LONDON — The UK’s envoy to the World Health Organization is begging world governments to stop locking down every time coronavirus infections start to spike because he says the yo-yo effect of these stops and starts is crashing the world economy.
Dr. David Nabarro lambasted the use of lockdowns as a “primary means of controlling this virus” and said they are only justified “to buy you time to reorganize, regroup rebalance your resources” and “protect your health workers.”
Speaking to Andrew Neil for The Spectator magazine, the WHO scientist bemoaned the collapse of the tourism industry and claimed there would be a “doubling” in the levels of world poverty and child malnutrition by next year as he warned that the lockdowns will make “poor people an awful lot poorer.”
“I want to say it again: ‘We in the World Health Organization do not advocate lockdowns as a primary means of controlling this virus,’” Dr. Nabarro said.
“The only time we believe a lockdown is justified is to buy you time to reorganize, regroup, rebalance your resources, protect your health workers who are exhausted. But by and large, we’d rather not do it.”
“Just look at what’s happened to the tourism industry, for example, in the Caribbean or in the Pacific because people aren’t taking their holidays. Look what’s happened to smallholder farmers all over the world because their markets have got dented.”
“Look what’s happening to poverty levels — it seems we may well have a doubling of world poverty by next year. We may well have at least a doubling of child malnutrition because children are not getting meals at school and their parents, in poor families, are not able to afford it.”
People can avoid a full-scale second COVID-19 wave without a lockdown if they change their behavior to reduce social contacts, Dr. Nabarro said.
However, he said that cities like London could limit COVID-19’s impact if people follow social distancing and good hygiene laws and guidance.
“You can’t stop it but we can reduce the intensity through the way in which we all behave,” the medical doctor said.
“The virus is going to resurge in most of Europe but the intensity of the surge will very much depend on whether or not people are able to make these shifts in behavior.
“We have seen from the lockdown that you can slow the spread of the virus through the way in which you reduce chances of people bumping into each other, it’s simply that, we have to reduce the frequency of contact between people.”
“That is possible without having to have lockdown.
“That is our contention and what we are really trying to encourage everybody in Europe to do, to set it as a goal, to avoid more lockdowns by behavior changes and it can be done.