Freedom won’t survive a world where every lethal virus triggers another shutdown

Suppose, for the sake of argument, that Covid were to claim 10,000 lives next winter. How would we react? Logically, we should take it in our stride.

As Chris Whitty said the other week: “There will be more deaths, probably for the foreseeable future, but at a much lower level – just as every year there are flu deaths, on an average year maybe 7,000, and in a high year up to 20,000.” No one ever suggested that we respond to a bad flu year by banning sports and closing shops.

Then again, not every death counts equally, at least not when it comes to public policy. Deaths resulting from terrorism are far more newsworthy than deaths from domestic violence, because a government’s legitimacy rests partly on its ability to protect its people from external attack.

When, in 2017, Khalid Masood used his car to kill four people on Westminster Bridge, the machinery of state was fully mobilised. Yet four people die as a result of being hit by vehicles every day – each of them as much the centre of their own universe as the victims of terrorism.

Will coronavirus deaths be treated like stroke or cancer deaths – an ugly reality in an imperfect world? Or will they become the medical equivalent of terrorist fatalities, blamed on state policy? Early signs point to the latter.

For a year, now, the world’s media have exaggerated the impact of human agency on the virus. Every international disparity in infection or death rates is presented as a result of policy, rather than of differences in demographics, population density, pre-existing immunity, climate or, indeed, luck.

With most diseases, we take for granted that prevalence varies geographically; but, when it comes to the coronavirus, we pretend otherwise.

It is possible that we will eventually treat Covid as an endemic seasonal illness – as we do with, say, Spanish flu, whose virulence has declined over the years. But it is equally possible the reverse will happen, that other diseases will be treated like Covid, that every lethal virus will trigger demands for a lockdown.

“We will not get to the point where there is zero risk,” said Prof Whitty, “and a decision for society, led by political leaders, is going to be at what level of risk do we actually start to raise these measures.”

Before 2020, that question would simply not have arisen. Yes, we could have reduced the transmission of diseases by confining people at home, but we recognised that the cost in poverty and tyranny would be unacceptable.

Do we still? Consider the debate over how soon to reopen schools. Children themselves are at almost no risk from the coronavirus, and may be less likely than adults to pass it on – especially in the case of younger children. Yet lots of people evidently feel that denying youngsters the right to study, take exams, play sports or socialise is justified as long as it saves a single life.

This is a new and sudden departure. It was always possible to argue that closing schools would save some lives. But, until now, no one did.

“You can’t put a value on human life” is a good slogan, but a bad policy. The one thing worse than putting a value on life is refusing to do so.

Once the vaccine has been offered to people in at-risk groups, we will be dealing with a disease whose fatality rate is in no sense exceptional. If we don’t take that moment to lift remaining restrictions, we will have lost our bearings as well as our freedom.