WHO takes a stand on coronavirus lockdowns

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12 Oct 2020, 1:46 pm

To lockdown, or not to lockdown. The World Health Organization weighs in with an opinion that has implications for us in America. The WHO's Dr. David Nabarro says, "We do not advocate lockdowns as the primary means of control of this virus." Why not? Because, Nabarro says, lockdowns make poor people a lot poorer.

In America, lockdowns ruined the industries which employ tens of millions of low-income people. And that’s just the economic side of it. How about the rising suicide rate, depression, domestic violence, substance abuse, premature death because you can't get regular check-ups. All we hear about is the danger of the virus, but we rarely hear about the horrendous problems the lockdowns bring.

Source: WHO warning on coronavirus lockdowns

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ASPartOfMe
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12 Oct 2020, 3:16 pm

jimmy m wrote:

While that may be a good recommendation for the majority of people if you are at high risk the more people loosen up, the more you should lock yourself down.

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kitesandtrainsandcats
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12 Oct 2020, 3:38 pm

Found a video of interview with Dr Nabarro on YouTube, here's from the automatically generated transcript,
I'm going to remove a number of the time stamps in order to make the thing more readable.

Quote:

01:02 ... so we're
saying
that uh we we really do have to learn
how to coexist
with this virus in a way that doesn't
require
constant closing down of economies
but at the same time in a way that
is not associated with high levels of
suffering and
death it's what we're calling the middle
path
01:29 and the middle path is about being able
to hold
the virus at bay whilst keeping
economic and social life going and we
think it's doable
but we also think that it requires a
really high
level of organization by governments and
remarkable degree of engagement by the
people
both of which in some countries is
01:54 proving to be quite difficult

https://youtu.be/YdSpiLBQWV0

Quote:

October 8, 2020 - Interview with Dr. David Nabarro, Special Envoy of the World Health Organization Director-General on #COVID19, discussing economic lockdowns and other measures to control the spread of COVID. He describes the Middle Way, which relies on local public health to implement a robust system of testing, contact tracing and isolation such that economic lockdowns can be avoided.

Hmm, looking at, "which relies on local public health to implement" has me wondering what proportion, if any, of local public health officials would prefer to hand the thing off to national public health officials so they can take the responsibility and the blame?

I am inclined to agree with that comment on the YouTube page,

Quote:

hayley s
5 hours ago
That point at the end about reversing decades of gains against poverty - that's the entire story right there. That's why this was handled the ridiculous way it has been. To use fear to make poor people even poorer, and get them back in their box.

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12 Oct 2020, 3:53 pm

Interesting! This should cause a stir in the U.S. media.

http://www.news.com.au has a little more detail:

https://www.news.com.au/world/coronavirus/global/coronavirus-who-backflips-on-virus-stance-by-condemning-lockdowns/news-story/f2188f2aebff1b7b291b297731c3da74

In that article: Dr Nabarro told The Spectator “The only time we believe a lockdown is justified is to buy you time to reorganise, regroup, rebalance your resources, protect your health workers who are exhausted, but by and large, we’d rather not do it.”

It sounds to me as if Dr Nabarro thinks lock-downs should not be the primary long-term means of controlling the virus but that short-term lock-downs might buy you time to deploy the long-term means of controlling the virus.

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kitesandtrainsandcats
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12 Oct 2020, 4:01 pm

Double Retired wrote:

It sounds to me as if Dr Nabarro thinks lock-downs should not be the primary long-term means of controlling the virus but that short-term lock-downs might buy you time to deploy the long-term means of controlling the virus.

Indeed it does.

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jimmy m
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12 Oct 2020, 4:03 pm

ASPartOfMe wrote:

While that may be a good recommendation for the majority of people if you are at high risk the more people loosen up, the more you should lock yourself down.

The most logical approach is to protect the vulnerable. These are the elderly especially with severe comorbidities. The general population should not be held hostage by mass quarantines.

Learn to protect the vulnerable and set the rest free.

p.s. I am in the high risk group. Age 72.
Me and my N95 accept the risk.

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12 Oct 2020, 6:09 pm

jimmy m wrote:

ASPartOfMe wrote:

While that may be a good recommendation for the majority of people if you are at high risk the more people loosen up, the more you should lock yourself down.

If countries did track 'n' trace from day one, none of them would have needed to lock down.

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12 Oct 2020, 7:04 pm

If people took this seriously from day#1, we would not be in the situation we are in.
But then, if people had been taking common-sense precautions all along, we would not have had the tragic epidemic that occurred when AIDS was brought to America.

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13 Oct 2020, 12:29 am

Covid-19 sure is interesting. It likes small businesses but hates big corporate stores. We've been duped by wolves in sheep's clothing.

