Lockdown cycles

The appearance of SARS CoV-2 has been deemed worthy of extraordinary measures to contain or suppress its spread. With a rise in infections across Europe, politicians are once again scrambling to reintroduce a series of policies that amount to lockdown in all but name. France has introduced a curfew. Italy has made the wearing of masks mandatory outdoors. And London’s nine million residents have been banned from meeting people they don’t live with indoors. Such extraordinary measures imply that the epidemic of SARS-CoV2 has features that are out of the ordinary when compared to previous pandemics. But is this right? Or are we setting a precedent for the way we deal with infectious diseases?

We are, of course, all familiar with acute respiratory infections and their effects. They are a seasonal nuisance; occasionally they can put us into hospital, or even worse, speed our departure. A host of known pathogens circulate across different parts of the year and some – 40 per cent – cannot be identified.