The World Health Organization's recent warning against coronavirus lockdowns is a happy turnaround for the United Nations-backed organization, Fox News medical contributor Dr. Marc Siegel told “Tucker Carlson Tonight” Monday.
Dr. David Nabarro, the WHO director general’s special envoy, said last week that the global body "do not advocate lockdowns as the primary means of control of this virus.
“The only time we believe a lockdown is justified is to buy you time to reorganize, regroup, rebalance your resources, protect your health workers who are exhausted, but by and large, we’d rather not do it," Nabarro added.
“I'm very happy today to see Dr. Nabarro come out and say, 'Look, lockdowns can help a little bit as you regroup, or if your health coworkers are exhausted,'" Siegel reacted. "But the cost is enormous and they should not be a primary strategy.
WHO WARNS AGAINST COVID-19 LOCKDOWNS DUE TO ECONOMIC DAMAGE
“Stick to your masking and your distancing," he added. "I'm so happy to see this turnaround."
American businesses have been demolished by nationwide lockdowns. According to the National Restaurant Association, 100,000 restaurants have closed as of September 2020 while 40% claim they won’t survive the next few months under the same conditions.
“It's going to be a major economic disaster just in terms of restaurants,” said Siegel, who relayed a message of reassurance to a restaurant owner in Killgore, Texas who has experienced severe depression as a result of her bar and grill struggling to reopen amid lockdowns.
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“We know now and we're learning that the fear from COVID -- that the damage, the side effects not from COVID but from the lockdowns -- is worse potentially than COVID itself,” he said. “Hang in there. We're on it. I hope we can focus on the lockdown damage, not just on COVID."