Source:
https://scmp.com/comment/letters/article/3079412/coronavirus-lockdowns-can-save-lives-what-could-be-more-important Letters
Coronavirus lockdowns can save lives: what could be more important than that?
Italian carabinieri officers stop motorists at a checkpoint to stop them leaving for the long Easter weekend, in Milan on April 10. Police and military officers have been deployed across the country to ensure that citizens comply with lockdown rules amid the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. Photo: EPA-EFE
Richard Harris’ article (“The world simply can’t afford China-style coronavirus lockdowns”, March 26) mirrors Donald Trump’s wishful thinking that the economy in the US could be reopened by Easter. Even White House medical adviser Anthony Fauci said, “You don’t make the timeline, the virus makes the timeline.”
The world is dealing with an unprecedented pandemic that has infected nearly 1.8 million people and taken 108,000 lives as of early yesterday. After heeding the calls of the WHO, every nation in every continent is standing in solidarity with one another to flatten the infection curve by rolling out a raft of measures, including lockdowns, to slow the spread of Covid-19 and avoid paralysing health care systems. Desperate times, alas, call for desperate measures.
People have been strongly advised to practise social distancing, by venturing out less and avoiding unnecessary trips and international air travel. Yet, when health advice falls on deaf ears, legislation and law enforcement are inevitable.
City lockdowns temporarily strip people of their freedom to move around, but what if public health, the health care system and thousands of frontline medical staff’s lives are jeopardised just because a minority of selfish people are wandering around, exercising their so-called freedoms to do trivial things?
It is not lost on anyone that the economic impact of the Covid-19 pandemic is felt across sectors all over the globe: businesses are closing down; people are losing jobs; flights are grounded; wealth is evaporating. There is little doubt the pandemic is affecting the livelihoods of people from all walks of life. Yet, all of this pales in comparison to one cold, hard fact: lives are being lost.
Asking people to go back to work to keep the economy going during this perilous time basically means forcing them to play Russian roulette with their own lives and those of others. When the very people that work to keep the economy running fall sick, there can be no business or financial gains to speak of.
Jason Tang, Tin Shui Wai