Commentary
In the first week of March 2020, as news of a virus was everywhere, intellectuals associated with the Yale University school of public health penned a letter expressing the conventional wisdom of the moment: we should not lock down. That harms the poor and vulnerable populations. Travel restrictions achieve nothing.
Quarantine, if it is deployed at all, said the letter, should only be for the very sick and only in the interest of the health of the community. Government should never abuse its powers but instead find “the least restrictive measure” that still protects community health.The letter writers gathered signatures. They found 800 others in their profession to sign it. This was an important document: it signaled that a China-style lockdown would not be tolerated here. Of course the whole text was discarded by governments at all levels everywhere in the world.
