Pandemic has turned out to be a test of the immune response of our democratic organs

The Guardian, Wednesday:

The (UK) government has deliberately stoked fear over coronavirus while behaving like an authoritarian regime relying on police state tactics, according to the former supreme court justice Jonathan Sumption … The outspoken lawyer condemned the way “the British state exercised coercive powers over its citizens on a scale never previously attempted” … “The ease with which people could be terrorised into surrendering basic freedoms which are fundamental to our existence … came as a shock to me in March 2020. I do not doubt the seriousness of the epidemic, but I believe that history will look back on the measures taken to contain it as a monument of collective hysteria.”

Adam Creighton, The Australian, May 19:

These sorts of benefits (from working at home under lockdown) have tended to flow to a fortunate minority, especially public servants and corporate elites. James Stratton, an Australian economist at Harvard, recently estimated that about two-fifths of jobs in Australia could be performed at home, and not all of them well. “Lower-income Australians, less-­educated Australians, and rural Australians are more likely to be in occupations that cannot feasibly be performed from home,” he said.

More from The Guardian:

Sage, the government’s panel of expert scientific advisers (Sumption said), had this year noted: “Citizens should be treated as rational actors, capable of taking decisions for themselves and managing personal risk.” That warning, Sumption said, had been ignored. Announcing the first lockdown, the health secretary, Matt Hancock, had indulged in a “bluff”, Sumption said. “Even on the widest view of the legislation the government had no power to give such ­orders without making statutory regulations. No such regulations existed until 1pm on 26 March, three days after the announcement.” The government’s behaviour, Sumption told his audience, was characterised by “a cavalier disregard for the limits of their legal powers”.

Joe Hildebrand, news.com.au, ­August 8:

Melbourne has become a tale of two cities. In the progressive and affluent inner suburbs there is a devotional adherence to mask-wearing and shop-shutting that borders on zealotry — to the point where commentators are writing public love letters to the Premier and chief health officer.

The Washington Post, September 15:

Detractors call him “Dictator Dan”. Supporters declare, on social media, #IStandWithAndrews. (Andrews) is responsible for inflicting upon them some of the most stringent pandemic-control measures on Earth … Throughout the lockdown, Andrews’s government has responded to isolated acts of defiance with displays of force. Public demonstrations, and encouraging others to participate in them, have been declared illegal. Some workers have arranged clandestine meetings with colleagues in supermarkets.

More Creighton, October 18:

The Great Lockdown of 2020 illustrates how easily we can be spooked into a kind of health fascism, where basic individual rights are sacrificed to the greater health collective, without the slightest ­attempt at a justification, amid fearmongering propaganda and censorship. Anyone who wants to mind their own business and get on with life, making their own risk assessments, is vilified as selfish. Supporters of a police state and health fascism are seen as caring.