Just ahead of the transition to a new administration, our elite media is beginning to publish a steady stream of articles that question the effectiveness of pandemic lockdown restrictions that have been implemented across the country and impacted the economy.
For example, many publications highlighted a new study that demonstrates pandemic lockdown rules may not provide significantly more benefits to slowing the spread of the disease than other voluntary measures.
The peer reviewed study was published in the European Journal of Clinical Investigation on January 5, and analyzed coronavirus case growth in 10 countries in early 2020.The study compared cases in England, France, Germany, Iran, Italy, Netherlands, Spain and the U.S. – all countries that implemented mandatory lockdown orders and business closures – to South Korea and Sweden, which instituted less severe, voluntary responses. It aimed to analyze the effect that less restrictive or more restrictive measures had on changing individual behavior and curbing the transmission of the virus.The researchers used a mathematical model to compare countries that did and did not enact more restrictive lockdown orders, and determined that there was “no clear, significant beneficial effect of [more restrictive measures] on case growth in any country.”Newsweek subscription offers >”We do not question the role of all public health interventions, or of coordinated communications about the epidemic, but we fail to find an additional benefit of stay-at-home orders and business closures,” the research said.
Dr. Ari Joffe (a specialist in pediatric infectious diseases at the Stollery Children’s Hospital in Edmonton and a Clinical Professor in the Department of Pediatrics at the University of Alberta) published an analysis that showed the harms of lockdowns are ten times greater than their benefits. He factored in the long-term public health issues. He summarizes some of his findings in an interview with the Toronto Sun:
I think that the initial modelling and forecasting were inaccurate. This led to a contagion of fear and policies across the world. Popular media focused on absolute numbers of COVID-19 cases and deaths independent of context. There has been a sheer one-sided focus on preventing infection numbers. The economist Paul Frijters wrote that it was “all about seeming to reduce risks of infection and deaths from this one particular disease, to the exclusion of all other health risks or other life concerns.” Fear and anxiety spread, and we elevated COVID-19 above everything else that could possibly matter.Our cognitive biases prevented us from making optimal policy: we ignored hidden ‘statistical deaths’ reported at the population level, we preferred immediate benefits to even larger benefits in the future, we disregarded evidence that disproved our favorite theory, and escalated our commitment in the set course of action….I believe that we need to take an “effortful pause” and reconsider the information available to us. We need to calibrate our response to the true risk, make rational cost-benefit analyses of the trade-offs, and end the lockdown groupthink.
Pairing with that study is a new paper by the US National Bureau of Economic Research, which estimates the possibility of up to 890,00 excess American death is over the next 15 years due to the unemployment caused by Covid lockdowns.
The economists predict that, over the next 10 years, pandemic-related unemployment could cause about 460,000 excess deaths in the United States, on top of the number of people killed by COVID-19 itself.The total number of excess deaths could rise to 890,00 by 2035, and to 1.37 million people by 2040.The economists — Francesco Bianchi, Giada Bianchi and Dongho Song — came up with those predictions by analyzing how changes in U.S. unemployment rates have correlated with changes in U.S. mortality figures in recent decades.Past studies have shown that unemployment can increase mortality rates by decreasing use of preventive care, increasing the suicide rate, and increasing the odds people will die from cardiovascular disease, the economists write.
Tying this all together and proving that it is ahead of the curve, Florida is doing much better than California without economy-crushing rules.
Florida as of this week has recorded a little over 1.5 million positive test results of COVID-19 since the start of the pandemic, while California has registered nearly 3 million. Per CDC figures, the two states are roughly equal in their population-adjusted case numbers per 100,000 residents, with California at around 7,300 and Florida at a little over 7,000.The two states have arrived at more or less equal case numbers after roughly a year of divergent COVID-19 mitigation policies.
I have long noted that long-term unemployment has serious health consequences. I also asserted that enhanced basic hygiene practices, improvements in ventilation, taking vitamins, and developing vaccines and treatments were the keys to success in addressing this crisis.
My prediction: After a 100-day “mask rule” is imposed, the coronavirus cases will miraculously drop, and the country will be “saved.” The drop will correspond to the warmer weather, which seemed to help end the first surge in 2020. Then, any outbreaks will be explained by a “bad flu” season until it is reasonable to do otherwise.
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