Outside of the elderly and the vulnerable, however, I am struggling to see how the complete shutdown of the economy is a proportionate response to the virus.
by Andy Worthington
I don’t mean to sound wilfully contrarian, but, as the UK enters a phase of coronavirus lockdown so surreal that it feels as though we’re all, almost overnight, living in an apocalyptic sci-fi movie, I have found myself struggling to cope with the imminent collapse of the entire global economy because of a virus that, to date, has killed less than 8,900 people worldwide.
Don’t misunderstand me. I recognise that the coronavirus is infectious, and that in China, where it began, and in Italy, where it subsequently took a sudden hold, the local health services were overwhelmed with the scale of its spread. As a result, I understand why the notion of a total lockdown in response has seemed so necessary. And in the UK, responding to the initial response of the government of Boris Johnson, which was to let the virus spread freely, and to let us, the livestock, develop “herd immunity” or die, I wholeheartedly joined in the cries of outrage of those opposing such an invitation to rates of infection and death that would, it seemed clear from the examples of China and Italy, overwhelm our own health service.
And so, in response, as the notion that people should self-isolate — perhaps for a two-week period, perhaps for a month, or two at the most — took hold, I also remained supportive, but now, suddenly, as the reality of a lockdown becomes apparent, with the prospect of total economic collapse, and the unchecked rise of unprecedented authoritarian impulses on the part of governments, and with isolation now being portrayed as something that may need to be implemented for a much longer period, I suddenly find myself in revolt.
Before delineating the contours of my revolt, let me first state that I wish to protect the most vulnerable people in society: those who are old, and/or with pre-existing health conditions, and those on the front line, in the health service, who are dealing with the virus’s victims. The latter are clearly not being protected adequately by the British government, while, for the former, the notion of self-isolation seems to make sense, but only if the government commits resources to widespread testing for the virus, so that those interacting with the elderly and the vulnerable — as will need to happen if any plan involving isolation is to work — can do so safely.
Outside of the elderly and the vulnerable, however, I am struggling to see how the complete shutdown of the economy is a proportionate response to the virus. Obviously, the cruise ship industry was going to suffer — and will be missed by no one who is environmentally responsible, if it were to shut down forever — as were the airlines, firstly as people chose not to travel, and then as governments have increasingly shut borders. And again, from an environmental point of view, the end of “peak” air travel can only be welcomed.
It also seemed to me, and to many other people, that large sporting and entertainment events might not be particularly sensible, and that the 9 to 5 commuter rail network would need to be shut down, involving an enforced hiatus for all kinds of industries that would be, to put it mildly, challenging for the existing economc order.
But the contagion of fear has now spread so virulently that almost every situation in which human beings gather is being shut down, either by government edict, government advice, or by people themselves. Pubs, clubs, bars, restaurants, cinemas, theatres and music venues are all shutting down, with the prospect of the widespread collapse of countless businesses, and the sudden impoverishment of millions of workers, while bailout plans, funnily enough, all seem designed to favour corporate interests, rather than the needs of the people.
The only area of life where people are going to be allowed to retain any freedom of movement, it seems, is in shopping for food, even though crowds at supermarkets represent just the kind of problems with transmission that are leading to the closure of every other business that involves humans being sociable. In addition — although it is rather incidental to the main issues — supermarkets have also been where modern, atomised, selfish humanity has to date been seen at its casual worst, in the disgraceful panic-buying of essential items to the exclusion of the needs of others.
Most alarmingly to my mind, however, are the proposals for population control that are being undertaken by our leaders. In France, for example, where, not uncoincidentally, President Macron was, until the coronavirus opportunity arrived, struggling to cope with a kind of low-level civil war via the “gilet jaunes” movement, he is now intent on implementing a total curfew on the French people, to be enforced by the police.
In Britain, we should no doubt expect the same over the coming days and weeks, as the government — pretty inevitably, it seems to me — will move towards curtailing free movement, and will start to revel in the possibility of controlling any and all dissent through the mobilisation of the police, and, perhaps, the military.
Personally, I don’t see how order can be maintained if millions of people, no longer with any income, are meant to isolate themselves in their homes on an open-ended basis, as the entire capitalist system collapses, but perhaps I’m missing something.
Am I, though?
Last year, as awareness of the already unfolding global environmental catastrophe spread, though the work of Greta Thunberg and the actions of Extinction Rebellion, anyone looking responsibly to the future wondered how we were going to halt unfettered capitalism to save the planet from the worst effects of catastrophic climate change. In response, however, the global capitalist system showed no willingness to genuinely contemplate how to effect revolutionary change.
Now, however, on the basis of a virus, some of those necessary changes are being implemented, but accompanied by dangerous panic and an even more dangerous authoritarianism on the part of our governments, which I don’t find healthy, and which I — and, I am sure, many, many other people — am determined to resist. Let us, by all means, protect the old and the vulnerable, but let us not accept that, almost overnight, our economies must grind to a sudden halt that will destroy the livelihoods of an untold number of people, while our horribly compromised leaders use the virus not only, as usual, to protect, corporate interests, but also to implement unprecedented social control.
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Andy Worthington is a freelance investigative journalist, activist, author, photographer, film-maker and singer-songwriter (the lead singer and main songwriter for the London-based band The Four Fathers, whose music is available via Bandcamp). He is the co-founder of the Close Guantánamo campaign (and see the latest photo campaign here) and the successful We Stand With Shaker campaign of 2014-15, and the author of The Guantánamo Files: The Stories of the 774 Detainees in America’s Illegal Prison
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