Lockdowns imposed across the world during the peak times of Covid-19 pandemic resulted in many socio-economic crises, which now raises the question of worthiness of such strict measures, according to an economist.
The idea of curbing people's movement in the current state of globalisation is not feasible, observes Dr Ananish Chaudhuri, by analysing different global surveys and reports.
Dr Chaudhuri, a professor of Experimental Economics at the University of Auckland, New Zealand, came up with the opinion while presenting a paper at a seminar organised by the Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies (BIDS) in the city on Wednesday.
The seminar titled 'Nudged into lockdown? Behavioural Economics, Uncertainty and Covid-19' was held on the BIDS premises in the city's Agargaon, as well as in a virtual platform.
Dr Chaudhuri made the presentation based on his own book on the topic published last year.
"Lockdowns were mostly imposed to help flatten the curve (in a graph) of Covid-19 infections or delay it, so that the healthcare services can cope with the patients," he said referring to experiences of different countries including New Zealand.
He, however, said it was not possible to raise a question against the effectiveness of lockdown at the beginning of Covid-19 days as it was completely an unknown situation.
"Most the governments were likely to take you to the gallows, should you talk against the decision then," he said.
Referring to some evidences, he said communities are afraid of losing a large number of lives in a short period.
"But, in doing so, we miss out on the loss of 'statistical lives', which may be much larger," he said.
He quoted references from London-based media outlet The Telegraph, reported in August 2020, saying "...more than 6,700 extra deaths in homes in the past two months- of which just 203 involved coronavirus...".
Many people died of other diseases like cancer as they were deprived of treatment during the lockdown period, he added.
Unlike other nations, Sweden didn't go for lockdown which initially was criticised, he said and added that later it was found that the death toll there was much lower than anticipated.
Senior Research Fellow of the BIDS Dr Kazi Iqbal chaired the event.
Mr Iqbal said the measures like lockdown downplayed the long term socio-economic cost while they focused on the immediate benefits.
"The decisions to extend the lockdown periods in many democratic countries might have been taken from a political-economic perspective to convince the people that the authorities were doing something for them," he said.
Researchers, BIDS officials and development workers joined the seminar.
