Coronavirus balancing act

In a pandemic people die - this is a sad but inescapable fact. Without a vaccine there is no effective way to make people immune to the disease. This means that a governments' response defines how quickly the disease will spread and how quickly people will die. 

The faster the spread in the short term the higher fatality rate as healthcare systems can become overwhelmed which reduces the care levels patients receive. 

An ideal world response would be for the government to simply lock up everyone safely at home until we have a vaccine and then the world could continue as before. In reality this is socially unrealistic as people would not stay at home and economically impossible as there would no economy left. 

So governments have to balance their response. 

If you attack the virus infection rate hard enough you will crush the economy, soon enough you will have businesses shutting down and mass unemployment. Many would argue that this is a worthwhile cost and they may well be right. But a government has to think dispassionately about outcomes. 

So obviously any strategy is going to be about finding some middle road - not easy and emotionally horrifying for everyone involved from the people who have to make the decisions to the healthcare workers who have to deal with the outcomes through to the people whose loved ones will die. 

Let's take an extreme example - if the economy is shut down 100% for months then the government will raise no tax, nothing can be produced and pretty soon you run out of vital supplies and the money to pay for the healthcare system you need. 

Lockdowns are an example of this. 

They are an extreme method to try and force social distancing to stop or slow the spread of the virus. They are now a necessary evil in many countries and an important tool for the future in others. 

But it is important that their impacts are considered:

1. The longer the lockdown goes on the more people will ignore it - this will require ever more draconian measures to maintain it - leading to increasing friction between state and population 
2. Longer lockdowns will mean increasing economic damage - some of this will lag due to contracts etc but much of it will be quick - this will lead to surging unemployment and business failure rates 
3. Infection rates should reduce providing welcome respite to healthcare systems - this should allow time for health workers to gain control of the situation 
4. Post lockdown without 100% compliance infections will continue and rates could climb again - this would require further lockdowns to bring them down again - this will exacerbate points 1 and 2

So as a tool you want to use them at the right time. There are of course different views on this: 

1. In advance to cut the infection rate immediately before it can climb 
2. When the health system is becoming strained 

Remember this pandemic could go on for years as we wait for a vaccine - if one is possible. The question could become can or will we socially and economically accept these measures over the long term? 

Remember humans are ‘difference’ machines; we are designed to spot the difference between a tree and a lion. We adapt quickly to a situation and normalise it. Do we normalise social limitations or an elevated death rate - I do not know. But that is a question that many are avoiding asking in our risk averse, virtue signalling and at times self deluded societies because many are still refusing accept what I started with: 

In a pandemic people die - this is a sad but inescapable fact. 

The overall handling of the pandemic by different countries will be judged in the future when the pandemic has finished. When measures were triggered, what else did they do, how did healthcare systems respond, how much of the economy survived etc will be poured over by scientists and historians for many years with the findings used to plan for the pandemics of the future. 

Whatever the outcome of that we should always try and remember that the people making these decisions are trying their best to save as many as possible whilst trying to hold economies together. No one will be making decisions lightly and none will be willing people to die.