Can Britannia lead the way out of lockdowns?

 

In today’s climate, where leadership is interpreted by some as the insipid art of not offending anyone, it is a breath of fresh air to see real leadership by the British Government in giving back its citizens their natural rights and freedoms after a year and a half of pandemic frenzy.

 

While Boris Johnson has not always afforded people confidence regarding his commitment to the liberal principles, this decision is the right one. And it might prove to be the courageous step that will inspire other countries, like Australia, which have acquiesced to the ‘new normal’, to realise once more that things like a pandemic will happen now and again, and that you might as well live. 

 

One reason why the UK decision is so important is the horrendous consequences of these harsh lockdown laws, something seldom mentioned by the media. Besides the ostentatious events, the lockdowns have induced vast increases in unemployment, significant proportions of businesses that will never reopen, huge increases in mental health issues in children as well as in adults, record levels of overdose deaths, thousands of additional dementia deaths unrelated to COVID-19 but due to isolation caused by lockdowns, and a huge educational gap that will have lifelong consequences for millions of children across the world, not to mention the record amount of debt that these same children will have to pay off. 

JAMA study: 35% of excess deaths during pandemic’s early months tied to causes other than COVID-19

https://news.vcu.edu/article/JAMA_study_35_of_excess_deaths_during_pandemics_early_months

Furthermore, and not least of which is the continuing leeching of liberties away from the people and centralized to the governments. Who would be surprised by the news of their government implementing more lockdowns if another variant appeared? Or if mask mandates are kept even after people are fully vaccinated, like the WHO recently urged, undermining the trust in the vaccines that they are simultaneously trying to get people to take up.  Living in Melbourne, which has just began its fifth lockdown, I am not optimistic.

 

The vaccinations have always been promised as the ticket back to liberty. After leaving the EU and freed from various red tapes, the UK has led much of the world in implementing the vaccine program, with almost 70% of the adult population fully vaccinated, and 90% having had one dose. It would be a show of extreme bad faith to deny a people that have peaceably and patiently endured so much hardship their basic freedoms.

 

In Australia, there have been a series of lockdowns across the country due to mostly a handful of cases in various cities. The capital city of New South Wales, Sydney, is in lockdown. The capital city of Queensland, Brisbane, is in lockdown. Well over 6 million people in the entire state of Victoria is in lockdown for a record fifth time with 81 cases in the past week. Almost 1,000 businesses in Victoria alone have collapsed due to the various lockdowns, with thousands more expected to shut down.

 

Compared to this rather hypochondriac reaction, the UK is poised to open up while recording more than 40,000 new cases a day. But take note—while new cases have been rising since June in the UK, deaths have remained flat and hospitalization rate is a small fraction of the January peak. This is most likely due to the high vaccination rates. But simultaneously, while the media and expert talking heads like to remind us that the Delta strain is more transmissible, they never mention that the latest UK government data suggest that the Delta strain is also much less deadly than the original strain. In fact, data on its mortality rate, much of it collected before the vaccination ramped up, puts it in the same ballpark as the common flu. Moreover, there has been remarkable improvements in patient care for COVID-19 sufferers since the outbreak began, further reducing COVID’s danger. This is not to say that we should not be cautious, but it does at least suggest that an end to the draconian lockdowns may be warranted.

By daring to break from this incessantly nanny-state narrative, it is the working class people in the UK that will reap the benefits of the government’s decision. Opening up will allow millions to fulfil their basic human needs for fresh air, friendship and love, and to be productive once more. UK’s grand decision will instill some much needed pluck into Australia and others to shake off the Stockholm syndrome that it has with lockdowns.