Rethinking the Ethics of the Covid‐19 Pandemic Lockdowns

Abstract

Public health responses to the Covid‐19 pandemic included various measures to mitigate the spread of the virus. Among these, the most restrictive was a broad category referred to as “lockdowns.” We argue that the reasoning offered in favor of extended lockdowns—those lasting several months or longer—did not adequately account for a host of countervailing considerations, including the impact on mental illness, education, employment, and marginalized communities as well as health, educational, and economic inequities. Furthermore, justifications offered for extended lockdowns set aside a basic tenet of public health ethics: restrictions on liberty and autonomy should be the least intrusive means of achieving the desired end. Since it is now clear that extended lockdowns cause severe harm to many vulnerable populations, the burden of proof is on those who would advocate for them, and there must be a much higher bar to implement an extended lockdown, with high‐quality evidence that the benefit would substantially exceed its harm.

The Three Rs of Fear Messaging in a Global Pandemic: Recommendations, Ramifications and Remediation

“…While the UK government justified their strategy on public health grounds, they gave little or no consideration to its impact on the public's health beyond COVID. The established principles for ethical public health interventions appear to have been largely ignored (Miller and Moss 2023;Pykett et al 2022;Townsend et al 2020;Wilson et al 2023), with implications for mental health (Cooper et al 2021;Owens et al 2022;Panchal et al 2023) and child development (Anand et al 2024;Byrne et al 2023).…”