https://www.wsj.com/articles/public-health-experts-rethink-lockdowns-as-covid-cases-surge-11602514769?mod=itp_wsj&mod=&mod=djemITP_
As Covid-19 cases surge across large parts of Europe and the U.S., officials are reluctant to force another round of nationwide lockdowns of the sort imposed in March.
But this time—unlike in the spring—public-health experts broadly and increasingly agree, with some worried that the general public won’t cooperate with another monthslong, generalized lockdown against a disease whose transmission is now much better understood.
The World Health Organization has long favored interventions that come with less economic and social disruption than lockdowns, recommending that governments pursue a strategy called “test, trace, isolate,” of sequestering people exposed to the virus. Western governments have found themselves with too few tests and not enough contact-tracing staff to follow that plan of action.
Still, in recent days, WHO leaders have become more vocal in their encouragements that governments could do more to improve public-safety measures that would reduce the need for a second round of nationwide lockdowns.
“What we want to try and avoid, and sometimes it’s unavoidable, we accept that, but what we want to try to avoid are these massive lockdowns that are so punishing to communities, to societies and everything else,” Mike Ryan, executive director of the WHO health emergencies program, told reporters on Friday.
