During the lockdown, we’ve been yearning to get back to our normal lives. All of a sudden, normality is the most valuable thing we wish for – even though we had never given it so much importance before and we cannot exactly define what ‘normality’ is. What we do know for certain, though, is that we want it back.
With ministers edging towards a strategy to exit the lockdown, long-term hopes of a return to normality still turn on finding a vaccine. Even if measures to stop the spread of coronavirus are eased in the coming weeks, it is expected that without a vaccine some element of social distancing or working from home will remain in place for a long time.
A plan, and possibly a timetable, for relaxing the lockdown is needed, in part to allow businesses to plan. This is not to say the return to normality will be without consequences as, bit by bit, messily and patchily, we return to normal over the next few months and into next year.
Pressure is inevitably mounting over the rising cost of the lockdown on the nation’s health as well as the economy. The government is acutely aware that it needs an exit strategy to start removing restrictions, while attempting to prevent a spike in infections. It has to balance all means of protecting lives and well-being. Not just the loss of life from the virus but the wider implications of a major downturn in the economy as well. A nation that cannot work is not a nation that can get healthier.
Public policy always involves decisions about rationing scarce resources. But health cannot easily be weighed against prosperity.
Even the desire to follow the science is not as simple as it sounds. Countries have taken different approaches; it will be a long time before it is clear which of these is the most effective.
How quickly Malta should reverse the present national lockdown and return, gradually or wholly, to normal, is anyone’s guess. Unlike Donald Trump, who suggests that the coronavirus can be cured by injecting disinfectant, sunlight or whatever, it is better to be guided by science.
We have been blessed in Malta with experts who have models and estimates, but the uncertainties are manifold. That doesn’t mean they should not use models. They are the best they’ve got. But even with those models they have to make trade-offs and huge ethical choices.
The uncertainties make those choices harder. Even if there were certainty about how the coronavirus spreads, there would still be tough choices to make. There is a need for a framework for decision-making, not a set of opinions about the right decision.
Choices and trade-offs need to be made and they present difficult alternatives. It is already clear that economic dislocation caused to Malta by the coronavirus crisis will be much bigger than that suffered during the relatively modest impact of the 2008-2009 financial crisis.
A recent analysis by the International Monetary Fund – based on a best-case model in which the economic effects of the coronavirus pandemic will wane in the latter half of this year – predicts a contraction of 2.8 per cent in Malta’s economy, the smallest decline across all European countries, where the average is 6.6 per cent, or even higher in other eurozone countries.
Any path which the prime minister and his team choose comes with risks- Martin Scicluna
Malta’s lockdown has hit the young harder than the rest. Those missing out on education, those leaving school and looking for a first job.
Of those already in employment, the under-25-year-olds are more likely to be in a sector that has been shut down, as are the self-employed and lowest-earning 10 per cent of workers.
All of this will need to be weighed against the immediate risks of loosening lockdown policy, whenever that decision is taken. In doing so, ministers will need to beware two strong biases that we as human beings – and they as policymakers – are prone to.
The first is a bias towards the present and the tendency to underestimate the future. That’s one reason why we continue to do too little to tackle climate change and protect our environment.
The second, and related, bias is towards being influenced by what is most noticeable or striking. We accept far more people dying as a result of air pollution, which are seen as mere statistical deaths, than we ever would their death in traffic accidents.
We know only that more people died as a result of air pollution than would otherwise have been the case, not who they were.
It is not callous to warn against the same biases when it comes to dealing with the coronavirus and its economic effects on those who lose jobs or their entire businesses.
Just because we can’t point now to those who, as a consequence, will be mentally or physically ill, or who may die early in future, does not mean they shouldn’t count.
Trying to balance medical against economic risks sounds heartless but it is, in fact, the sort of tough decision that politicians have to make.
When it comes to easing the lockdown, the government has to be clear about the risks of a second wave of the virus and the continued need for social distancing. These are trade-offs between loss of life and loss of livelihood that only politics can settle.
Difficult decisions about getting back to work are imminent. Any path which the prime minister and his team choose comes with risks.