New Delhi: Was the government-mandated lockdown in India and many other countries, with a score of restrictions, to tackle the attack of the conronavirus with no medicines or vaccine right or wrong? The debate is going on the world over among the scientists. The United States had the pandemics in 1958 and 1918 but they did not destroy the economy, nor did they cause unemployment to skyrocket and economic growth to plummet.
Those in the governments, however, claim that sick and dying workers, fearful consumers and disrupted supply chains would have caused economic shutdown and that the economic shutdowns actually helped the economy since allowing the spread of the disease would have otherwise destroyed employment and economic growth.
Leaving aside the fact that there is no evidence that the lockdowns actually work, the past pandemics, where coercive government interventions were at most sporadic, show they didn't cause the immense economic damage as seen today. Quoting from the writings of American scientist Dr Donald Henderson, who led and succeeded in the WHO war against the small pox virus, the American scientists and economists say the 1957-58 flu pandemic, which was more deadly than the COVID-19 pandemic so far, nor the 1918-19 pandemic caused economic damage on a scale as seen in many countries where the government imposed the lockdowns. Henderson died in August 2016.
As of May 18, the mortality rate of 272 per million was recorded in the US. But this is less than half the mortality rate of the 1957-58 flu pandemic, which was 660 per million. Yet Americans of 1957 did not respond by shutting down commerce, forcing people into "lockdown," or driving unemployment up to Depression-era levels. In fact, reports show that Americans took little action beyond the usual measures involved in trying to slow the spread of disease: hand washing, staying home when ill, etc.
The economic effects of the 1957 virus were miniscule compared to what the US now faces from the reaction to the COVID-19 virus. This suggests that most of the economic damage now being experienced by workers and households in the US is more a product of the policy reaction to the virus than to the virus itself.
As late Henderson wrote about the policy reaction then, the 1957–58 pandemic was such a rapidly spreading disease that it became quickly apparent to U.S. health officials that efforts to stop or slow its spread were futile. Thus, no efforts were made to quarantine individuals or groups, and a deliberate decision was made not to cancel or postpone large meetings such as conferences, church gatherings, or athletic events for the purpose of reducing transmission. No attempt was made to limit travel or to otherwise screen travellers. Emphasis was placed on providing medical care to those who were afflicted and on sustaining the continued functioning of community and health services….there were no reports that major events were cancelled or postponed except for high school and college football games, which were often delayed because of the number of players afflicted.
The 1918–19 pandemic, which caused an astounding ten times as many deaths per million as the 1957–58 pandemic, also failed to produce economic disaster. Although the US entered the 1918–19 pandemic in poor economic shape because of the Great War, according to economists Efraim Benmelech and Carola Frydman, it left almost no discernible mark on the aggregate US economy. Needless to say, the economy today appears to be in far worse shape in the wake of the 2020 pandemic than in the days following the 1957–58 outbreak, or even in 1919.
So why the enormous difference in economic effects? The answer almost certainly lies in the fact that governments in 2020—unlike in any other period in American history—engaged in widespread business closures, "stay-at-home" orders, and other state-mandated and state-enforced actions that led to widespread layoffs and plummeting economic output. It happened as well in India where the lockdown was imposed in night at a 4-hour notice, all trains and buses were suspended and all factories and shops were shut without checking what will happen to the people. The migrant workers' plight was the result that the government is not able to resolve till todate.
source https://www.freepressjournal.in/india/2-past-pandemics-dealt-without-lockdowns-a-lesson-to-learn
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