What if governments are more responsible?

 "The euro zone's economic recovery stalled last month as a second wave of coronavirus cases and restrictions imposed to try and contain it whacked activity in the bloc's service industry, pointing to a double-dip recession." reported Reuters. "Alongside their peers, Germany and France  -- the 19-country bloc's two biggest economies -- have imposed tough lockdown measures." "On paper the European economy is snapping back smartly from the pandemic, growing more in the third quarter than it ever had, "wrote Jack Ewing. "Instead of returning to a semblance of normalcy, governments in the European Union, America's largest trading partner, are straining to find ways to support furloughed and unemployed workers, and to keep restaurants and other businesses from going bankrupt." There are other prices to pay. In Britain, "Up to 50,000 cancer cases have gone undiagnosed during the pandemic," a charity reported. "A further 33,000 cancer sufferers are facing delays in starting treatment because of the pandemic, the report said." After an outbreak of Ebola in Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea "people began avoiding healthcare at all costs". "The number of pregnant women seeking help with childbirth was down 80%, vaccination rates plummeted and there were 40% fewer admissions of children with malaria." "While the lockdown approach managed to 'flatten' the curve of new infections, and deaths, in some major Western countries, it failed to exterminate the virus, creating the possibility of a second wave rising from the residue of the first," wrote Prof Vivek Dahejia. It had a devastating effect on economies. "Among major countries, at least democracies, India's situation seems worst of all. Having locked down hard when cases were low, India has reaped a double whirlwind of high infection and mortality rates and of an economy in free fall, having been crippled by its draconian lockdown." Lockdowns are useless, wrote SS Bhalla. "With lockdowns cases were expected to reach their terminal level, perhaps, 10 times higher at 8.8 million? Today, cases are 40 times, and deaths 24 times higher. This has happened during the most intense period of lockdowns and controls around the world. These are not statistics about even partial success; rather indicators of massive failure." "Asia Pacific is set to recover from its worst recession in living memory, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) says. Growth forecasts for the region have been downgraded again, this time from -1.6% to -2.2% this year." So, what are people dying of? The virus or governments?