Thread by @bopinion

🇫🇷France, 🇬🇧the U.K. and 🇪🇸Spain are currently facing a triple threat:

➡️Jump in cases
➡️Population exhausted by lockdown-induced recession
➡️Rising resistance to tougher measures trib.al/4FvDHoM

Protesters have taken to the streets of:

🇫🇷Marseille
🇪🇸Madrid
🇩🇪Berlin
🇬🇧London

Those protesting shouldn’t be dismissed as the selfish exceptions to the rule. Beyond the vocal minority, there are signs the silent majority are also losing faith trib.al/4FvDHoM

Respect for mask-wearing & hand-washing is high, but support for self-isolation appears to be wavering.

In France, the number of people who support quarantining those who’ve had contact with infected patients has dropped from 78% in March to just 48% trib.al/4FvDHoM

There’s mounting evidence that people who are asked to stay at home aren’t doing so. A survey in the U.K. found:

Only 18.2% stayed at home after developing symptoms
10.9% did so after being alerted by contact tracers trib.al/4FvDHoM

For those who can’t work from home, isolation means forgoing a decent wage.

About 11% of people cited work as a reason for non-compliance, echoing a finding that half of British low-income workers can't afford to self-isolate due to low mandatory sick pay trib.al/4FvDHoM

It doesn’t have to be the case.

🇦🇹In Austria, where quarantined workers are entitled to be paid as normal, compliance is over 98% trib.al/4FvDHoM

A lot of focus has been put on European countries’ approach to lockdown, but relatively little on their welfare systems.

The OECD is rightly encouraging countries to extend sick leave and other benefits to more workers, especially the self-employed trib.al/4FvDHoM

Rewarding those who self-isolate should ideally be accompanied by punishment for those who don’t. But this requires confidence in the rules, which is lacking:

➡️Test-and-trace is overwhelmed
➡️Increasingly complex limits are unenforceable trib.al/4FvDHoM

Clear and understandable rules tend toward better obedience.

🇸🇪This is one area where Sweden, despite criticism of its more individualist approach to stay-at-home curbs, is doing well trib.al/4FvDHoM

The least policymakers could do is stick to their own guidance. Yet they don’t seem to be able to even do that.

U.K. government officials, for example, made three errors explaining new restrictions in just three hours — including Boris Johnson himself trib.al/4FvDHoM

Covid-19 disobedience goes deeper than we think.

Those whose fingers are hovering on the lockdown button can, and should, do more to curb it trib.al/4FvDHoM