Lockdowns are simply not sustainable for the amount of time that it will likely take to develop a vaccine. Letting up will reduce economic, social, and political pressures. It may also allow populations to build an immunity that will end up being the least bad way of fighting COVID-19 in the long run. Much about the disease remains poorly understood, but countries that are locked down now could very well face new and even more severe outbreaks down the road. If these countries follow the Swedish path to herd immunity, the total cost of the pandemic will decrease, and it will likely end sooner.
The truth of the matter is that those on the right and the left who are eager to blame globalization and market undamentalism (whatever this latter term means) for this pandemic are using the crisis as an excuse to remake the world into the image they were advocating for before this crisis began.
They want nationalism, protectionism, less or no immigration, more top-down policies, and more taxes on the rich. They were against trade, immigration, technology, and markets before and they are now opportunistically using this pandemic as a convenient, almost heaven-sent, opportunity to push for the same pro-government interventions and the same semi-authoritarian regimes they advocated earlier.
George Selgin bemoans the Catch-11.
