I find it curious that, in general, those who might describe themselves as being on the left or progressive tend to be avidly pro-lockdown.

However, lockdowns are completely regressive in nature and should be an anathema to this group.

Thread time.

When it comes to policies which are vital to help uplift the poorest and most vulnerable in society, most would agree that these policies would include:
* Education
* Healthcare
* Joblessness
* Social security spend

In all four of these areas, lockdowns predictability have had a devastating impact, and that impact is disproportionately felt by the most vulnerable (i.e. it's regressive)

Education:

Millions of children in South Africa have now missed months of education, and the poorest children simply received no education while schools were closed while wealthier schools could largely continue with effective teaching remotely, for older kids in particular.

There is no doubt therefore that kids in wealthier schools and households have been able to progress with their education while others have stagnated, if not regressed. Add to this that millions of kids missed meals at school that their relied on, and it's a double whammy.

Healthcare:

In SA we have a very high disease burden without Covid. Both HIV and TB combined kill north of 100k people every year.

Yet it's also true that these diseases disproportionately impact the poorest in South Africa.

We know that lockdown and focus on Covid has meant that TB and HIV outcomes will worsen in the coming years. Again it's the poor who will pay the price of this.

Joblessness:

We know hundreds of thousands of jobs have been lost (if not millions), many of which won't return quickly.

Which jobs though? Again these job losses skew to the lower earners, not the well paid professionals, academics or civil servants.

Simply put, this means that the ranks of the poor and vulnerable will swell.

Social Security Spending:

We have close to 20 million recipients of social grants - the most vulnerable, as it should be. The money to fund this does not come from thin air, and this lockdown has turned an economic fender bender into an economic train smash.

Our government is going broke. Should we reach this point, how will we be able to fund needed social grants when that happens?

Destroying the economy by locking it down will mean significant lower tax receipts and ballooning budget deficits. Not good for the poor.

One argument might be that these "unintended" consequences of lockdown weren't predictable. But that is BS. Simply thinking through second order effects at the time made these outcomes as clear as day.

It actually makes me angry when I see tweets like this from our NICD who feign surprise at these outcomes.

Either they knew this would happen, and didn't give a sh*t, or they are so utterly and grossly incompetent that they couldn't see it coming. https://twitter.com/nicd_sa/status/1306934008375382019?s=19

So this begs the question: there is no doubt that lockdowns are regressive and the poor are going to pay the biggest portion of the price - yet those who are loudly "pro-poor" are also generally loudly "pro-lockdown"

How do these reconcile?

Is it hubris? Or rather an inability to predict these rather predictable outcomes?

Or worse, is it blatant hypocrisy? Do those shouting the loudest for the poor simply crave increasing power and control and these tendencies make lockdowns look very appealing?

I suppose it doesn't help that lockdowns actually have no upside for Covid. In fact I think there's a better than even chance that the studies to come will show that lockdowns in places like SA, Peru, Bolivia (etc) caused more Covid death than otherwise.

I'm certainly not anti-poor, but I do disagree with the progressive approach to combatting poverty.

However, surely we can both agree that kicking the most vulnerable when they are down isn't a good strategy.