Mitigation is the new suppression. Where weeks ago many Western governments deemed it enough to isolate those with Covid-19, now they are closing down societies and producing scenes that few in the BC (Before Coronavirus) era imagined would ever be seen outside of films. Factories and offices are shuttered, stadiums and cinemas gather dust, trains and buses run empty or not at all. The streets of the world’s major cities now exist in a permanent dawn-state, silent but for the occasional car, delivery van, solitary pedestrian or jogger. The police break up groups in parks and stop people to demand a reason why they have left home.
Following Boris Johnson’s announcement on 23 March of a lockdown, even Britain – once the trailblazer for a more laissez-faire “mitigation” path – has joined the ranks of countries imposing harsh suppression measures. This is probably the only way: at the time of writing the rates of contagion in Italy and Austria, among the first European countries to introduce lockdowns, are finally slowing. Such measures have been integral in those east Asian states – China, Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan – that have somewhat contained the spread.
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