A special adviser to the World Health Organisation has urged governments not to use lockdowns as their primary method of controlling the spread of COVID-19, saying strict restrictions had a dramatic negative effect on lives.
David Nabarro, the WHO’s coronavirus special envoy, said lockdowns “just have one consequence that you must never, ever belittle — and that is making poor people an awful lot poorer”.
“The only time we believe a lockdown is justified is to buy you time to reorganise, regroup, rebalance your resources, protect your health workers who are exhausted — but by and large, we’d rather not do it,” he said.