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On the third day of what was to later to become the “lockdown” against the coronavirus, I went to Cafe Adriatico in Araneta City to write a paper and to draw. I love this restaurant for its thick Spanish chocolate.

Within a few days, all malls closed completely and remained so for more than a month. What bothered me, though, was not that Cafe Adriatic closed; the lockdown made sense then even if the cost was very high. What was sad was that we got so little health benefits in return.

A lockdown is meant to “flatten the curve”, i.e., to reduce the daily incidences by limiting transmission of the virus. Flattening the curve means the epidemic will last longer but the health system will not be burdened by hospitalization rates. Social distancing lowers transmission, and the more draconian version of social distancing is the lockdown where people cannot leave their houses without permits.

Flattening the curve with a lockdown is very expensive. Even today, the cost from decreased economic activity is estimated to be about P2 billion a day. The Philippines eventually had the longest continuous lockdown in the world at 11 weeks beginning middle of March 2020, extended, modified, enhanced, relaxed, even to this day. This is mismanagement.

A lockdown is mean to give governments time, to increase hospital beds, to negotiate vaccine supplies, to recruit staff, to fix laws, to print money. The Philippine government has tried to do all this. But the proof is in the damn pudding, so we ask: have we controlled the pandemic? As of this writing most Southeast Asian economies are opening up, and most have ensured their vaccine supplies. But not the Philippines, a country with “open” choices, where everyone’s voice must be heard before action is taken–not the kind of strategy you want in a war. Vietnam, much less wealthy in per capita income, has an extremely small fraction of the Philippine rates, thanks to their vigorous and some would say authoritarian response. Yet Australia, not an authoritarian state, immediately imposed strict border controls and brought an end to community transmission by May 2020. The Philippines dilly dallied on border control, and community transmission remains high in major cities as of March 2021.

Not everyone chose to lockdown. Sweden, didn’t. The death toll has been heavy, but their economy is not battered. When the pandemic ends as it inevitably will countries like Sweden will rebound much better than others like the Philippines.

Choices depend on information. In my own circle, the problem is that people are too informed. There are 11 of us. Everyone is highly educated, has access to the internet and to opinions of all kinds. I get mine from fellow scientists, but there’s this PhD who gets his information from a physician. He says I have to wash up and decontaminate my clothes simply because I had to go out to work. I have never heard this recommendation from other than technicians working with dangerous pathogens. It’s not a recommendation endorsed by the WHO. But in a democracy every voice must be heard, and in our democracy no one argues against the “precautionary principle”. That sums up the Philippine situation.