Chapter 3 - The Politics of Prevention

Summary

Democracies and autocracies could be found pursuing many different strategies, and left and right did not line up consistently behind any particular approach. But that does not mean that politics were not important in deciding how to tackle the pandemic. Because the only available tactics interfered in people’s lives, prevention was inherently political. Some were inconvenienced by quarantines, isolation, and lockdowns so that others might be spared. How many and for how long depended on the nature of the precise strategies chosen. All nations had the legal powers to impose as strict measures as they wanted, but only some considered themselves able to make radical demands of their citizens. Most well-off nations of the West decided that they could afford the economic and social costs of shutdown. But some politicians feared that hardships imposed on the poorest would be less tolerable even than the ravages of a pandemic. Sweden was an outlier here. It took a very hands-off approach, making few demands of its citizens, whom it considered able to take the necessary precautions on their own, without being commanded or forced.