Should We Have a Mandatory Lockdown?
BY DIVYASRI KRISHNAN '21
A couple of months ago, the world was a different place. We walked out of our houses, shook each other’s hands, hugged, kissed, and laughed with each other. We shared forks and spoons and passed plates around the table without a second thought. We were a people connected indelibly by hand and mouth, connected to a degree we ourselves did not comprehend—until we lost it.
The world we live in now would seem alien to us then. We rarely venture outside anymore, scrub our hands with a new ferocity, and maintain a scrupulous distance from friends to whom we were once attached at the hip. This pandemic will abate, say the news headlines, if everyone follows the rules. And yet the virus rages on. Who is messing up? Should we be mandating a lockdown? Or are we approaching this all wrong?
Currently, there are two opposing ideas for how we should counteract this virus, with the most widely accepted being social distancing. According to Time magazine, social distancing functions to “flatten the curve” of infection and alleviate the burden on hospitals. By reducing physical contact, we would avoid the sort of spike in infections that would max out medical resources. Instead, the number of patients infected would increase slowly and over a longer period of time, allowing for current patients to recover before a new wave is admitted. Social distancing also reduces contact with those most at risk for the virus, such as the immunocompromised, the elderly, and those with preexisting medical conditions. The World Health Organization warns that people in those groups are more likely to become severely ill and that the only way to avoid infecting them is by maintaining distance.
As infected cases skyrocket, however, some are turning away from social distancing in favor of another idea: herd immunity. Following this theory, social distancing would be removed in favor of normal or even exaggerated public interaction in order to expose as many people as possible to the virus. Of those infected, some will surely die, but others will develop an immunity, preventing further spread of the virus.
In defense of herd immunity, Yonatan Grad, a Harvard epidemiologist, says that “[i]f each person infected with COVID-19 disease in turn infects three more, as we now think, then in order to bring the disease to heel... two of those people must already be immune.” Once this is accomplished, the pandemic will cease. Dr. Knut M. Wittkowski, the former chief biostatistician and epidemiologist at Rockefeller University Hospital, seems to agree, stating in a New York Post article that the “best strategy you can do is isolate the old and fragile people... then let the children go to school and let people go to work… They have a mild disease. Then they become immune, and after two or three weeks the epidemic is over.” Another supporter of herd immunity, former White House reporter Lucian Wintrich, hosted a coronavirus potluck reminiscent of the 90s chickenpox parties where children were encouraged to interact with one another to spread the virus and, hopefully, the subsequent immunity as well.
Unfortunately, herd immunity as a solution is not all it’s cracked up to be. The issue lies in its very name, as in order to prevent further spread of the virus, one must first develop immunity. An article by the New York Times acknowledges that “[a]fter being infected with SARS-CoV-2, most individuals will have an immune response, some better than others,” but also that the effectiveness of such an immune response will reduce over time. The hope is, of course, that this immune response will persist until the vaccine becomes available, but recent evidence suggests that it might not. South Korea, which was praised for its handling of the virus, is now witnessing a jump in relapse cases—patients who recovered from the virus test positive again—numbering 51 cases one week and 116 the next. While it is unlikely that the patients are being reinfected, the virus may be reactivating within them, which suggests that the one-and-done theory of herd immunity would do little to stop the outbreak.
So why isn’t social distancing as a solution universally accepted yet? As it turns out, many of the people dismissing social distancing neither think nor care about herd immunity. The Wall Street Journal ran an article interviewing adults who have seen young children and teenagers out in crowds, biking or skateboarding together and faking coughing fits when called out. While intergenerational tension is nothing new, social distancing functions as yet another battlefront, since the average teenager is believed to be at lower risk from the virus than the average middle-aged adult and thus less tolerant of restrictive social distancing rules. However, there has been a surge in cases of the fatal childhood inflammatory illness, MIS-C, linked to young people who contract COVID-19, but as research concerning this is still budding, many have brushed it off. Most teenagers have never experienced a crisis of this level, having either been born after or just before 9/11 and barely being aware enough to remember the 2008 stock market crash. The Wall Street Journal emphasizes that “being forced to stay inside adds a new level of stress when many teens are seeking more autonomy.” The only way to ensure the necessitated social distancing is if an authority—in this case, the government—mandates it. Otherwise, those who believe themselves at low risk will continue to flout the rules, thereby endangering those around them.
