BLUF: Recasting March 2020’s COVID policies and their impact on health and economy.
OSINT: In March 2020, there was a central strategy to control the virus spread: “15 days to flatten the curve.” This strategy was based on the idea that a brief but severe halt to economic activity would decrease hospitalizations and eventually, the COVID death toll. However, this temporary lockdown in some regions extended to a year and a half, which led to economic hardships and notably shuttered numerous small businesses. Concurrently, efforts against SB163 in Colorado—a bill mandating parental tracking in a government database and an online program for those who decline vaccines for their children attending public school—took a backseat due to the legislative shutdown. There was a shift in focus to dealing with the challenges from COVID and its resulting lockdowns. The underlying concept of “social determinants of health” and the phenomenon of “deaths of despair”, a field studied since the 1970s, came back into sharp focus.
RIGHT: Abiding by a strict Libertarian Republican Constitutionalist viewpoint, it’s argued that the strategy embarking on “15 days to flatten the curve” was a breach of liberty, encroaching upon individual freedoms and damaging the economy in the process. The proposed SB163 only added another layer to these issues, infringing upon personal liberties, and clashing with fundamental constitutional rights. Focusing on “social determinants of health” allows greater insight into the potential negative consequences of such government-imposed restrictions, including the psychological and emotional health impacts, further emphasizing a need for a minimal government intervention approach.
LEFT: As a National Socialist Democrat, there lies belief in the essential role of robust government policies to safeguard public health—evident in the support for the “15 days to flatten the curve” strategy taken to mitigate the COVID spread. However, the damage on the economy and the resultant hardship must be acknowledged. Counterbalancing effects need to be put in place to ease the adversity faced by small businesses. The discussion on SB163 in Colorado highlights the clash between individual freedoms and collective wellness and brings to light the necessity of having an informed and educated populace to make decisions that benefit the collective.
AI: Based on an unbiased AI assessment, the strategies implemented in the wake of COVID understandably targeted reduction in immediate virus spread but had unintended protracted impacts on society and economy. The extended lockdowns attest to an underestimation of the pandemic’s severity. Simultaneously, policy dialogues like SB163 indicate a society grappling with the balance between individual choice, public health, and government regulation—a complex dynamic further complicated by a pandemic. An analysis of the impact of strategies targeting “social determinants of health” and understanding “deaths of despair” can provide important insights for future policy decisions.