Politicians must be held to account for mishandling the COVID-19 pandemic, argues a senior editor at the BMJ.
Executive editor, Dr Kamran Abbasi, argues that at the very least, COVID-19 might be classified as 'social murder' that requires redress, defining social murder as a lack of political attention to the conditions in which people are born, grow, live, work and age, that exacerbate the pandemic.
When politicians and experts say that they are willing to allow tens of thousands of premature deaths for the sake of population immunity or in the hope of propping up the economy, is that not premeditated and reckless indifference to human life? Dr Abbasi asks.
If policy failures lead to recurrent and mistimed lockdowns, who is responsible for the resulting non-COVID excess deaths?
And when politicians wilfully neglect scientific advice, international and historical experience, and their own alarming statistics and modelling, because to act goes against their political strategy or ideology, is that lawful?
He acknowledges that any nation’s laws on political misconduct or negligence are complex and not designed to react to unprecedented events, but he says after more than two million deaths, “we must not look on impotently as elected representatives around the world remain unaccountable and unrepentant”.
“Politicians must be held to account by legal and electoral means, indeed by any national and international constitutional means necessary. State failures that led us to two million deaths are "actions" and "inactions" that should shame us all,” Dr Abbasi says.
