https://reason.com/2023/03/20/britains-lockdown-files-reveal-the-sordid-thinking-behind-pandemic-policy/
Eye-opening insights into the messy motivations behind restrictive
COVID-19 responses.
J.D. TUCCILLE | 3.20.2023 7:00 AM
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A sign at the entrance to the British Museum in London announces that it
is temporarily closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
(VVShots | Dreamstime.com)
When cornered, some politicians grudgingly admit COVID-19 restrictions
went too far and made little sense. But that still leaves us wondering
as to their thinking when they locked playgrounds, mandated masks,
restricted travel, shuttered businesses, closed schools, confined people
to their homes, sent cops after paddle-boarders floating on the lonely
sea, ignored their own rules, and otherwise inflicted harms worse than a
virus could ever manage. Now an important disclosure of communications
among British officials reveals just how government officials' minds
work when exercising extraordinary power. It's not a pretty sight.
Belated Regrets
"We had to make some decisions, that in retrospect, don't make a lot of
sense," Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer recently conceded with regard
to lockdown orders issued after COVID-19 appeared. "Some of those
policies, I look back and think: that was maybe a little more than we
needed to do."
Those policies arbitrarily parsed between "essential" and "nonessential"
businesses for the imposition of draconian rules, even banning the sale
of gardening supplies to people stranded at home. They were notoriously
ill-considered and intrusive, making an admission of error necessary, if
consequence-free. It was also belated, since the state Supreme Court
ruled Whitmer's use of emergency powers unconstitutional in 2020, and
lawmakers repealed them in 2021 in response to a citizen initiative.
But, if they're sorry-ish now, what in the hell were Whitmer and her ilk
thinking when they cooked up restrictive policies? For a peek behind the
dank and musty curtain we turn to Britain, where The Telegraph this
month published The Lockdown Files drawn from 100,000 messages exchanged
among government officials. They reveal powerful people warned that
restrictive policies would cause more harm than the disease, decisions
made for public relations reasons, media enlisted to suppress dissent,
and officials gloating over inconveniences to the public.
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A Peek Behind the Scenes
"WhatsApp conversations contained in The Telegraph's Lockdown Files show
that those running the country privately acknowledged the 'terrible'
price of lockdowns and twice reimposed the national shutdowns, even as
they discussed the damage they were causing to physical and mental
health, children's prospects and mental health," the newspaper's team
noted. Among the consequences of which they were directly warned were
interrupted medical treatments and ill effects on children.
"A civil servant [in then-Health Secretary Matt] Hancock's private
office sent him a WhatsApp message alerting him to a child respiratory
virus that was expected to surge in the summer months as a result of the
virus being suppressed during lockdown—known in Whitehall as an NPI, or
non-pharmaceutical intervention," The Telegraph reports. In fact, cases
of the virus, RSV, subsequently soared in 2021 among children shielded
from the bug by social distancing orders, trading one infection for another.
In addition, officials were "worried about the Government being sued by
the families of those who had died because of the backlog on cancer care
and elective treatments."
When the British public became resistant to damaging restrictions on
business, gatherings, and movement, Hancock openly embraced plans to
"deploy" news of COVID-19 variants to "frighten the pants off everyone"
to encourage compliance with lockdown rules. The idea was sufficiently
well accepted that officials referred to their efforts as "Project Fear."
Fomenting panic was in keeping with the seat-of-the-pants
decision-making driving much pandemic policy. Then-Prime Minister Boris
Johnson boasted of making decisions based on "science," but was more
driven by polling—and sometimes by what he himself feared was bad data
that overstated risks.
Johnson "appeared to express a desire to lift the country out of
lockdown earlier than planned, but said his media advisers – Lee Cain
and James Slack – warned him that such a move was 'too far ahead of
public opinion'," reports The Telegraph. "When Mr Johnson broached the
subject of opening schools before the summer, his health secretary
argued against doing so, saying that 'everyone's accepted there won't be
more on schools until September'."
"The exchanges call into question the prime minister's insistence that
lockdown decisions were made on the basis of the best scientific
evidence," adds The Telegraph. "They also raise the prospect that
Britain spent many weeks living under restrictions that could have been
avoided."
What's the English Word for Schadenfreude?
And at least a few officials gained pleasure from the pain they imposed
on others, openly applauding harsh enforcement of rules that were open
to interpretation.
"Simon Case, the Cabinet Secretary, said it was 'hilarious' that 149
people had been told to stay in government-approved hotels on their
return from Red List countries in 2021," the newspaper summarized. "He
also joked about passengers being 'locked up' in 'shoe box' rooms. Those
on the receiving end of the quarantine policy at the time said it was
like being 'in Guantanamo Bay'."
For his part, Hancock "was an advocate of using the police to crack down
on anyone deemed to have broken quarantine or lockdown rules, even
though the regulations were often open to interpretation. He expressed
satisfaction when the 'plod' were given their 'marching orders'."
No Dissent Allowed
It wouldn't be 2023 if we didn't talk about policymakers compiling
enemies lists of lockdown opponents and "threatening to withdraw funding
for projects" in the districts of dissident legislators. Or of the
media's role in promoting establishment talking points and suppressing
dissent.
"What was most alarming was the alacrity with which the broadcast news
media fell into line – with boundless enthusiasm – as they were given a
key role in the day to day dissemination of government authority,"
observed The Telegraph's Janet Daly. "As the medium through which the
official information was conveyed – with, as we now know, often
misleading modelling projections and outdated death figures – they went
from being public service news media to what the BBC notably has always
insisted it is not: state broadcasters. From disinterested journalism to
Pravda in a single bound."
That should sound familiar to Americans who have had a similarly
revelatory peek through the Twitter Files and similar leaks into
government efforts to suppress inconvenient (to the powerful)
viewpoints. We've also seen politicians demonize critical journalists
such as Matt Taibbi and Michael Shellenberger.
The correspondence in the "Lockdown Files" was leaked to The Telegraph
by journalist Isabel Oakeshott, who was collaborating with Matt Hancock
on his memoir and was disturbed by what she saw.
"We were all let down by the response to the pandemic and repeated
unnecessary lockdowns," she commented earlier this month. "Children, in
particular, paid a terrible price. Anyone who questioned an approach we
now know was fatally flawed was utterly vilified; including highly
respected and eminent public health experts, doctors and scientists."
We may never know exactly what members of America's own
pandemic-exploiting political class were thinking when they turned the
screws on people's liberties. But thanks to the Lockdown Files, we can
make a good guess.
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