(Ramesh Thakur’s article from the Japan Times on May 29, 2020.)
Yet it’s possible that in the fullness of time,
economies might rebound but the cascade of lockdowns across the world will be
shown to have killed more people than it saved, and also more people than died
of COVID-19 itself. The lockdown-created non-COVID Grim Reaper comes creeping
down six pathways.
First, lockdowns could have a profound and
pervasive impact on mental health and lead to more suicides. U.S. experts are
warning of an approaching “historic wave” of mental health problems caused by
the prolonged “daily doses of death, isolation and fear.”
Dr. Mike deBoisblanc is head of trauma at John Muir Medical Center in Walnut Creek, California. On May 22, an affiliate of ABC TV reported him as saying “we've seen a year’s worth of suicide attempts in the last four weeks.”
In the United
Kingdom, the Royal College of Psychiatrists reports a sixfold increase in
suicide attempts by the elderly because of depression and anxiety caused by
social isolation during the lockdown. There’s also been a surge in 18- to
25-year-old men “badly affected by first-time mental health issues.” Australian
experts warn that lockdown-induced 50 percent jump in suicides could kill 10
times as many as the virus.
Second, with elective surgeries and routine
screenings suspended, many diseases that are treatable if caught in time will
dramatically elevate the death toll. How many of the nearly 2 million new
cancers each year, as also heart, kidney, liver, and pulmonary illnesses, will
go undetected in the United States?
People at risk
from these illnesses total 70-80 million. At 1 percent excess fatality in this
group caused by shortages in personnel, supply and equipment resulting from the
shutdowns, another 750,000 Americans will die from a policy that was meant to
shield the health system but instead partially crippled it.
In the U.K.,
over 2 million planned and elective operations have been canceled. An internal
memo circulated for Cabinet discussion estimated “up to 150,000” could suffer
non-COVID-19 premature deaths due to the lockdown, including almost 18,000
cancer patients.
Karol Sikora, a
consultant oncologist with the National Health Service, estimates up to 50,000
more U.K. deaths from cancer if the lockdown lasts six months, owing to the
lockdown-induced pause in health screenings. Similar stories are coming out of
Germany.
Third, the PR campaigns were so successful in
terrorizing people about the coronavirus threat that some refuse to go to
hospital for fear of catching the virus. “Up to 20 percent of hospital patients
in England got coronavirus while in for another illness,” said a recent
Guardian headline.
The U.K. has
recorded a sharp rise in the number of people dying at home, including from
cardiac arrests, because people are reluctant to call for an ambulance. They
fear that beds may not be available, or that they might contract the virus in
hospital.
Fourth, the lockdowns barred people from some
healthy open air lifestyle options in parks, gardens and on beaches, instead
cooping them up in high-risk environments like congested living complexes. In
New York, two-thirds of new hospital admissions were infected at home while
sheltering-in-place.
Prolonged
exposure in enclosed environments is high risk; in outdoor settings the risk is
under 5 percent. The Guardian reported on May 9, 6,546 more non-COVID-19 deaths
at homes across Britain compared with the seasonal five-year average.
Fifth, to protect the hospital system, patients were discharged into care and nursing homes to deadly effect. About half of America’s COVID-19 deceased were nursing home residents.
An analysis
published by the EU Center for Disease Prevention and Control on May 19 showed
50 percent to 66 percent of COVID-19 deaths had occurred in care facilities in
five countries: France, Sweden, Belgium, Norway and Spain.
Compared with
hospitals, nursing homes suffer from inadequate training, PPE and medical
supplies; not enough carers; and no rigorous separation and physical distancing
of infected from other residents.
In the U.K.,
comments Ambrose Evans-Pritchard: “We discharged known, suspected, and unknown
cases [from hospitals] into care homes which were unprepared. … We actively
seeded this into the very population that was most vulnerable.”
Finally, the long-term impacts of the lockdowns
will be deadly for the world’s poorest billion people over the next decade. The
World Bank and the World Trade Organization warn of dramatic decelerations and
contractions in GDP, with a resulting ballooning of poverty. Oxfam warns the
pandemic could push another half billion people into poverty.
The United
Nations estimates the global economic downturn could cause “hundreds of
thousands of additional child deaths in 2020.” The number of people suffering
from acute hunger could nearly double to 250 million from the disruptions to
crop production and global food distribution chains.
A study in South
Africa suggests the lockdown could kill 29 times more people than it saves. A
study by Johns Hopkins School of Public Health warns infant mortality could
increase by 1.2 million this year in poor countries and maternal mortality by
56,700 because of ruptured health services.
Professors Jay
Bhattacharya and Mikko Packalen estimate the lockdown’s long-term global impact
could “end up taking nearly six million young lives in the coming decade” in
developing countries. In low-income countries dominated by daily wage laborers
working in the informal economy, people “fear hunger may kill us before
coronavirus.”
In India millions
of interstate migrant laborers were caught unprepared by the lockdown imposed
with four hours’ notice on March 25. Especially after it was extended in
mid-April, many decided that with no jobs and wages, and public transport shut,
they would rather walk hundreds of miles to home in groups, and die in their
home villages than in lonely conditions on foreign soil. Sadly, many have died
along the way. The story of 12-year old girl Jamlo Madkam is one of the few to
make it into the national and international press.
(Ramesh Thakur is an emeritus professor in the
Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University; a senior
research fellow with the Toda Peace Institute; a fellow of the Australian
Institute of International Affairs; and a former United Nations assistant
secretary-general.)
