We are entering week three of the official lockdowns in the FCT and Ogun. Week four if you are in Lagos. A couple of days elsewhere in the country. As the president announced the extension of the lockdown last weekend, many expressed their frustration. On the one hand there are many who essentially cannot afford to sit at home for a month. Many people, especially those without formal jobs in urban centres, depend on their daily income to survive. Even many of those with regular jobs do not have enough savings to survive for a month especially in the face potential layoffs from struggling businesses. Then there are those who can afford to stay home but who live in fear of crime and social unrest. Then there are those who, although they live outside the locked down zones, depend on the economies of Lagos and Ogun for their survival. Then there are the mental health issues from having to stay at home for weeks. Whichever way you spin it there are significant costs to the lockdown and many valid reasons to be frustrated.
But if a complete lockdown is on one end of the scale then doing nothing is on the other. And doing nothing can be deadly. I have not been privileged enough to see any of the epidemiological models on the estimated number of deaths without a lockdown or similar action, but assuming the virus spreads and given our population, the number of deaths can quickly get out of hand. Given our population the number of deaths could very easily amount to millions. To put things in context, this COVID-19 is not the first global pandemic that has hit the country. Between 1918 and 1919 Spanish flu swept across the country killing almost two hundred thousand people. Keep in mind that our population back then was somewhere between eight and nine million. The equivalent number of deaths given our current population is over four million. Guaranteed COVID-19 does not seem to be as transmissible or as fatal as the Spanish flu but even at that, the potential number of deaths from the virus spreading out of control is still unimaginable, and probably still in the millions.
For context since its inception over a decade ago, boko haram has killed just about 70,000 people according to the Nigeria Security Tracker. Malaria, one of the major killers in the country, killed less than 100,000 people in the decade between 2005 and 2015, the last years for which data is available. This COVID-19 if left unchecked, has the potential for the highest casualty rate for any incident in Nigeria since the civil war. This is not to trivialize any of the other negative consequences from the lockdowns but none of those come anywhere close to the potential disaster if COVID-19 spreads out of control.
Of course, real life is not that binary. The choices are not only between total lockdown and unrestricted spread. There is a lot in between with every country trying to figure out what works for them and what risks they can take. Some have gone the full lockdown route. Others have done a partial lockdown. Others have tried to lockdown vulnerable populations while preaching social distancing. Others have also suggested curfews as a potential middle ground. Then there are things which can be done to ease some of the pain caused by the lockdown. From cash transfers, to direct food distribution, there are a range of options. And finally, fighting the pandemic is not just about keeping people home but involves other things like testing and tracing contacts and so on.
As you know Nigeria has chosen the partial lockdown path and it is difficult to fault that choice. Yes, you can argue about the implementation and yes, you can argue that more can be done to ease the pain from the lockdown, but it is difficult to argue against the lockdown itself, just because of the potential for disaster. No doubt there is some hypothetical better middle ground between lockdowns and freedom that, given enough time and resources, we can try to figure out. Until then, as with most questions of public health, it is best to err on the side of caution.
NONSO OBIKILI
Dr. Nonso Obikili is chief economist at BusinessDay.
