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Rigorous new study of studies finds that lockdowns, not COVID, caused the destruction
American Thinker ^ | 06/08/2023 | Monica Showalter

Posted on 06/08/2023 8:02:48 AM PDT by SeekAndFind

COVID is blamed for the vast ruin and destruction of the past few years.

After all, there were a more than a million deaths in the U.S., mass layoffs, and the destruction of hundreds of thousands of small businesses. There's been learning loss and speech delays in children, and depression and other mental health crises in teenagers. There's the massive inflation seen today and a huge surge in the federal debt brought on by federal COVID spending and let's not even get into the fraud. There's also the refusal of workers to return to work, the still-empty churches and downtown office spaces, and countless other still-lingering negative effects.

COVID did it. Blame COVID. That's what the media and the bureaucrats and anyone getting rich off this pandemic do.

Except that it wasn't that little gift from the lab in Wuhan that did it.

All of the destruction, according to an important new meta-study (or, study of studies) by noted economists Steve Hanke, Lars Jonung, and Jonas Herby. came from state-enforced lockdowns, not COVID.

The study has now become a book, titled "Did Lockdowns Work," and it can be downloaded here.

Respected economists have taken note and give their approval.

(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...


TOPICS: Health/Medicine; Science; Society
KEYWORDS: covid; lockdown; rona

1 posted on 06/08/2023 8:02:48 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
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To: SeekAndFind
According to economist Brad Polumbo:

Pandemic-era lockdown policies may “represent the biggest policy mistake in modern times.” At least, that’s the conclusion reached by one of the authors of a major new study examining many government restrictions inflicted upon the public throughout 2020 and 2021. 

An updated, peer-reviewed meta analysis of lockdowns examining 22 relevant studies was just published by the Institute of Economic Affairs. In it, authors Lars Jonung, Jonas Herby, and Steve H. Hanke examined the lockdown policies enacted in the US, England, and Europe and compared them to the light-touch approach enacted in Sweden where minor government restrictions were paired with voluntary action driven by extensive public information and awareness campaigns. 

They find that in the US, extensive restrictions ranging from stay-at-home orders to business closures all combined to only save approximately 4,000 lives. Some particular policies, like gathering limits, actually increased COVID mortality. (As it turns out, much of the COVID-19 spread occurred at home). This is a far cry from the projections used early in the pandemic to justify lockdowns that estimated 2 million American lives would be saved. 

That's an academically rigorous study and what it found was pathetic. All that destruction through Western society and instead of saving 2 million lives, as the adamant lockdown proponents at the Imperial College of London confidently forecast, the vaunted lockdowns saved ... 4,000.

It's not nothing, but it's not what they claimed. They said 2 million in the U.S. alone and millions more elsewhere.

2 posted on 06/08/2023 8:03:21 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
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To: SeekAndFind
Pandemic-era lockdown policies may “represent the biggest policy mistake in modern times.”

The policies weren't a "mistake", they were very deliberate. Societal and economic destruction, and government tyranny, were, as they say, features, not bugs.

3 posted on 06/08/2023 8:16:32 AM PDT by Sicon ("All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others." - G. Orwell>)
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To: SeekAndFind

bttt


4 posted on 06/08/2023 8:17:02 AM PDT by Pajamajan ( PRAY FOR OUR NATION. Never be a peaceful slave in a new Socialist America)
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To: SeekAndFind

It may be callous, but “lives saved” is really a meaningless statistic, too.

If you “save” the life of an 80 year old, maybe that person will die of natural causes at 83 years old instead of COVID at 80. So you saved three “life-years.”

The “lives saved” were not of young people with their whole lives aheads of them, but of elderly people with little time left anyway (and I’m in the latter category).

If you saved the lives of 1,000 twenty-year-old people, you saved 55,000 life-years (assuming average life expectancy of 75 years — [75-20]*1,000).

If you saved the lives of 1,000 seventy-year-old people, you saved 5,000 life-years. But the measures taken to save those 1,000 seventy-year-olds ruined the lives of millions of young people.

What the power-mad maniacs did was utter insanity.

Many people called this out in 2020 and were excoriated and their lives and careers destroyed over it. Victor Hanson talks about what his colleague Dr. Scott Atlas went through for pointing this out.


5 posted on 06/08/2023 8:30:22 AM PDT by ProtectOurFreedom (I don’t like to think before I say something...I want to be just as surprised as everyone else.)
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To: SeekAndFind

Well duh.


6 posted on 06/08/2023 8:30:39 AM PDT by Salman (It's not a slippery slope if it was part of the program all along. )
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To: SeekAndFind; All
Thank you for referencing that article SeekAndFind.

"Rigorous new study of studies finds that lockdowns, not COVID, caused the destruction"


FR: Never Accept the Premise of Your Opponent’s Argument

From related thread...

The lockdowns were politically-driven theater imo, not based on practiced, scientifically-proven procedures.

In fact, here's Pelosi in San Fran Chinatown after "orange man bad" had strongly recommended lockdown on advice of very questionable (imo) "health" advisors, Pelosi inviting everybody to come and have a good time to spite Trump.

