done at all to make sure the virus was not spreading. So no wonder we had a second and third lockdown following this period, with Christmas even being ‘cancelled’ for many families living in tier 4 areas after the tier system was implemented, as they were not allowed to travel to see loved ones living in separate homes. This should never have happened. If sufficient Covid testing was done at the start of the back-to-school period, and overseas visits were severely limited or banned altogether, then the virus would not have had a chance to spread further despite the three lockdowns we’ve had.
Lockdowns are a threat to society, especially when there is nothing to be locked down from. At the time of writing, Around 41 million people have been vaccinated against COVID-19 in the UK, meaning the majority, if not all, vulnerable people have been vaccinated against a virus. This evidence is supported by the fact that in the past week, 9 COVID deaths were registered; And whilst every death is a tragedy, unfortunately we do not live in a fantasy world where we can prevent every single death ever being caused from the virus again. We did not have a lockdown for the flu in 2019 or 2018 or any other year, despite over 27,000 deaths caused by the flu in England in 2018 alone, and we have a vaccine for it! In September 2020, The Guardian reported that male suicide rates were at a two decade high in 2020 in England and Wales. There has also been a 9% increase in domestic abuse rates between March and June 2020, with over 200,000 offences being recorded. There has also been a 13.3% increase in those beginning/restarting substance abuse, and anxiety and depression records had increased both by almost 25% each in the USA.
People are dying, people are losing their businesses, people are losing their livelihoods, and people are losing their general motivation to life that many people did not realise was so important until it was taken away. The lockdowns have made people beg to go back to school and work, because as much as we claim we hate them, they gave us a massive motivation to get out of bed each morning and gave us purpose. Unfortunately, we will never enter a state where nobody will ever die of coronavirus, just like we will never enter a state when no one will die of the flu, or any other illness that we have a vaccine for. We need to try Our best to prevent it spreading by self isolation if we test positive, regular good hygiene, and other simple measures such as keeping crowded areas well ventilated and getting regularly tested. But what is not a good idea is keeping the entire country under house arrest for a virus that recorded nine deaths in the past week. with suicide, drug addiction, mental illness, and domestic abuse rates on the increase, we need to get out in the world again and creates a purpose for our lives and other people’s lives.
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Cover image by Edward Jenner on Pexels.com
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