New US lockdowns are a gross overreaction

For those with a taste for irony, this July 4 weekend will be one to remember. As Britons are finally liberated from months of lockdown tyranny, declaring their independence from imposed confinement with a pint in a pub, here in the former colonies the national holiday will be commemorated with renewed restrictions, tightened controls on movement and stern demands from our rulers to stay home. States that had emerged from lockdown in the spring are now responding to a resurgence in Covid-19 cases with a return to incarceration. In Texas, gyms, bars and restaurants that had been open for the past month have just been closed again. In the desert heat of Arizona the governor announced this week that there will be no going back to water parks for at least a month. In the past week total cases in the US have surged to more than 40,000 a day, the highest number since the virus first hit the country in the late winter, and so a growing number of states are reimposing restrictive measures. The economic and political ramifications of a renewed lockdown are far-reaching. If the new lockdown is an extended one, the damage to businesses that have managed to limp through the past few months could be terminal. President Trump, besieged by a summer of disease, disorder and depression, and seemingly unable to take his foot out of his mouth on any topic, had been counting, increasingly desperately, on a return to some kind of normality in time for November’s election. That may be elusive.