These are strange times. From left to right, no one quite knows what to do or who to believe. While the rapid spread of the coronavirus has rendered many of us bewildered and confused, the edict to physically distance ourselves from others has managed to highlight both just how vulnerable and interdependent we all are.  These are also extremely dangerous times. This is true not only, or even primarily, due to the deaths COVID-19 has caused, but rather due to the policies our governments are introducing or refusing to introduce.

As far as we know, physical distancing is very likely the most appropriate response to this pandemic. Yet this distancing is also facilitating an economic meltdown. This conundrum is at the crux of the current crisis – and perhaps also causing much of the bewilderment – since the best remedy for the outbreak itself produces dire effects, potentially much more harmful than those of the virus. In order to mitigate such grim consequences, then, physical distancing must be countered with government social solidarity policies.

But as governments attempt to address the pandemic, we are beginning to witness a twofold approach characterised by governmental overreach on the one hand and by insufficient governmental reach on the other. Both approaches are likely to have a dramatic effect on basic human rights for hundreds of millions of people. Indeed, it is no hyperbole to say that more people will suffer and even die as a result of the way governments choose to handle the crisis than from contracting the virus.

At the time of publication of this paper, there have been 334,981 confirmed cases of COVID-19, and over 14,652 deaths across more than 190 areas or territories on all inhabited continents.[1] The World Health Organisation (WHO) has designated the disease a pandemic. This is a challenging time for countries trying to respond to the spread of the virus, inter-governmental and non-governmental actors supporting their efforts, and most of all for the people and health care workers in affected countries who have faced, or risk, exposure to COVID-19…

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