Speaker Pelosi Visits SF's Chinatown To Show Support Amid Coronavirus Fears (non-FR; 2:14 min; 2.24.2020)

Hypothetically speaking, the people who visited Chinatown got infected with the virus and then infected other people when they finally “quarantined” themselves with others.

So we still don't know if drilled, science-based quarantine procedures are effective in stopping a virus.

In fact, we still don't know if there really was a threatening virus.

‘There was No Virus’ Says The Former Vice President of Pfizer (5.12.23)

Are we having fun yet? 8^P

Emphasizing that I'm not medically trained, the good thing about the the CV19 scare is that lots of people discovered vitamin D3.

Vitamin D - The Sunshine Vitamin (Non-FR)

I still question if medical history might have turned out happier if vitamin D3 had been discovered before vaccines were discovered and emergence of experimental jabs.

The the bottom line for CV19 is that Democratic and Republican patriots need to to primary as many of our beloved state and federal lawmakers and executives in 2024 as we can.

After all, they have once again shown that do not have the patriotism and leadership skills necessary to find legislative support for effective remedies for unconstitutional government policies.

Trump can endorse candidates that Constitution-savvy patriots recommend as long as candidates are not incumbents, candidates also promising to repeal the 16th (direct taxes) and 17th (popular voting for federal senators) Amendments after they win office.

7 posted on 06/08/2023 8:46:24 AM PDT by Amendment10
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To: SeekAndFind; Jane Long; ransomnote; SecAmndmt; Jan_Sobieski; bagster; Roman_War_Criminal; ...

Who ever would have imagined?????


8 posted on 06/08/2023 9:12:47 AM PDT by metmom (...fixing our eyes on Jesus, the Author and Perfecter of our faith….)
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To: SeekAndFind

And they plan on doing it again.


9 posted on 06/08/2023 9:24:51 AM PDT by cld51860 (We’re doomed.)
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To: metmom

$hot $hills are most $hocked.....NOT!!

They knew.


10 posted on 06/08/2023 9:58:12 AM PDT by Jane Long (What we were told was a conspiracy theory in ‘20 is now fact. Land of the sheep, home of the knaves)
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To: SeekAndFind

> lockdown policies may “represent the biggest policy mistake in modern times.”

My scale agreed. Took a while to lose the extra 20lb lockdown weight. I’m still working on getting my heart numbers moving in the right direction.


11 posted on 06/08/2023 10:01:22 AM PDT by ArcadeQuarters (You can't remove RINOs by voting for them!)
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To: SeekAndFind

What idiot funded a study to find the obvious?


12 posted on 06/08/2023 10:05:12 AM PDT by Fledermaus (It's time to get rid of the Three McStooges; Mitch, Kevin and Ronna!)
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To: SeekAndFind; metmom; 2ndreconmarine; Fitzcarraldo; Covenantor; Mother Abigail; EBH; Dog Gone; ...
Infectious Disease ping - Most of the destrucion of Covid came from the lockdowns, not the covid virus
The after effects of covid destroyed: national economies and inflation, education, social order, healthcare, religion attendance,
corporate income, Constitutional rights, and state and local tax base, etc.

SeekAndFind (From the article):" COVID is blamed for the vast ruin and destruction of the past few years.
After all, there were a more than a million deaths in the U.S., mass layoffs, and the destruction of hundreds of thousands of small businesses.
There's been learning loss and speech delays in children, and depression and other mental health crises in teenagers.
There's the massive inflation seen today and a huge surge in the federal debt brought on by federal COVID spending
and let's not even get into the fraud.
There's also the refusal of workers to return to work, the still-empty churches and downtown office spaces, and countless other still-lingering negative effects."

"All of the destruction, according to an important new meta-study (or, study of studies) by noted economists Steve Hanke, Lars Jonung, and Jonas Herby
came from state-enforced lockdowns, not COVID."

"The study has now become a book, titled "Did Lockdowns Work," and it can be downloaded”.. at the news site.

(My Opinion): The social effects of the lockdowns will continue to have an effect on culture and society for decades yet to come.
And yet there has been no accountability nor responsibility given by those who were 'in charge' and gave orders.
There needs to be a reckoning for the damage done to society, and that especially includes those who prospered through deceit .

13 posted on 06/08/2023 10:59:56 AM PDT by Tilted Irish Kilt
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To: SeekAndFind

Lockdowns basically destroyed my business. Went from several employees after a 4 hold increase in business and went broke in a year and it’s not recovering in my industry. And just when it started to recover a little bit the chomo in chief’s inflation and ridiculous new regulations the industry was kicked in the teeth again.


14 posted on 06/08/2023 11:01:14 AM PDT by Organic Panic (Democrats. Memories as short as Joe Biden's eyes)
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To: SeekAndFind

the take away: It’s nothing but a red herring. This study of studies shows conclusively that lockdowns were a disaster and because it was lockdowns, and not the disease, that wrought the havoc, someone needs to be held accountable. Society was shut down based on junk science and fear. Not only do incompetents and chiselers and power mongers need to be held accountable, laws need to be made to ensure that these bureaucrats and their allies never have this kind of power again.

This study is important for advancing that critical change.


15 posted on 06/08/2023 12:53:39 PM PDT by Fungi
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