On the fifth anniversary of the Covid lockdown, the jury is still out as to whether the UK government made the correct call. Was it the right moral decision?

Cast your mind back to late 2019 – a new virus was detected in China that rapidly spread to vast areas of the world. We had never heard of Coronavirus but overnight the deadly disease became part of our everyday conversation. Many millions of people were infected and everywhere people were dying. With no cure in sight and hospitals overrun with patients, panic and despair quickly spread.

It was an unprecedented situation, as administrations across the continent scrambled to respond to the pandemic. In the UK, there was no clear policy at the start, but on 23^rd March 2020 the government ordered the public to stay at home under a population-wide lockdown that was to last almost 18 months.

Five years on, the decision to shut down the country is still a controversial one, and the debate will likely rage on for years to come. Did the UK government act morally in restricting people’s freedom to protect communities? Should it have acted sooner? And were the measures entirely justified?

When we need to make difficult moral choices, it can sometimes be helpful to consider a dilemma in terms of the three different approaches to ethics - Utilitarianism, Deontology and Virtue Ethics. All of morality aims at the same outcome, which is to be a good person and do the right thing. Understanding the three different approaches to getting to that place can help put us in a better position to make the best ethical decision.

Utilitarians focus on the outcome. They believe in the theory invented by Bentham, which is to create the most amount of happiness for the greatest number of people. A Utilitarian would have locked down the whole country to try to stop the virus spreading until a vaccine could be found.

Deontologists believe it is our duty to be selfless and always treat others with respect. The outcome isn’t important - what matters is how we act.  The theory was founded by Immanuel Kant, whose set of rules aims to help us make ethical decisions. A Deontologist would have avoided a lockdown at all costs, appalled by the suggestion of restricting people’s freedom - and the virus would have quickly spiralled out of control.

The third theory, Virtue Ethics, is character based. It was identified by Aristotle, who believed the most important goal in life is happiness. By following Aristotle’s 12 Virtues (to be honest, generous, brave, industrious, witty, just, and so on) we are sure to become morally good people. However, when faced with the conundrum of a lockdown, by the time the Virtue Ethicist had made his mind up, Covid would probably have killed millions more people.

In locking us all down, the UK government chose the Utilitarian path. We all stayed at home to protect the NHS and save lives until an effective vaccine was developed. The outcome was that thousands of lives were lost (according to Statistica.com there were 2,688 Covid-19 UK deaths per million people), but millions more lives were saved. But Utilitarianism is ‘black and white’ because it fails to consider all the potential side effects. As a result of lockdown, our economy fell into a deep recession, resulting in countless businesses closing and causing huge numbers of jobs and livelihoods to be lost. Official figures released by Parliament put the cost of the UK Covid measures at between £310 and £410 billion (the equivalent of about £4,600 to £6,100 per person).

Worse still, was the effect of social distancing on societal wellbeing – anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder, stigmatisation, depression, panic attacks and behavioural changes have left staggering numbers of people across all age groups suffering significant mental health issues. Young people, who lost more than a year of education, were particularly impacted – a study conducted by Oxford University comparing the mental health of UK secondary school pupils who experienced lockdown with a group of pre-pandemic respondents found worsened levels emotional wellbeing. Cases of depression increased by 8.5% (0.3% in the pre-pandemic group), cases of high/very high social, emotional and behavioural issues rose by 7.9% (3.5% in the earlier group) and possible/probable mental health cases increased by 12.8% (versus 4.5% pre-pandemic).

Meanwhile, Sweden took the Deontologist approach, stubbornly staying open to avoid an infringement of human rights. It was an experiment scrutinised and debated by the whole world. Social distancing to a degree was recommended but was not enforced. The problem with Deontology is that sticking to the rules can sometimes blind us to what‘s really going on; before long, Coronavirus had spread throughout every Swedish city and age group.

Yet the gamble paid off - according to Swedish author Johan Norberg - writing in National Review (Online) – his country suffered 2,322 Covid-19 deaths per million people (1,849 as reported by Statistica.com), which was more than in Norway, Denmark and Finland, but fewer than in southern Europe, the UK and the United States. After an initial spike in the number of deaths - notably in nursing homes – this number levelled off and by the end of the pandemic was comparable with other Scandinavian countries. Economically, Sweden suffered less than most other nations - the global economy after 2021 was 2.9% smaller than pre-pandemic forecasts, but by mid-2023, Sweden’s economy had grown by 0.4%. Educationally, the country was also in a better position; Swedish schools had remained open, avoiding the learning loss that lockdown inflicted on schoolchildren in other parts of the world.

The pandemic saw some countries choose to follow the rules of Virtue Ethics; deliberating so long about making the right moral choice, they locked down too late. Writing for bbc.co.uk, Chris Baraniuk cites the decision by former Tanzanian President John Magufuli to dismiss lockdowns and other public health interventions and rejecting vaccines in favour of traditional herbs. Official figures suggest around 840 Tanzanians died of Covid, but international estimates put this at anywhere between 102,000 and 188,000. Whilst Virtue Ethics might teach us about morality, it doesn’t help us make tough moral decisions, and, as Tanzania discovered, it doesn’t save lives.

The UK government’s decision to go into lockdown in March 2020 remains a bone of contention. The Covid-19 inquiry of October 2023 heard conflicting evidence from health experts, some of whom although supportive of lockdown at the time, with hindsight questioned whether the measures were wholly necessary. Professor Mark Woolhouse, University of Edinburgh and a member of the Scientific Pandemic Influenza Group on Modelling told the inquiry that there was not an adequate assessment of the potential negative consequences of a nationwide lockdown.

A recent poll of 15,000 people by Reach PLC found that overall, the UK public supported lockdown, with 61% believing it was the right thing to do and 39% disagreeing. Just under half (49%) of those interviewed felt the lockdown should have happened sooner. Pro-lockdown support was strongest in England (63%) and Wales (62%), with opinions in Northern Ireland divided 50:50 and respondents in Scotland (51%) the least enthusiastic.

We will never know for certain if the policy of lockdown was the right one, or if a different strategy might have saved more lives and had less of a long-term impact on society and the economy. We were living through unprecedented times; the UK government’s Utilitarian decision to order a public lockdown resulted in an outcome that, although far from ideal, significantly reduced the spread of the deadly virus, allowing the crucial window of time needed for a vaccine to be developed.