Lockdown in Europe: Why we are back at the zero point of the pandemic

If this moment of hers pandemic it was a movie then definitely it would be “Marmot Day”. Every day that passes, the protagonist of the film, Bill Murray, realizes that he is the same as the previous one, no matter what he tries to do differently. More or less like now, more and more people are wondering: “how come two years after the beginning of the pandemic, with all the knowledge we have accumulated and the vaccines for our absolute allies for a year, to discuss lockdown again? How is it even done? to discuss that this Christmas can be the same as the previous ones?»

The intense flirtation with lockdowns throughout Europe

The big question of all of us grew last week, which gave a lot of news around the constantly hot topic of coronavirus.

First came the general (for vaccinated and unvaccinated) lockdown in Austria. Except for the pharmacies and the shops with basic necessities, everything else is closed, including the schools and the teleworking is back. The Austrian government has announced that no later than December 13, the lockdown will be lifted for those who have been vaccinated and those who have recovered from covid 19, so from what it seems for this social group, Christmas will be “saved”.

The general lockdown in Slovakia followed for two weeks initially, while a matter of time is considered the general prohibition on Germany. In fact, in that country, the head of the Robert Koch Epidemiological Institute, Lothar Wheeler, said that lockdown is now the only solution.

Up close and personal Belgium, where the use of the mask was extended to all areas and for all citizens while teleworking became mandatory for those who can work from home. From this weekend, the nightclubs and bars are completely closed, while the restaurant will be open until 23.00. Next to us Cyprus, again, banned from entering completely unvaccinated indoors, suspension of all school events in anticipation of Christmas, but also the abolition of SafePass, if the holder does not receive the third dose of the vaccine. H The Netherlands in turn proceeded to a night lockdown two days ago. Bars, restaurants and most shops in the country should be closed from 5 pm local time until 5 am.

Latest worrying information from the covid 19 front, tracking of a new variant with “extremely high”, as scientists note, number of mutations (32 in total), which could “escape” the vaccines. Variant B.1.1.529 or otherwise “mutation of Botswana” the Omicron mutation, as the name given to it by the WHO, led last Friday to border protection in all 27 countries of the European Union. So far, 90 cases have been reported: 77 in South Africa (the first 4 in Botswana), 2 in Hong Kong, 1 in Israel, 1 in Belgium, 2 in Great Britain, 2 in Bavaria and 1 in Italy, with the situation becoming “domino”. And all this at a time when, according to scientists Delta mutation reduces vaccine efficacy by 40%.

In our class, for the time being, the emergency measures taken are exclusively for unvaccinated citizensHowever, members of the committee of experts for the management of the coronavirus in Greece have already stated that they themselves do not rule out the implementation of a lockdown in our country in the midst of the galloping pandemic. Such as said a few days ago to Newsbeast the professor of Microbiology and member of the committee, Alkidiadis Vatopoulos: «Obviously lockdown is also our choice the government just does not want to do it right now for a variety of reasons – economic, political, etc. But it is a choice. It can be done. It will depend on many factors. “

Why lockdowns remain in the discussion

“In my mind, discussing a total lockdown has a greater political cost than discussing the need for vaccination, but obviously not in the minds of those who decide,” Evangelos Manolopoulos, a professor of pharmacology at the Democritus University of Thrace, told Newsbeast. “Lockdowns remain in the discussion because we do not solve the problem”.

As he says lockdown is clearly a political decision. For our country but also for the rest of Europe, this “solution” is catastrophic. “They have very big economic consequences and cause unrest in many sectors” notes Mr. Manolopoulos and continues: “lockdowns for all citizens are not even easily applicable, except unrealistic. In Greece we can not apply a partial lockdown to the unvaccinated, how will we apply the total? At the same time, it is very difficult for vaccinated people to suffer from it. It is absurd. “It’s like punishing those who did their duty.”

In fact, according to the professor of pharmacology, their second disastrous side, apart from the financial one, is that they succeed a strong blow to vaccination policy. “By limiting someone who has had three doses of vaccine, you are destroying everything you said and built on the vaccine.” For Mr. Manolopoulos, here where the situation with the pandemic has led, especially at a pan-European level, the solutions are twofold: the obligation to vaccinate more and more groups together with their strict exclusion from activities or lock .lockdown “.

