Study Suggests Lockdowns are Not the Answer

Many experts feel lockdowns will not reduce coronavirus fatalities.

A new study from Johns Hopkins University’s Institute for Applied Economics contends that coronavirus lockdowns are not able to stop the spread of the virus nor save lives.  The meta-analysis indicates that these lockdowns actually do more harm than good because of the damaging effects they have on economic, social, educational, and psychological structures.  The Hopkins literature review and meta-analysis, by Professors Jonas Herby, Lars Jonung, and Steve Hanke, has found that lockdowns, which the authors “define as the imposition of at least one compulsory, non-pharmaceutical intervention (NPI) such as school and business closures and limitations on movement and travel,” had little to no effect on Covid-19 mortality, overall.

Dr. Martin Makary took this one step further to warn, “The small number of lives saved by the lockdowns doesn’t come close to those lost to lack of health care, such as patients who forwent cancer treatments.”

In April 2021 Canadian economist Douglas Allen also suggested that lockdowns had little or no impact on Covid-19 deaths.  And, in a January 2021 review, Danish economist Jonas Herby, a coauthor of the Hopkins study, found that “voluntary behavioral changes were ten times as important as mandatory measures in limiting the growth of the pandemic.”  This means that people would need to comply via their own will rather than feel mandated to distance.

Moreover, as predicted, individuals’ compliance with government measures responded to the degree of perceived risk and their own political and social points-of-view.  As Covid-19 prevalence rose, people stayed home and avoided large groups.  As the number of cases fell, people resumed normal activities. Even if lockdown measures are effective in the short run, the benefits are not sustainable, according to the authors.

An Imperial College paper from June 2020 attributed decreased European Covid-19 deaths entirely to lockdowns.  However, the authors acknowledged, “We do not account for changes in behavior,” and the researchers wrote, “that would lower deaths even in the absence of government interventions.”

The Hopkins team surmises that the lockdown measures may have actually worsened the pandemic by forcing people to shelter in place where they were more likely to become infected or infect friends and loved ones than had they been allowed access to safer, outdoor places with Covid protocols in place. University of Chicago economist Casey Mulligan agreed, finding that private companies voluntarily implemented infection-prevention measures that lowered workplace Covid-19 transmission to levels below household rates.

Job losses in March and April 2020 exceeded 22 million, according to the Department of Labor, and have not yet fully recovered.  Children lost years of educational and social development and support.  The world is also in the midst of a mental health crisis in addition to a worsening addiction crisis because of the pandemic, too, both of which have only worsened because of confinement.  Because of this devastation, it’s difficult to disagree that lockdowns “should be rejected as a pandemic policy instrument,” as the Johns Hopkins authors write.

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Yet another study finds that lockdowns did little to slow the spread of Covid.

Johns Hopkins professor blasts his OWN college and the mainstream media for not publicizing study that found COVID lockdowns only reduced deaths by 0.2% because it doesn’t fit their ‘narrative’