IMR Press / RCM / Volume 21 / Issue 4 / DOI: 10.31083/j.rcm.2020.04.274
Open Access News and Views
Pandemic lockdown, healthcare policies and human rights: integrating opposed views on COVID-19 public health mitigation measures
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1 ‘Grigore T. Popa’ University of Medicine and Pharmacy, 700115, Iasi, Romania
2 Department of Interventional Cardiology-Cardiovascular Diseases Institute, 700503, Iasi, Romania
3 Academy of Medical Sciences, 030167, Romania
4 Pulmonology Department, Clinic of Pulmonary Diseases Iasi, 700115, Romania
5 Nephrology Clinic, Dialysis, and Renal Transplant Center-’C.I. Parhon’ Hospital, 700503, Iasi, Romania
6 Faculty of Business and Administration, University of Bucharest, 030018, Romania
7 Panel of Experts on Freedom of Religion or Belief at the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) at OSCE (Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe)
8 Sociology Department, Faculty of Theology, University of Bucharest, 030018, Romania
9 Nursing Department and International Mobility Coordinator, Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Alicante, Carretera de San Vicente del Raspeig, 03690, Alicante, Spain
*Correspondence: accovic@gmail.com (Adrian Covic); iolivp@gmail.com (Iolanda Valentina Popa)
These authors contributed equally.
Rev. Cardiovasc. Med. 2020, 21(4), 509–516; https://doi.org/10.31083/j.rcm.2020.04.274
Submitted: 5 December 2020 | Revised: 9 December 2020 | Accepted: 21 December 2020 | Published: 30 December 2020
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Utilizing Technology in the COVID 19 era)
Copyright: © 2020 Burlacu et al. Published by IMR Press.
This is an open access article under the CC BY 4.0 license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
Abstract

The issue of the COVID-19 pandemic occupies the agenda of the whole world. The pivot of this pandemic is a crucial element that has become almost as important as the virus itself, namely the lockdown. Although, the rationale for lockdown is well-sustained by strong epidemiological arguments, exploring the ‘other’ unwanted consequences of the contemporary COVID-19 pandemic is mandatory for coagulating a robust agreed position against the numerous problems generated by the SARS-CoV-2 virus. Starting from the rationale of the lockdown, in this paper we explored and exposed the other consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic measures such as the use or abuse of human rights and freedom restrictions, economic issues, marginalized groups and eclipse of all other diseases. Our scientific attempt is to coagulate a stable position and integrate current opposing views by advancing the idea that rather than applying the uniform lockdown policy, one could recommend instead an improved model targeting more strict and more prolonged lockdowns to vulnerable risk/age groups while enabling less stringent measures for the lower-risk groups, minimizing both economic losses and deaths. Rigorous (and also governed by freedom) debating may be able to synchronize the opposed perspectives between those advocating an extreme lockdown (e.g., most of the epidemiologists and health experts), and those criticizing all restrictive measures (e.g., economists and human rights experts). Confronting the multiple facets of the public health mitigation measures is the only way to avoid contributing to history with yet another failure, as seen in other past epidemics.

Keywords
COVID-19
lockdown
pandemic
human rights
economic crisis
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