Hi all,
Whilst it seems good on paper for the government - torn between libertarian and health concerns - to lock down vast swathes of England , without a lot of support, it feels inevitable that at some point almost all of England's going to be in a local lockdown. It's just a matter of when the NHS runs out of capacity(building nightingale hospitals is more straightforward than staffing them as no one can clone doctors and nurses) and people are left to fend for themselves.
In respect of the economy, it should be noted that everyone across the world is having the same problems. It's just that some are better at it than others, e.g. Germany . Alternatively people seem to worry more about the government being seen to be competent in a pandemic , i.e. getting it under control vs trashing their economy, e.g. New Zealand.
Not that it should be a dichotomy between economy vs health as this has inevitably become a political issue. When the government said in March they would follow the science, they are now following the politics, due to the vocal libertarians in the conservative party. And it is also political because the pandemic, like a war, requires greater state power. The left like the state to be involved in everything - school meals included- whereas the right prefer everything to be private sector and hands off personal liberty. Some conservatives can accept greater state power in wartime, but this is different to a pandemic. This is why follow the science was never going to work , because science is interpreted via the lenses of one's political and philosophical point of view .
