Will western governments get carried-away with new-found Covid-19 powers?

I was an early supporters of the clearly essential Covid-19 lockdown and the need for much sooner introduction of lockdown globally, to curtail the spread of the virus. Such early sacrifice would have proved critically worthwhile in limiting the spread and lessening the overall duration of this unfortunate pandemic. Now, if history has taught us anything, the “temporary” income tax introduced by then Prime Minister, William Pitt the younger, in 1799, to aid Britain’s Napoleonic war efforts is still here in 2020 and has become the government’s mainstay.

So, much as I am all for needful practicality, I can see where Piers Corbyn and those weary of what could suddenly become a normal situation with governments seeking to control the population’s movement and lockdowns of this nature stealthily becoming a regular occurrence!

There needs to be an urgent commissioning of a review of other practical and more effective measures that must be in place in future, to keep the population safe, without having to resort to these draconian measures that seek to forcefully control freedom of movement. It is however unfortunate that we live in times where people can no longer be expected to act reasonably – love him or loath him, Boris Johnson was very hesitant to exert such control over the population, but his incessant pleas for voluntary reasonableness fell on deaf ears, albeit perhaps not helped by what appeared to be a situation where some senior members of his government and other affluent people flagrantly flaunted the rules – so, imposing these draconian measures quickly became unavoidable BUT, future planning must now be explored, to ensure governments do not assume locking the population down or imposing ‘1984’ (the novel) – esque controls can become a normal arrangement. The people will revolt!

The worryingly high number of Covid-19 related deaths and the lack of global and coordinated strategies has exposed a crack that is even wider than one could have imagined. The world started with a lackadaisical approach to what was seen as a Wuhan/Chinese problem that China should be left to resolve and then went on to an even more alarming episode of allowing travel to continue, with the virus spreading rapidly and uncontrollably. This has also called into question, the effectiveness of a blanket lockdown after the horse had already bolted from the stable!

Contingency plans need to be developed NOW, to ensure future pandemics are handled differently and more effectively, without resorting to the need for governments to exert these kinds or levels of control, given we do not live in a military dictatorship