Lockdown

For me, the COVID-19 lockdown has not been a great burden. I was already working from home one day a week, and there’s very little I can’t do from home, so switching to five days a week hasn’t changed that much. While COVID-19 has had a financial impact on the University of Texas, it’s not going out of business any time soon, and my services are still needed apparently, which means my job is fairly secure. (We have been told there will be no raises this year, but that’s not nearly as bad as getting laid off.)

I recognize that things haven’t been so easy for a lot of people, in many ways. There are costs to this lockdown, even if I’m not the one paying them.

The purpose of the lockdown is to reduce deaths due to the virus, and to the degree people observe it that will be the result. However, there will be other consequences that will lead to deaths from other causes. On the news the other day they said that screenings for colon and breast cancer have dropped 90% since this all started, which presumably means that in coming months more people will be dying from those cancers than would have been the case otherwise. (I had a colonoscopy in February, so I’m good for a few years.) I’ve seen claims that suicides and domestic violence are up, which is quite believable. In general, social isolation is known to correlate with poor health outcomes: humans are social animals that don’t thrive when alone.

So when some people say we need to lock down harder and others say it’s time for the lockdowns to end, both sides have some truth to their positions. Nobody really knows enough to have absolute certainty one way or the other. Also, there’s no reason to expect politicians to come up with the correct answer. We should have the humility to recognize  our ignorance and listen to those with other opinions.