Lockdown is a failure of the political system

“Lockdowns are a failure of the political system. Both in Greece and abroad the political system does not deal decisively with the source of the problem which is the unvaccinatedMr. Manolopoulos continues to explain his reasoning.

However, he sees a significant difference in the lockdown of Austria, which opened the dance for the first time this year. As he says: “the most important thing that happens in Austria at the moment it is not the lockdown but that from February 1, 2022 vaccination will become mandatory for all. In essence, the country gives citizens two months to get vaccinated. The lockdown is the bridge to spend Christmas. That is, they are going to solve the problem as a whole. “

For the professor, the reason why many countries do not ακόμα squeeze the unvaccinated even more and choose measures for everyone is why These citizens are also economic “players” in societies while at the same time the right to choice and self-determination is a value that is at the core of Western culture and as such is not easy for governments to ignore. On the other hand, rights are removed in this way from the vaccinated and this also concerns the governments, explains Mr. Manolopoulos.

“And the reasons for the fear of limiting the unvaccinated are other,” he continues. “We have to see who are those who are not vaccinated, to which political and ideological areas they belong and who they vote for. There are also micropolitical calculations in the whole case. We make political calculations, we respect the freedom of each other but in the end what is left is the 100 dead a day.

So these calculations will not work. The 20,000 dead in a country also have great political costs. The bill will come for them too. In short: there are pathogens in society that we now pay retroactively and in total. “

Finally, according to him, in the discussion that takes place in Greece about the lockdown, where often others are heard by experts and others by the government, there may be a lack of understanding on both sides resulting in the conversation about the absolute closure of society to remain conspicuous but confused in public debate.

Governments do not convince citizens

His opinion on the subject was given by the professor of Environmental Engineering at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Demosthenes Sarigiannis. As he comments on the way the public thinks: “Everyone is wondering:”I had a locdown when I did not have vaccines. Now why should I have?’’ “Because they can not save it otherwise“, Is the answer. The lockdown is the final solution. Which, we know that guaranteed in the surge of a wave delivers the maximum through the reduction of contacts, the most key factor in the spread of the pandemic that is.

The main reason that lockdowns are back in the game is that European governments have not properly assessed the dynamics of the virus. They also rushed to open their savings. They invested too much in the solution of the vaccines while they did not calculate the large percentage of conspiracy theories and denial cultivated against vaccines. They did not expect such a harsh anti-vaccination person from religion.

And of course, from one point onwards, the sense of measure ceased to exist, especially by the citizens. The inability of governments to persuade the latter with rational messages about pandemic issues has played an important role in the situation we are in now. Citizens do not feel they are “together” with governments, they do not feel that they are being guided but that they are being enforced. After all, there has been a disconnect between the public and the state / governments for years. The latter are in a hurry to prove that they “have it” in the short and rapid period of the pandemic “.

The fear that vanished

Mr. Sarigiannis explains that all of the above affect risk perception citizens have about the pandemic. “From the many and conflicting messages, everyone finally gets what suits them. Here comes this: ‘Come on mom and what happened?Not believing in danger changes people’s behavior non-linearly. That is why the rapid tests in the church, which were announced last week, even if they have difficulty in controlling them, are nevertheless a step in the right direction because give a sense of obligation and that is important.

»However, everyone makes mistakes. I am a professor at the University of Pavia in Italy. Now that we are starting to walk towards winter, now that the pandemic is galloping, they decided to abolish the measure of distances inside the room. I said this recently on a TV show in the presence of Ms. Kerameos: live streaming should be implemented in university halls and students should be rotated in a circular motion to maintain distances. When the answer to the intermediate solutions suggested by the experts is not listened to in the end you end up with lockdown. And to us and elsewhere, Strange measures have been taken during the pandemic. At the same time, journalists often isolate what the experts say and make it “their own”. The citizen comes who makes them even more “his” and the original meaning is completely lost “.