They thought their coronavirus strategy was successful, and they could begin lifting lockdowns that had stifled public and commercial life.
They were wrong.
This week, Lebanon, Algeria, and Saudi Arabia were among the nations that made wrenching decisions to reimpose lockdowns after lifting them only to experience fresh surges in coronavirus infections.
As nations ease curfews, lift stay-at-home orders, and allow business to reopen, the reversals carry a stark and dismaying warning for nations that put in place measures to keep the coronavirus pandemic from spreading.
The U-turns, which follow renewals of pandemic restrictions in Singapore and South Korea, paint a picture of how the next few months play out for many countries seeking to ease quarantine measures.
But they also underscore the dangers for politicians and public health officials who need trust of the general public to gain their compliance.
“You don’t want to open up your country at the wrong moment,” John Paget, epidemiologist at the Netherlands Institute for Health Services Research told the Independent. “The risk is that you lose public trust. You cannot cry wolf too many times. This is about keeping trust between the politicians, experts and the public. You have to be careful about making these calls.”
Re-imposing lockdowns after they have been eased might be an inevitable recurrence in the coming months as nations fine tune their strategies to lower coronavirus infection rates and prevent crises at medical facilities.
Nations are eager to remove lockdown measures to jump-start economies, especially in developing nations such as Algeria or Lebanon which have weak social safety nets and histories of political unrest.
But such backtracking might damage the economy even worse than the original lockdowns, potentially pushing twice-bitten businesspeople and institutions to permanently fire employees and shut down for good, and encouraging customers and users to permanently change habits, as well as foment the kind of unpredictability that spooks investors.
“This is what we all fear – a vicious cycle of public health disaster followed by economic disaster followed by public health disaster followed by economic disaster,” said Michael Ryan, executive director of the World Health Organisation’s emergency team in response to a question by The Independent.
“The very worst thing that can happen is if we come out of the lockdown and don’t do the health part right and then we go back into another lockdown,” he said. “That has more danger for the economic system than it has for the health system.”
In Algeria, a nation of 42 million with nearly 6,000 confirmed cases and more than 500 deaths, authorities ordered clothing, shoe, pastry shops and hair salons to shutter just days after letting them reopen. Officials also extended lockdown measures due to expire on Thursday until the end of May.
You don’t want to open up your country at the wrong moment. The risk is that you lose public trust. You cannot cry wolf too many times.
John Paget, epidemiologist at the Netherlands Institute for Health Services Research
Officials said customers and business operators were failing to abide by social distancing measures.
“Some behaviour that may take us back is to be avoided,” prime minister Abdelaziz Djerrad said on Tuesday.
After easing measures for just a few days, Lebanon has reimposed a full four-day lockdown beginning Wednesday night after a spike in cases attributed to nationals coming home from abroad. The authorities are widely expected to extend the shutdown for at least two weeks.
No one is allowed to leave their homes except for short shopping jaunts to supermarkets and pharmacies.
The measures have crippled businesses that were already struggling through an unprecedented financial crisis that predated the coronavirus and has seen the currency lose more than half its value as well as food prices soar.
With just minutes left before the curfew began, shop owners in central Beirut who had tentatively opened after two gruelling months of no business, pulled their shutters down saying the second lockdown “was the end”.
“We thought this was the moment we could finally breathe,” said Mariam, 53, who runs a sweet and ice cream shop in a residential neighbourhood. “With no customers for two months, and with food prices rising, it will be hard to re-open again.”
People shop at a supermarket as they begin to stock up on provisions, in Beirut, Lebanon (AP)
Saudi Arabia, which had begun to ease restrictions, declared a full four-day lockdown coinciding with Eid holidays marking the end of the fasting month of Ramadan in late May as cases of coronavirus failed to recede.
After reopening schools and mosques, Iran earlier this week reimposed lockdown measures in the southwest province of Khuzestan after a 60 per cent spike in cases. Officials attributed the rise to a failure to abide by social distancing rules, according to the semi-official Tasnim news agency.
All this follows newly imposed restrictions in the capital of South Korea, which was widely praised for its coronavirus response, after an outbreak linked to Seoul nightclubs caused 119 new infections.
Public health officials have been for weeks warning that most authorities are flying blind in uncharted territory, and will likely be forced to repeatedly reimpose restrictions on public life amid fresh outbreaks until a vaccine is found
Silicon Valley management expert Tomas Puevo described it as “the hammer and the dance,” tough lockdowns meant to suppress the damaging effects of the virus followed by periods of easing to allow commerce and public life to resume.
“It’s just trial and error,” said Mr Paget. “At the moment it’s a kind of tweaking. The question is, is this going to be a one-year or 18-month scenario or is this a two- or three-year scenario.”
A report by epidemiologists at the University of Minnesota warned “we must be prepared for at least another 18 to 24 months of significant Covid-19 activity, with hot spots popping up periodically in diverse geographic areas.”
Countries that have inadequate testing resources are even more vulnerable to unexpected spikes in cases. Algeria, for example, has managed to conduct only 6,000 tests at 20 facilities in a nation that is Africa’s largest by land mass.
“The time of serious lockdown should be used to prepare for extensive testing,” said Nassim Assefi, a public health expert based in Morocco. Once the rate of transmission is less than one person per infection, “a phased approach to opening can be considered, starting with most crucial services and ending with those events and services that lead to highest spreading,” she said.
Health officials say policymakers eager to convince people to abide by stay-at-home orders have failed to adequately explain the nature of the pandemic to the public. Few seem to have absorbed the agonising reality of the coming months and the dangers that persist even when lockdown measures are eased.
“Far too many officials and journalists are promulgating… the extremely dangerous myth that we locked ourselves down in order to ride out the pandemic, and pretty soon the crisis will be over and as long as we’re careful and dutiful and reasonable, we can come out again in relative safety,” said a paper recently published by epidemiologists at the University of Minnesota.
“Any statement claiming or implying that what we have endured so far is more than a preliminary round in the fight against Covid-19 should be rebutted,” it said.
In fact the biggest challenge may come during the next winter in the northern hemisphere. Mr Paget warns that few seem to grasp what may be in store once the next flu season begins – unless a vaccine is developed and quickly distributed.
“The big interesting trial and error experiment will be during the winter, when all these different respiratory viruses pop up and we’re probably going to have Covid circulating at the same time,” he said. “Then there will be panic, and governments will introduce much stronger measures.”
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