it is a balancing act but unintended effects should be admitted and noted.
Indians Forced Into Quarantine Are Dying in Lockdown—but Not From Coronavirus
It is only a balancing act in impoverished nations such as India, and in nations without national health care or adequate unemployment insurance such as the U.S. NO ONE is dying under lockdown in Italy, Japan or Korea. Not one person in those countries lacks food. Not one person lacks health insurance. The governments make certain of that.
If anyone suffers in the U.S. for lack of food, it is because we are governed by callous idiots. We have the most food of any country. It is going to waste. Farmers are pouring out milk, and destroying eggs and crops, just as they did during the Great Depression. As FDR said in 1933, "Plenty is at our doorstep, but a generous use of it languishes in the very sight of the supply." This is totally unnecessary. It is mass suffering for no reason. The government could easily borrow money now, give people food stamps, and collect the money so used in taxes next year after a vaccine ends the crisis.
There is NO NEED FOR ANY BALANCING ACT in first world countries. No one needs to suffer physically from hunger, lack of heating, or homelessness. We can easily afford to prevent these things. If we fail to prevent them, it is not because of the disease. It is because we are very, very stupid.
"deaths recorded due to starvation, exhaustion, police brutality, delayed medical help, or suicides due to loss of income or lack of food."
"Within hours of the lockdown coming into effect, there were already reports of thousands of migrant workers who were left without work, food or shelter
Nothing like that is happening in Japan or the EU. In the U.S., illegal migrant workers are actually doing better, in a way. Before the epidemic, the Trump administration was trying to capture and deport them. It did not want them to work. Now, it has ordered them to go back to work in dangerous meatpacking plants. That's sort of an improvement. I guess.
If we do start seeing "starvation, exhaustion, police brutality, delayed medical help, or suicides" it will be our own damn fault. These will not be caused by the disease, but by our reaction to the disease. By our inability to govern ourselves, or act rationally. It will resemble the so-called "energy crisis." We imagine there is some lack of energy in the U.S. That's absurd. The U.S. could easily supply the entire world with energy using a fraction of the wind resources in North Dakota and South Dakota and solar power in Arizona. We could be making trillions of dollars in profit, and we could put OPEC and Russia out of business. But instead of doing that, we are helping them price-fix oil. The energy crisis has nothing to do with energy or physics. It is entirely caused by ignorance and stupidity, and it could have -- and should have -- been fixed decades ago. Energy should be far cheaper than it is.
It sure seems to me that it is wrong to say that lockdowns never cause deaths.
No one says that. Obviously they cause deaths in third world countries. That has been widely reported in the news. We say they do not need to cause deaths, or hunger, in first world countries. We can easily afford to feed everyone. Food is a small fraction of the GDP in any first world country.
The problem is much more complex that some are willing to admit.
On the contrary, the problem could not be easier to fix. Many problems caused by the pandemic are difficult, but feeding everyone is dead simple. Just increase food stamps (SNAP) and the problem goes away. Instantly. For sure. There is no need to open up food kitchens or emergency distribution points, or public school kitchens. That is wasteful, and inefficient. It is unhealthy. People are standing in lines, or in cars, for hours. The food is not shipped, stocked or preserved properly. Grocery stores do a much better job of distributing food than these ad hoc places.