Covid-19 crisis The negative aspect of lockdown
Many governments implement lockdown to stop the spread of the covid-19 virus. It may be the wrong strategy. It may make the pandemic more serious.

Why?

Some disease experts, also called epidemiologists, said that a respiratory disease, such as covid-19, will stop when a large proportion of the population is exposed to the virus and has gained immunity. This is how many influenza epidemics were overcome over the years.

By imposing lockdown, the population does not have the chance to gain the immunity. The disease is likely to persist for a long time, perhaps over several years. 

It may seem ironic that the countries of Europe and America that had suffered heavy casualties during this pandemic may be more able to avoid the harmful effect of a recurrence, as a large proportion of their population has already been exposed. 

The countries in Asia, which appeared to have implemented social distancing more effectively during the first round, may be more badly affected on the second round. 

It is evident that the covid-19 virus is more lethal than influenza, which caused many countries to panic and implement the lockdown to "slow the spread" of the virus. 

Some experts said that the lockdown is a bad strategy. It is clear from the data that the covid-19 virus cause a higher fatality rate among the older population and those with existing medical conditions. They preferred to take measures to isolate and protect the vulnerable population from the virus and allow the healthy and younger people to be exposed and achieve immunity.

This approach is explained clearly by the Isreali minister of defense, Naftali Bennett, in this video. Although he is not a infectious disease expert, he is expressing a view that is shared by many experts. I want to introduce his short speech because he expressed the strategy very clearly.

The point that he has raised is demonstrated clearly by the experience in Singapore among the 300,000 foreign workers living in the overcrowded dormitories. 

About 15% of these workers have been tested and more than half has shown positive results for the covid-19 tests. I suspect that the remainder had already been infected and have gained immunity.

Over 10,000 of these workers have already been tested positive for the virus and were sent to isolation centers. Only a small proportion needed to be treated in the hospital and just a small handful need intensive care. 

The results showed clearly that the covid-19 virus did not cause much harm to young and healthy people. 

As the number of deaths from the covid-19 virus is very low in Singapore, there is no need to extend the circuit breaker measures (which is called a lockdown in other countries). It is possible to isolate the foreign workers until they are found to be immune from the virus and to protect the vulnerable population. The healthy can be exposed to the virus in the normal course of their daily living and gain immunity.

I want to raise this point to counter the prevailing view that the severe restriction on social activities is necessary to stop the spread of the virus. This has the negative effect of blocking the immunity that is normally needed to stop a respiratory disease. 

I hope that the general public and the government leaders consider this point. 

Tan Kin Lian

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