What is the purpose of lockdown?

Prime Minister Boris Johnson officially declared last Thursday that we are past the peak. We have not, however, reached the peak of politicians and civil servants running the show.

Now that we’re at this point it begs an interesting question: what is the purpose of lockdown?

1. Protect the NHS and save lives by spreading the infection rate so that we do not overwhelm the NHS (“flattening the curve”)? This is what we were told at the start of lockdown. It implicitly this means that we expect most or at least many people to get the virus, but we can save lives by ensuring that we have the capacity to escalate their care all the way up and including intensive care. Also, implicitly, there will be some folk who get infected that will lose their lives no matter how intensive our medical interventions; or

2. Save lives by preventing infection until a vaccine is available or that infections go below some critical mass? Lives are effectively saved not by managing demand to the capacity of the NHS but by simply preventing infections through mass quarantining.

The Government has effectively pooh poohed the herd immunity strategy, and the Prime Minister is not relaxing the lockdown despite evidence that the NHS is busy but not currently overwhelmed. If there is now a change in strategy then surely we ought to be told and the basis for this change to be explained or debated.

At the risk of banging the drum, there is no vaccine on the near horizon and the virus is not about to melt away over the next 48 hours. I am not a professional economist, but enough economists talk about medicine that I feel somewhat emboldened to return the favour and give my economic assessment – I don’t think we can afford the current economic cost for much longer.

If we take the view that the NHS was never really overwhelmed by the first peak, and that the NHS is able to offer the best possible care, then it logically follows that none (few) of the current deaths are truly avoidable – they would likely happen even if the peak could have been further delayed.

The Government is now talking about the R0 numbers in pandemic models with the over familiarity of an Australian cricket commentator. I worry that the Government is effectively being reactive to short term political soundings and by implication is pushing an erroneous view that we can somehow avoid a relatively significant number of COVID deaths by continuing the economic free fall.

For my money, we need to rethink the lockdown not just because of the important notions of what it means to live in a free society, but also because they are no longer practical and there is no purpose in keeping the infection rate so far below the capacity of the NHS that it simply delays the time to herd immunity.