Tell us the rationale behind these measures

Once again the lights are going out across Europe as governments respond to the second wave of Covid with ever-more draconian controls of the population. In Germany, which has lower rates of contagion and deaths than most, most hospitality outlets are to shut. President Macron dramatically announced a second national lockdown for France last night. Italy has closed cinemas and gyms. Curfews are in force in a score of countries. In the UK a bewildering array of local restrictions is now in place, with Scotland following a five-tier system that is also being used to enforce a brand of SNP puritanism with a ban on alcohol, even to accompany a meal in a restaurant.

In Wales the ruling Labour Party has imposed some of the most bizarre restraints ever seen, easing them only marginally this week. In England Boris Johnson is under mounting pressure to order a “circuit-breaker” lockdown to “save Christmas”, with no guarantee that the virus will have been arrested by then.

As Europe moves into winter, the direction of travel is clear: more lockdowns, more restrictions, more controls. For now, they are not as severe as earlier this year. But if the virus spreads rapidly, and deaths rise commensurately, governments will be under pressure from their scientific advisers to go further.

One thing that might stay some governments’ hands is that, this time, public support has waned. Germany and Italy have seen protests, some violent, against the imposition of new curbs on the movement and livelihoods of their citizens. Millions simply cannot afford to miss work for another six months until the spring, or a vaccine, arrives. When hospital admissions and deaths are measured in a few thousand among populations of hundreds of millions, people are beginning to question the rationale behind these measures.

Little proof is offered as to the efficacy of regulations already imposed. Where is the evidence that mandatory mask-wearing, curfews or restrictions on family gatherings actually work if the contagion is still spreading? As Allister Heath asks on the page opposite, where is the cost-benefit analysis that pits the measures taken to arrest the march of coronavirus against the collateral damage they are causing to the economy, mental well-being and other health conditions, let alone the futures of our children and theirs?