Governments should adopt a strategy of eliminating Covid-19. Who could argue with that? After five months of lockdowns over the past year in the UK, everyone is mightily sick of living with restrictions. If there is a way of driving the virus out altogether, perhaps we should take it. But the demands of the 'Zero Covid' movement seem to be an odd mix of uncontroversial policies and extending authoritarian measures indefinitely.
The campaign group was set up last summer, predominantly by left wingers such as trade unionists, local councillors and academics, and seeks to entirely eradicate the virus from our shores.
Its means of achieving this involve a full lockdown until cases have been reduced "close to zero", the shutting down of unsafe workplaces, and the government paying people not to work and stay at home. It says diseases such as polio, measles and smallpox have all been eradicated and that we should do the same with Covid. However long it takes.
So far, so fanciful.
Perhaps 'Zero Covid' is not the best bit of branding. Not even its most ardent supporters think the virus will disappear any time soon. However, by reducing infections domestically to very low levels and doing everything possible to stop the virus from being imported from abroad, the argument is that we could, in every other respect, be much freer. At some point in the future....<<<Read The Full Article Here>>>...