National lockdowns were the knee-jerk reflex of all politicians worldwide. They merely imitated each other without taking any effort to understand the implications on the lives of the citizens and the economy.

The net result of these strict and prolonged lockdowns and in some places relockdowns is showing up. But the world’s highest authority in health, WHO also has projected a confusing picture of it. The doctors of the health organization seem to be backflipping and some have been talking anti-lockdown.

WHO doctor, Dr. David Nabaro, and his opinion

On 11 October 2020, Dr. David Nabaro who works with the World Health Organization appealed to world leaders to not use lockdowns as the primary control method for coronavirus.

Dr. David went on to state that lockdowns only lead to poverty with no real benefit in the long run. He did not reveal any data on the potential lives that lockdowns saved. Dr. David told The Spectator:

“Lockdowns just have one consequence that you must never ever belittle, and that is making poor people an awful lot poorer,”

“We in the World Health Organisation do not advocate lockdowns as the primary means of control of this virus,”

“The only time we believe a lockdown is justified is to buy you time to reorganise, regroup, rebalance your resources, protect your health workers who are exhausted, but by and large, we’d rather not do it.”

The accusations and response

Immediately, the media and people began accusing WHO of backflipping on its statements. And now, another doctor from WHO has offered her response to people and the media’s accusations against WHO. Dr. Margaret Harris appeared on Today Show and spoke about what Dr. David meant to say. She added that world media have misreported his comments. She said:

“It is not a backflip, it is not a change in advice. What it is a bit of misreporting that has gone on, on the weekend.

“What those reports are based on was a conversation our special envoy, Dr David Nabaro had about the role of lockdowns.

“Lockdowns are basically mass quarantines and governments have got to the stage where they have huge transmission going on and is it not clear exactly where the chains of transmission are, it is a thing that governments have resorted to.

“But right from the start we have said what we would really like to see is a strong tracking, tracing, the community hand washing, mask wearing so that you don’t have to go into lockdown.

“Now a lot of countries have had to go to lockdown but we say do all of the other things to avoid going there, because the economic and social costs are very high.”

Lockdowns, relockdowns, or no lockdowns?

What WHO means to say is that local governments need to look at precisely what steps would help the country in preventing coronavirus transmission. At the same time, it should not affect the people’s lives and the economy badly.

Lockdowns are a temporary measure and cannot be done in a strict way or for too long. Other measures to curtail the virus transmission need to be taught to the people during the lockdown. These include such as social distancing, hand washing, and face masks. They should be made to understand the importance of these measures. A change in behavior of people should be aimed and not just enforcement of a lockdown.

Since the above was not done simultaneously, one can see infections rising in countries where a strict lockdown was enforced such as India. It helped but could not cut down the transmission rates since simultaneous behavior change was not sought.

A petition from health experts called the Great Barrington Declaration has been signed by 12000 doctors worldwide. They have called for an end to lockdowns in the world.

Also, read WHO: Only 10% of people in the world infected with coronavirus! Risk still looms high!