World Health Organization now recommends against lockdowns to deal with Coronavirus

 

Stock photo of a closed business. Yahoo News Australia/Getty.

The World Health Organization now recommends against lockdowns to deal with the Coronavirus. Yahoo News Australia. WHO General Director Dr. David Nabarro said that the organization no longer recommends lockdowns as the primary method to control the virus, citing the massive downsides of doing so. Nabarro cited the huge increase in poverty and child malnutrition saying both may double if lockdowns continue into next year. He also said that the economic damage is especially severe in countries that depend on tourism. The advice is a change from March where the WHO argued against ending lockdowns. But now Nabarro says lockdowns should be an absolute last resort when hospitals are overwhelmed. The WHO now joins thousands of doctors, virologists and other health care workers who have signed the Great Barrington Declaration which also argues that the downsides from the lockdowns are worse than the disease itself. 

My Comment:

A fairly huge reversal from the World Health Organization. They recommended lockdowns in the past but now have flip flopped to be against them. The reversal is one of many that the World Health Organization has done during this outbreak. 

I personally don't think that the WHO has all that much credibility left after all the flip flops. Plus they are controlled by China and may not have the world's best interest in mind. If recommending lockdowns would help China they probably would and it makes me think that this flip flop is in China's favor as well. 

With that out of the way, regardless of the reasons for this latest flip flop, I do think it's the right call. In the United States at least the lockdowns were supposed to be so the hospitals didn't get overwhelmed. It's controversial if it worked or not but it was clear that the hospitals never got overwhelmed. Most of the field hospitals and the medical ships Mercy and Comfort didn't even get used. Once it was clear that the country wasn't going to get overwhelmed it was time to lift the lockdowns. 

People that advocate the lockdowns tend to massively downplay the damage they do. On economics alone it's a huge deal. Huge numbers of people lost their jobs and many businesses failed. Entire economies have been ruined and given that lockdowns are still going on in many states the recovery hasn't even started. 

But the economy isn't the only problem. The lockdowns have caused major medical problems as well. People aren't able to get to doctors so things like cancer screenings, hearth health and vaccines aren't happening. This is going to cause a lot more deaths in the end. 

And I think the mental health problems are even more severe. It seems as though suicide has gone up and so is depression. Part of this is due to the economic downturn but that's not the only reason. People need to be able to go out and do things and the lockdowns prevent that. Plus the massive negative media coverage of the disease means that those problems get worse. 

So what can be done to stop the virus? Not much. A vaccine will help but other then that the only way out is natural immunity from exposure. Herd immunity is the only way to beat the disease and the longer lockdowns happen the longer it will take for the virus to go away. 

Thankfully, I think that the current outbreak is the virus' last stand. The virus is everywhere right now but the death rate has collapsed. Part of that is the fact we have treatments for it now and part of it is who is getting infected. But I also think that the virus has mutated to a less deadly form, so it's not anywhere near the threat it once was...