The Unhappy End

Henry D. Thoreau escreveu o famoso A Desobediência Civil.  Leon Tolstói, um dos mais famosos escritores do mundo venerava este ensaio e o recomendou, por carta, a um jovem indiano preso na África do Sul. Este jovem indiano era Mahatma Gandhi.

Entre as influências nefastas resultantes da atual pandemia está o crescimento do governo. O medo do coronavírus insuflado na multidão a torna dócil às restrições à sua liberdade e corrompida pelas benesses dos governos. Estes, ao contrário de políticas democráticas, bem sucedidas, de  Taiwan*, Suécia**e Nova Zelândia, a pretexto de salvar vidas, tolhe a liberdade individual com  atos ditatoriais à chinesa e à OMS. Não se dão conta de que este abuso de autoridade  tem limites. Não aprenderam com  Thoreau que o melhor governo é o que menos governa e nem  que   todos  os homens têm  o direito de revolução; isto é, o direito de recusar obediência ao governo, e de resistir a ele, quando sua tirania ou sua ineficiência são grandes e intoleráveis. Exemplar , ele  adotou a desobediência civil recusando-se a pagar impostos por não tolerar o uso do seu dinheiro para sustentar a escravidão e a guerra contra o México; Gandhi o fez por não suportar o domínio Inglês. Enquanto Thoreau rebelou-se solitariamente, mas deu fundamentos à liberdade individual;  Gandhi liderou a nação à desobediência civil e, sem disparar um tiro, deu liberdade à  Índia.

Estas lições da história vem à propósito da atual política governamental de confinamento,  que está tornando-se uma tirania a ameaçar a sobrevivência de grande parte da sociedade. O esgarçamento do tecido social já está dando mostras dos limites de tolerância da população. Os índices de adesão à quarentena estão em queda e a quantidade de casos de desobediência civil estão em alta e , insensatamente, as restrições estão aumentando.   O preocupante neste jogo é que as autoridades, diante da ineficiência das suas medidas, sintam-se desafiadas e,  para reafirmar o poder, por vaidade ou outra razão qualquer, perdem a racionalidade. Colocar em risco  a sobrevivência dos menos favorecidos é um jogo de alto risco. Quando alguém não tem mais o que perder, ele pode tornar-se ousado, perigoso e os resultados podem  sair do controle. 

Já está tornando-se consenso que o viced-19 não será vencido. Veio para ficar. Temos que nos adaptar para viver com ele. O desafio será menor, evidentemente, quando e  se uma significativa parcela da população estiver inoculada - o que estima-se é coisa para um ano. Portanto, uma flexibilização é inevitável.  O confinamento total  e prolongado é insustentável -  uma tirania  ineficiente e intolerável . As massas não podem dar-se a este  luxo; e o governo  também não, simplesmente porque a alternativa seria a fome e o colapso da economia. O tempo está contra nós. A dicotomia vida ou fome é falsa. A escolha não pode ser emocional. Racional é o possível, o sustentável. E não será possível uma política que não se sustente. Ao término dos programas de manutenção de empregos subsidiados pelo governo - sem o fim da quarentena -  corremos o risco de uma  desobediência civil , do caos, que nem salvará vidas nem  empregos - para ser  o the unhappy end desta crise. 

As Minhas Reflexões.

Jorge Wilson Simeira Jacob

14 de maio de 2020.

*Nota - carta publicada na The ECONOMIST, secção Letters de 28. 03. 2020

Taiwan’s response to covid-19 

Countries are indeed struggling to cope with covid-19 (“The politics of pandemics”, March 14th). But China’s approach is not the only way to suppress its spread. Taiwan has relatively few cases of the disease. Learning harsh lessons from the sars crisis in 2003, the government of Taiwan acted swiftly and established a central command centre in order to respond to the outbreak. Taiwan’s health minister held press conferences almost every day to provide updates and information. Tests on travellers from Wuhan, the Chinese city where the outbreak started, began in December, one month ahead of China. Technology using big-data analysis was applied for intensive health monitoring.

Despite being excluded from participating in the World Health Organisation because of pressure from China, Taiwan sent an early warning to the international health body about the risk of transmission of the coronavirus between humans at the end of December. However, the warning was not shared with other countries by the who because of its relationship with China. That error ultimately delayed the global response to the pandemic. The politics of pandemics, which exists inside the who as well as between states, should be unacceptable to any country that cares about public health.

The Chinese propaganda machine is trying to convince the world that its draconian response to the coronavirus is the only way to combat its spread; other countries are following its lead. Taiwan proves that democracies can successfully fight the virus without an authoritarian response. Given the nature of China’s autocratic system, Taiwan should serve as a better democratic model for managing pandemics.

DAVID LIN

Taipei Representative Office in the United Kingdom

London

**The Swedish way

Sweden shunned a hard lockdown. Was that wise?

The Economist .

s bleary-eyed Europeans squint in the sun, freshly released from coronavirus lockdowns, worries about a second wave of infections are on everybody’s mind. Life cannot return completely to normal until a vaccine is available. What sort of semi-normal life might work in the meantime is the big question. Sweden may hold the answer.

In March, when governments across Europe seemed to be competing to impose the toughest anti-viral measures—from closing borders to forbidding people from venturing out even for a walk—Sweden resisted the temptation. It banned gatherings of more than 50 people. But nurseries and schools for children under 16 have remained open (with older students tele-learning from home). Bars, restaurants and gyms also stayed open, though with social-distancing rules. People were asked to work from home if they could. And the elderly, who are most at risk of dying if infected, were told to stay at home to protect themselves.

Sweden chose this path because it looked at the longer term, says Johan Giesecke, an epidemiologist advising the authorities. Full lockdowns are stop-gap measures, he says, and European governments rushed to put them in place without plans for what would replace them.

Swedes have been sensible. Use of public transport has fallen significantly. A third of people say they avoid going to their workplace (by working from home, for example)—up from 10% in mid-March. Daily restaurant turnover fell by 70% in the month through April 22nd. Elisabeth Peters, who is 67 and lives on one of the islands off the west coast of Sweden, believes there has been a “huge change” in people’s behaviour, aligned with official advice. Some people are not seeing their grandchildren at all now, she says. When her children and grandchildren visit everyone stays outside all day and keeps at a distance from her and her husband.

On first glance, Sweden seems to have paid a heavy price for choosing less stringent measures to keep people apart. By May 13th it had recorded 33 covid-19 deaths per 100,000 people, a rate more than three times that of Denmark and seven times higher than in Finland, which had shut schools and restaurants in March. Even so, Sweden’s mortality rate has been much lower than that in Britain, France and Spain. Swedes largely approve of their country’s approach, with two-thirds saying in polls that the government is handling the epidemic well.

Time will tell whether Sweden chose a better strategy than other countries, says Jussi Sane of the Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare, because the costs of lockdowns—in terms not only of economic damage but also harm to people’s mental health—are yet to be tallied. European countries will see more covid-19 deaths when people start moving about, because the share of those infected so far (and thus presumably immune, at least for some time) is still in the single digits. Mr Giesecke reckons that Stockholm will reach “herd immunity”, the 40-60% rate of infection needed to halt the spread of the coronavirus, by June. He thinks that when European countries count deaths a year from now their figures will be similar, regardless of the measures taken and the numbers now. The economic damage in Sweden, however, may be smaller. 

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