At this stage in the pandemic, we know too little about the virus and its reactivation capabilities to rely on herd immunity; we are in desperate need of social distancing enforcement. A mandatory lockdown best establishes a new status quo that keeps infection and fatality rate down while we learn more about the virus and how best to counter it. If our governments commit to this, society will follow, and together we will weather this pandemic. Otherwise, the strange world we live in today may become our new normal.
The world we live in now would seem alien to us then. We rarely venture outside anymore, scrub our hands with a new ferocity, and maintain a scrupulous distance from friends to whom we were once attached at the hip. This pandemic will abate, say the news headlines, if everyone follows the rules. And yet the virus rages on. Who is messing up? Should we be mandating a lockdown? Or are we approaching this all wrong?
Currently, there are two opposing ideas for how we should counteract this virus, with the most widely accepted being social distancing. According to Time magazine, social distancing functions to “flatten the curve” of infection and alleviate the burden on hospitals. By reducing physical contact, we would avoid the sort of spike in infections that would max out medical resources. Instead, the number of patients infected would increase slowly and over a longer period of time, allowing for current patients to recover before a new wave is admitted. Social distancing also reduces contact with those most at risk for the virus, such as the immunocompromised, the elderly, and those with preexisting medical conditions. The World Health Organization warns that people in those groups are more likely to become severely ill and that the only way to avoid infecting them is by maintaining distance.
As infected cases skyrocket, however, some are turning away from social distancing in favor of another idea: herd immunity. Following this theory, social distancing would be removed in favor of normal or even exaggerated public interaction in order to expose as many people as possible to the virus. Of those infected, some will surely die, but others will develop an immunity, preventing further spread of the virus.
In defense of herd immunity, Yonatan Grad, a Harvard epidemiologist, says that “[i]f each person infected with COVID-19 disease in turn infects three more, as we now think, then in order to bring the disease to heel... two of those people must already be immune.” Once this is accomplished, the pandemic will cease. Dr. Knut M. Wittkowski, the former chief biostatistician and epidemiologist at Rockefeller University Hospital, seems to agree, stating in a New York Post article that the “best strategy you can do is isolate the old and fragile people... then let the children go to school and let people go to work… They have a mild disease. Then they become immune, and after two or three weeks the epidemic is over.” Another supporter of herd immunity, former White House reporter Lucian Wintrich, hosted a coronavirus potluck reminiscent of the 90s chickenpox parties where children were encouraged to interact with one another to spread the virus and, hopefully, the subsequent immunity as well.
Unfortunately, herd immunity as a solution is not all it’s cracked up to be. The issue lies in its very name, as in order to prevent further spread of the virus, one must first develop immunity. An article by the New York Times acknowledges that “[a]fter being infected with SARS-CoV-2, most individuals will have an immune response, some better than others,” but also that the effectiveness of such an immune response will reduce over time. The hope is, of course, that this immune response will persist until the vaccine becomes available, but recent evidence suggests that it might not. South Korea, which was praised for its handling of the virus, is now witnessing a jump in relapse cases—patients who recovered from the virus test positive again—numbering 51 cases one week and 116 the next. While it is unlikely that the patients are being reinfected, the virus may be reactivating within them, which suggests that the one-and-done theory of herd immunity would do little to stop the outbreak.
So why isn’t social distancing as a solution universally accepted yet? As it turns out, many of the people dismissing social distancing neither think nor care about herd immunity. The Wall Street Journal ran an article interviewing adults who have seen young children and teenagers out in crowds, biking or skateboarding together and faking coughing fits when called out. While intergenerational tension is nothing new, social distancing functions as yet another battlefront, since the average teenager is believed to be at lower risk from the virus than the average middle-aged adult and thus less tolerant of restrictive social distancing rules. However, there has been a surge in cases of the fatal childhood inflammatory illness, MIS-C, linked to young people who contract COVID-19, but as research concerning this is still budding, many have brushed it off. Most teenagers have never experienced a crisis of this level, having either been born after or just before 9/11 and barely being aware enough to remember the 2008 stock market crash. The Wall Street Journal emphasizes that “being forced to stay inside adds a new level of stress when many teens are seeking more autonomy.” The only way to ensure the necessitated social distancing is if an authority—in this case, the government—mandates it. Otherwise, those who believe themselves at low risk will continue to flout the rules, thereby endangering those around them.
At this stage in the pandemic, we know too little about the virus and its reactivation capabilities to rely on herd immunity; we are in desperate need of social distancing enforcement. A mandatory lockdown best establishes a new status quo that keeps infection and fatality rate down while we learn more about the virus and how best to counter it. If our governments commit to this, society will follow, and together we will weather this pandemic. Otherwise, the strange world we live in today may become our new normal.
