IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ems/eureri/127236.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

For the Greater Good? The Devastating Ripple Effects of the Lockdown Measures

Author

Listed:
  • Schippers, M.C.

Abstract

As the crisis around Covid-19 evolves, it becomes clear that there are numerous negative side- effects of the lockdown strategies implemented by many countries. Currently, more evidence becomes available that the lockdowns may have more negative effects than positive effects. For instance, many measures taken in a lockdown aimed at protecting human life may compromise the immune system, and purpose in life, especially of vulnerable groups. This leads to the paradoxical situation of compromising the immune system and physical and mental health of many people, including the ones we aim to protect. Also, it is expected that hundreds of millions of people will die from hunger and postponed medical treatments. Other side effects include financial insecurity of billions of people, physical and mental health problems, and increased inequalities. The economic and health repercussions of the crisis will be falling disproportionately on young workers, low-income families and women, and thus exacerbate existing inequalities. As the virus outbreak and media coverage spread fear and anxiety, superstition, cognitive dissonance reduction and conspiracy theories are ways to find meaning and reduce anxiety. These behavioral aspects may play a role in the continuance of lockdown decisions. Based on theories regarding agnotology (i.e. the ways ignorance or doubt about certain topics is created by means of withholding or presenting information in a certain way), social influence, superstition and stress and coping, I seek to explain the social and behavioral aspects of human behavior in times of crises. Both the Covid-19 crisis itself as well as the resulting economic and (mental) health crisis are global problems that may require global solutions. I present a model of drivers and outcomes of lockdown behaviors and offer suggestions and a tool to counteract the negative psychological effects by means of online life crafting therapeutic writing interventions.

Suggested Citation

  • Schippers, M.C., 2020. "For the Greater Good? The Devastating Ripple Effects of the Lockdown Measures," ERIM Report Series Research in Management ERS-2020-004-LIS, Erasmus Research Institute of Management (ERIM), ERIM is the joint research institute of the Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University and the Erasmus School of Economics (ESE) at Erasmus University Rotterdam.
    • Handle: RePEc:ems:eureri:127236
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://repub.eur.nl/pub/127236/ERS-2020-004_v04.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Benjamin Born & Alexander M Dietrich & Gernot J Müller, 2021. "The lockdown effect: A counterfactual for Sweden," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 16(4), pages 1-13, April.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Jessica S. Klaver & Wim Lambrechts, 2021. "The Pandemic of Productivity: A Narrative Inquiry into the Value of Leisure Time," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(11), pages 1-22, June.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Kim, Dongwoo & Lee, Young Jun, 2022. "Vaccination strategies and transmission of COVID-19: Evidence across advanced countries," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 82(C).
    2. Francesca Caselli & Matilde Faralli & Paolo Manasse & Ugo Panizza, 2021. "On the Benefits of Repaying," IMF Working Papers 2021/233, International Monetary Fund.
    3. Darcy W. E. Allen & Chris Berg & Sinclair Davidson & Jason Potts, 2022. "On Coase and COVID-19," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 54(1), pages 107-125, August.
    4. Hinterlang, Natascha & Moyen, Stephane & Röhe, Oke & Stähler, Nikolai, 2023. "Gauging the effects of the German COVID-19 fiscal stimulus package," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 154(C).
    5. Kristina Gligorić & Arnaud Chiolero & Emre Kıcıman & Ryen W. White & Robert West, 2022. "Population-scale dietary interests during the COVID-19 pandemic," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 13(1), pages 1-14, December.
    6. Oum, Tae Hoon & Wang, Kun, 2020. "Socially optimal lockdown and travel restrictions for fighting communicable virus including COVID-19," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 96(C), pages 94-100.
    7. Steffen Juranek & Jörg Paetzold & Hannes Winner & Floris Zoutman, 2021. "Labor market effects of COVID‐19 in Sweden and its neighbors: Evidence from administrative data," Kyklos, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 74(4), pages 512-526, November.
    8. Malo, Miguel, 2020. "Una reflexión sobre las primeras respuestas de política al impacto del Covid-19 sobre el empleo [A reflection on the first mitigating policies of the impact of Covid-19 on employment]," MPRA Paper 104390, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    9. Bardey, David & Fernandez Sierra, Manuel & Gravel, Alexis, 2021. "Coronavirus and Social Distancing: Do Non-Pharmaceutical-Interventions Work (at Least) in the Short Run?," IZA Discussion Papers 14095, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    10. Hensvik, Lena & Le Barbanchon, Thomas & Rathelot, Roland, 2021. "Job search during the COVID-19 crisis," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 194(C).
    11. Michael König & Adalbert Winkler, 2020. "COVID-19 and Economic Growth: Does Good Government Performance Pay Off?," Intereconomics: Review of European Economic Policy, Springer;ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics;Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS), vol. 55(4), pages 224-231, July.
    12. Roy Cerqueti & Raffaella Coppier & Alessandro Girardi & Marco Ventura, 2022. "The sooner the better: lives saved by the lockdown during the COVID-19 outbreak. The case of Italy [Using synthetic controls: Feasibility, data requirements, and methodological aspects]," The Econometrics Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 25(1), pages 46-70.
    13. Bartscher, Alina Kristin & Seitz, Sebastian & Siegloch, Sebastian & Slotwinski, Michaela & Wehrhöfer, Nils, 2021. "Social capital and the spread of covid-19: Insights from european countries," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 80(C).
    14. Klyver, Kim & Nielsen, Suna Løwe, 2021. "Which crisis strategies are (expectedly) effective among SMEs during COVID-19?," Journal of Business Venturing Insights, Elsevier, vol. 16(C).
    15. Aspri, Andrea & Beretta, Elena & Gandolfi, Alberto & Wasmer, Etienne, 2021. "Mortality containment vs. Economics Opening: Optimal policies in a SEIARD model," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 93(C).
    16. Mike Tsionas & Mikael A. Martins & Almas Heshmati, 2023. "Effects of the vaccination and public support on covid-19 cases and number of deaths in Sweden," Operational Research, Springer, vol. 23(3), pages 1-28, September.
    17. Bibek Adhikari, 2022. "A Guide to Using the Synthetic Control Method to Quantify the Effects of Shocks, Policies, and Shocking Policies," The American Economist, Sage Publications, vol. 67(1), pages 46-63, March.
    18. Chiara Latour & Franco Peracchi & Giancarlo Spagnolo, 2022. "Assessing alternative indicators for Covid-19 policy evaluation, with a counterfactual for Sweden," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 17(3), pages 1-18, March.
    19. Michael König & Adalbert Winkler, 2021. "COVID-19: Lockdowns, Fatality Rates and GDP Growth," Intereconomics: Review of European Economic Policy, Springer;ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics;Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS), vol. 56(1), pages 32-39, January.
    20. Eiji Yamamura & Youki Koska & Yoshiro Tsutsui & Fumio Ohtake, 2022. "Effect of the COVID-19 vaccine on preventive behaviors: Evidence from Japan," Papers 2203.07660, arXiv.org.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ems:eureri:127236. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: RePub (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/erimanl.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.