“If people who were sick stayed at home, and were supported in doing that, and if their contacts stayed at home, and were supported in doing that, we could break the back of this disease,” Ryan said during a social media Q&A on Wednesday.
“And we keep avoiding that elephant in the room” he added.
“We do know these huge, long, long-term lockdowns are not in that sense the best solution,” he said, adding that countries sometimes “face no choice.”
The lockdowns have consequences he said, “but this is not a no-consequence effort, we need to find that balance … between stopping this disease, giving us the time to develop the measures we need to save lives,” Ryan said.
“Life is never like that -- it's not binary, right and wrong, and left and right and, good and bad,” he said. “We need to take a pill and get real here. It's not either-or, it's both.”
Nobody wants lockdowns, he said.
“I don't want lockdowns. I mean, I'm away from my family,” Ryan said. “If I go home tomorrow, 14 days quarantine one way, 14 days quarantine the other way. To see my kids it’s going to take me 29 days – for one day – 29 days.”
“Do you think I like this? Do you think we want this? No.”