Current debates on an #exitstrategy follow a broader pattern. Thread

There are 2 options:

- Strict lockdown until the virus is under control (R0 low, infections low), then open, test & trace
- Reopen sooner, then engage in a permanent balancing act to keep infections at R0~1

Most Asian countries chose option 1, let's call it 'suppress and control'

Most European and American countries head towards option 2 - say: ‘mitigate and adapt’ – by designing strategies to reopen parts of the economy quickly

Opening now means accepting to live with the virus.

To be clear, the strategy ‘mitigate and adapt’ implies:

- we accept more deaths in retirement homes, to have less unemployed
- we restrict social & cultural life durably, to reopen ‘the economy’ a few weeks earlier

There are interesting parallels to other political fields

Climate change:

Instead of an early, strict ban on fossil fuel combustion & trade, policy focused on ‘mitigation’, i.e. keeping temperature increase below ‘dangerous’ levels (1.5-2°C), while adapting to impacts.

Result: oil majors still drill, and we live in a warming world.

Pesticides:

Instead of banning pesticides when health consequences became obvious, regulators defined thresholds for individual substances.

Result: Industrial agriculture uses ever more pesticides, and we live in an increasingly ‘toxic world’ https://www.berghahnbooks.com/title/BoudiaPowerless

In all cases, we accept new risks – living with the virus, with climate change, with chemical hazards – so that ‘the economy’, or certain industries, can continue largely unconstrained.

These choices are often naturalized, when they should be subject to democratic debate

@EnlivenmentNow @pwatkinson @picharbonnier @MaximCombes @nathalie_jas @Edouard_Morena