Was lockdown life worth living?

"Abstract: Lockdowns in Australia have been strict and lengthy. Policy-makers appear to have given the preservation of quantity of lives strong priority over the preservation of quality of lives ... In this paper, I'll discuss both negative impacts on quantity of lives caused by the lockdowns themselves, including an increase in domestic violence, and negative impacts on quality of lives caused by lockdowns ...

Domestic abuse ... Lockdowns not only give abusers more control over their victims, but also make it harder for victims to escape or turn to their regular networks for support. It was already well-known, prior to lockdowns, that ‘Domestic violence goes up whenever families spend more time together, such as the Christmas and summer vacations’, and that ‘abusers are more likely to murder their partners and others in the wake of personal crises, including lost jobs or major financial setbacks’. These personal crises are made more frequent by the COVID-19 pandemic and the policy measures responding to it. [Taub 2020] criticizes governments for their failure ‘to prepare for the way the new public health measures would create opportunities for abusers to terrorize their victims’ ...

Work & financial stress ... All of those affected by job losses or reduced hours are likely to have expenses—rent or mortgages, bills, food and other essential goods. This is a significant source of stress, worrying about how to make payments ...

Increased incidence, frequency, or severity of stress may then be expected to correspond to increases in these negative health impacts, so to the degree that lockdowns are responsible for increasing stress, they should also be attributed the relevant proportional increase in the disease burden ...

Food and alcohol ... In a global survey of 22,008 people aged 16–74 across 30 countries, administered between October and November 2020, Australia had the dubious honour of coming first in the world for increased alcohol consumption under COVID-19 restrictions ... 12% of Australians drank every day, more than half of the people whose drinking increased during lockdown continued drinking at higher levels after lockdown ended, and 37% said they intended to maintain this practice. The key drivers of this change were stress, home-schooling, anxiety, and unemployment ... 

Apart from these more serious negatives, lockdowns also simply caused a huge loss in specific pleasures—the pleasures of meeting friends, spending time with extended family, going out: to restaurants, cafes, bars, the cinema, the theatre, comedy shows, concerts, sports games, and other kinds of events; going out in nature, on hikes, to mountains, to the beach. Many of the things we think contribute to meaningful lives were prevented, disrupted, put on hold: making new friends (e.g. when starting university, or a new job), dating, strengthening or solidifying relationships with extended family, with existing friends, with colleagues (difficult if not impossible to accomplish by Zoom or Teams). Even for someone without the negatives of financial stress, or family or relationship stress, spending 19 months at home, only going out for an hour or so of exercise or grocery shopping, is a life without many positives. The uncertainty of when lockdown would end, and the continually frustrated expectations of an end (with ever-extending deadlines), also disrupted hope ..."