![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Thus, lockdown effects are potentially confounded by income shocks that threaten the financial sustainability of households. Second, lockdowns caused severe economic contraction, job loss, and business closures at the macroeconomic level. First, in many jurisdictions, such as the UK, the USA, and many European countries, lockdown was a last- resort policy measure, that occurred after a string of events, with the aim of flattening the curve of exponentially growing caseloads, patients in ICUs and infected humans dying from COVID-Thus, lockdown costs may be severely overestimated, as they are overshadowed by COVID-related trends of increasing morbidity and mortality. The reason is that lockdowns are not imposed exogenously. 18,28, 33), failing to identify lockdown’s causal impact. The impact of both the pandemic and lockdowns on mothers’ labor supply were deemed substantial ( 32, 34– 36).Īlthough many studies exist on the collateral damage of lockdowns and their unequal impact, most rely on before-after comparisons (e.g. Women were expected to cover such home-schooling or -caring duties ( 31– 33). The closure of schools or child-care centres meant children had to be cared for and taught at home. The burden of lockdown to mothers was at the forefront of the popular debate, with some descriptive studies showing that the wellbeing of mothers was likely to be most impaired ( 29– 30). Importantly, a great concern was that lockdowns exacerbated social, economic and gender inequalities ( 23– 27), harming in particular families ( 28). Such sacrifices include poorer mental health ( 18– 19), increases in loneliness because of the social isolation ( 20– 22), and the abandonment of healthy or adoption of unhealthy behaviours to cope with that isolation. However, Zero-COVID strategies cannot be used indefinitely, as lockdown requires many sacrifices from residents ( 17). Evidence exists both in favor of elimination strategies to achieve their primary objective ( 10– 13) and against them ( 14– 16), while some proposed that less intrusive NPI may be more appropriate should infection numbers surge ( 1). During the second wave in 2020, however, an international scientific debate erupted ( 6) over whether community spread could only be controlled through maximum suppression (elimination), which would have required hard lockdowns and border closures (Zero-COVID strategy) ( 7– 8), or whether less restrictive mitigation measures would achieve the same goal ( 9). ![]() By the end of 2021, some countries had ordered their residents into their eighth lockdown, while other places had experienced over 100 days sheltered in place.Įarly on in the pandemic, stay-at-home orders with all their obvious personal costs, were accepted as an essential strategy to set up pandemic response systems and to prevent health services from being overwhelmed ( 4– 5). By the end of April 2020, half of humanity was in some form of lockdown: Almost 4 billion people across 90 countries were asked by their governments to stay at home ( 3). It is commonly understood as a restriction of the individual right to move freely which ‘applies to all people’, albeit some categorization systems label such mobility restrictions as ‘partial lockdown’, ‘household confinement’, or ‘movements for non-essential activities forbidden’ ( 2). Of all the non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPI) introduced to mitigate the spread of SARS- CoV-2 (COVID-19), none has been so ‘intrusive’ and ‘drastic’ as the lockdown ( 1). ![]()
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