THE ENDURING CASE FOR HARD LOCKDOWNS IN THE CONTEXT OF THE LESSONS LEARNED FROM THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic was probably the defining event of the early 2020s, casting a shadow over everyday human activities across the globe and affecting virtually all spheres of society. In addition to the very significant physical and mental toll attributable to the disease outbreak, the responses to the pandemic on both the international, governmental, and local levels sparked a multitude of controversies. After the vast majority of countries decided to enter some form of lockdown, especially during the first year of the pandemic, a non-pharmaceutical intervention that was generally appraised to be in line with the prevailing expert consensus, recent media analyses of the measures to control the pandemic have frequently challenged the need for strict interventions of that nature, with some of them characterizing the societal restrictions such as business shutdowns as excessive and as an example of a cure that is worse than the disease. The paper employs qualitative methodology, which is reliant on the integrated analysis of a vast collection of secondary sources that fall within the political science, sociology, and epidemiology disciplines. It advances a threefold argument. Firstly, it contends that there is presently a strong undercurrent of somewhat ill-conceived revisionism, which frames the lockdowns as unscientific, illegitimate, and panic-inducing while the gravity of the epidemiological situation during which they were instituted as well as the various positive aspects associated with them are swept under the carpet. Secondly, the paper looks into some of the non-medical benefits of hard lockdowns, focusing on two countries that are almost universally regarded as COVID-19 success stories - New Zealand and Norway - pinpointing how a strong response to a virus threat that is premised upon a suppression strategy can be quite beneficial in terms of fostering national unity while also in itself often being reflective of the existence of healthy social dynamics and low levels of political polarization within a society. In this context, Sweden, which notably did not order a conventional lockdown, is juxtaposed against the New Zealand and Norway examples. Thirdly, given that there are ample grounds on which to argue that future pandemics may actually pose even greater risks to human life and well-being than COVID-19, creating a popular culture narrative that automatically equates lockdowns and uncompromising approaches to combating infectious diseases with government overreach and creeping authoritarianism may encourage regular citizens to do away with certain useful habits internalized during the pandemic and cause them to be less prepared to rise to the occasion when facing similar health-related challenges in the upcoming decades