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13 Oct 2020, 12:35 am

Though the radio show had its origin with paranormal subjects, Coast to Coast AM could be quite interesting tonight,

Quote:

First Half: Jay W. Richards, Ph.D., is an Assistant Research Professor in the Busch School of Business and Fellow of the Institute for Human Ecology at The Catholic University of America. He'll discuss questions about the unprecedented global COVID shutdown - what will be the total cost in dollars, lives, and livelihoods of this response from governments? And, how did science bureaucrats, relying on what he says is murky data and speculative computer models, gain the power to shut down the global economy?

He is one of the 3 authors of this book, https://www.amazon.com/Price-Panic-Tyra ... 11410/ctoc

Quote:

For the first time in history, the world shut itself down—by choice—all for fear of a virus, COVID-19, that wasn’t well understood. The government, with the support of most Americans, ordered the closure of tens of thousands of small businesses—many never to return. Almost every school and college in the country sent its students home to finish the school year in front of a computer. Churches cancelled worship services. “Social distancing” went from a non-word to a moral obligation overnight. Moral preening on social media achieved ever new heights.

The world will reopen and life will go on, but what kind of world will it be when it does? It can’t be what it was, because of what’s just happened.

Professors Jay Richards, William Briggs, and Douglas Axe take a deep dive into the crucial questions on the minds of millions of Americans during one of the most jarring and unprecedented global events in a generation.

What will be the total cost in dollars, lives, and livelihoods of this response from governments, on advice from Science?
What role have national and global health organizations such as WHO played in this? To whom are they accountable?
What evidence do they rely on in sounding the alarm?
How did science bureaucrats, relying on murky data and speculative computer models, gain the power to shut down the global economy?
How did politicians, who know nothing of the science, decide whom to trust?

We need to know what and how it happened, to keep it from ever happening again.

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AlRoss0908
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13 Oct 2020, 2:43 am

If the government really supported poor people, there could easily survive the lockdown

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13 Oct 2020, 8:12 am

There was further discussion on recommending against lockdowns:

“We in the World Health Organization do not advocate lockdowns as the primary means of control of this virus,” Dr. David Nabarro, the WHO's Special Envoy on Covid-19, said. “The only time we believe a lockdown is justified is to buy you time to reorganize, regroup, rebalance your resources, protect your health workers who are exhausted, but by and large, we’d rather not do it.”

“Lockdowns just have one consequence that you must never, ever belittle, and that is making poor people an awful lot poorer,” he said. He added that lockdowns have severely impacted countries that rely on tourism. “Just look at what’s happened to the tourism industry in the Caribbean, for example, or in the Pacific because people aren’t taking their holidays,” Nabarro told the outlet. “Look what’s happened to smallholder farmers all over the world. Look what’s happening to poverty levels. It seems that we may well have a doubling of world poverty by next year. We may well have at least a doubling of child malnutrition.”

Source: WHO warns against COVID-19 lockdowns due to economic damage

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13 Oct 2020, 8:26 am

My impression is that a one-month hard lock-down followed by rapid quarantine and contact tracing for subsequent new cases might be what they would prefer to see. And, perhaps, quarantine pandemic hot-spots and temporarily quarantine international travelers to prevent spread between regions.

And I am pretty sure they did not want to see high-level denial, high-level condoning of unsafe practices, and months of delay in medical preparation and response followed by six months (and counting) econmically devastating partial lockdowns. I live in the U.S., however, so I got to see that...and still see that.

Data available in the Johns Hopkins University Corona Virus Resource Center attest to the "effectiveness" of the U.S. approach.

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kitesandtrainsandcats
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13 Oct 2020, 10:55 am

China itself wasn't exactly the fastest at getting around to dealing with the outbreak,

Quote:

Posted March 13, 2020 ... If NPIs (non-pharmaceutical interventions) could have been conducted one week, two weeks, or three weeks earlier in China, cases could have been reduced by 66%, 86%, and 95%, respectively, together with significantly reducing the number of affected areas.

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101 ... 20029843v3

Now, compare that with what the WHO said in January,

Quote:

The speed with which China detected the outbreak, isolated the virus, sequenced the genome and shared it with WHO and the world are very impressive, and beyond words. So is China’s commitment to transparency and to supporting other countries.
In many ways, China is actually setting a new standard for outbreak response. It’s not an exaggeration.

https://www.who.int/dg/speeches/detail/ ... (2019-ncov)

This in that is interesting,

Quote:

... The vast majority of cases outside China have a travel history to Wuhan, or contact with someone with a travel history to Wuhan. ... I would like to summarize those recommendations in seven key areas. First, there is no reason for measures that unnecessarily interfere with international travel and trade. WHO doesn’t recommend limiting trade and movement.

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