• When COVID-19 hit the world, one by one many countries suddenly imposed a strict lockdown on their unwilling citizens.
• The pandemic has now been in this world for more than 7 months.

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Now we can look in retrospect and analyze whether the lockdown was good or not? Did it really benefit humankind or did it worsen the problem?

Lockdown or COVID-19 pandemic-which is worse?

The coronavirus pandemic has hit the world for the past many months. It has affected more than 11.8 million people globally and caused the deaths of 544k patients.

The lockdown might have caused some decrease in the number of case afflictions and deaths. But in the USA, it has caused many people to lose their jobs and health insurance.

The economic hardships have hit people hard and especially those in poor living and health conditions.

These two combined would in the future cause increase in cardiovascular, mental, and cognitive problems and also early death.

Looking at the ill-effects of the lockdown, one wonders whether the lockdown was really beneficial or was it just a knee-jerk reflex on the part of the politicians?

Can we say that the treatment of this world disease was actually worse than the disease itself? Let us evaluate.

The analysis-quick one

If we look at the USA figures, one sees that by the end of this year, lockdown would have saved 500k to 2.7 million lives in the USA.

But the economic downturn could lead to 50.4k-323k  deaths due to the economic decline of around 8-14%. This looks heartening.

Therefore, if we just look at the lives saved due to the lockdown, the public health measures seem beneficial in the USA.

But many feel that the treatment should not be worse than the disease. This is true. The public health measure does work but it could hurt as well. Therefore, it is essential to determine the ‘right dose of this medicine’ to avoid undue side-effects.

More in-depth analysis and discussion

Deeper calculations revealed that the country has spent $ 6.7 million per year of life saved. This cost seems extremely huge and is it justifiable? There has been a heated discussion on this.

The save-lives-not-dollars supporting experts feel that spending even this money in order to save lives is worth it.

But there are many others who are doubting this wisdom. The debate fell along party lines and it was difficult to reach anything conclusive.

But this pandemic is a natural but external factor leading to economic downfall. It is also unpredictable and no one is sure how long it would last and how it would end.

There are several unknown things associated with this pandemic and they make the exact calculations hard.

But it is known that the pandemic affects the older age group and the colored race in the USA. Also, lower-class people will suffer more due to it.

As the pandemic progresses or regresses, data would become more clear and more understandable.

Also, read Sweden: The no-lockdown policy of Anders Tegnell might turn out to be the smartest approach towards COVID-19!