Lockdowns didn’t work, another study concludes

Washington Examiner ^ | June 7, 2023 | Timothy P. Carney

[Twotone]

COVID-19 was spread by people hanging out with other people. One of the terrible truths of the outbreaks in 2020 and 2021 was that the most dangerous activities were the most important parts of life: extended families getting together for lengthy, laughter-filled dinners.

Put another way, the way to stop the spread of COVID was to give up sociality. For that reason, it’s unsurprising when studies find that government rules keeping people apart were not ultimately effective at stopping the spread.

“Did Lockdowns Work?” is the title of a new study by American and European researchers. They examined tens of thousands of studies on the efficacy of lockdowns and concluded that “lockdowns had negligible public health effects when measured by mortality.”

Here were the specific numbers: “The average lockdown in Europe and the United States in the spring of 2020 only reduced COVID-19 mortality by 3.2 per cent. This translates into approximately 6,000 avoided deaths in Europe and 4,000 in the United States.”

Again, this doesn’t mean that COVID was harmless or mitigation was pointless. The study found that “voluntary changes in behaviour, such as social distancing, did play an important role in mitigating the pandemic.”

By current numbers, 1.131 million Americans died from COVID. Without lockdowns, 1.135 million Americans would have died. If we rounded to normal digits, lockdown America gave us 1.1 million deaths and non-lockdown America would have given us 1.1 million deaths.

Of course saving 4,000 American lives is incredibly valuable. But saving 4,000 lives through lockdowns was also incredibly costly. Closing schools, canceling Little League seasons, barring social gatherings, closing neighborhood coffee shops, decimating Main Streets, and outlawing church was not cost-free. These lockdowns all dramatically harmed millions of lives. These harms included depression, isolation, alienation, and sadness. Divorces, suicides, drug addictions, overdoses, and alcoholism all resulted from these lockdowns.

Our current crime waves are also the fruits of our lockdowns. Look at the crimes that surged first: assault, arson, and carjackings in which the carjackers just take the cars for joyrides and crash them. You see the pattern. These are crimes of boredom and isolation. These are the results of alienation.

If we prevented 4,000 COVID deaths by trampling on our principles of individual liberty, was it worth it? It’s hard to say yes, when you witness the decline in our social cohesion over the past three years.

[weezel]

Sure they did, and exactly as planned. The plan was to cripple the Trump economy so that dim-0s didnt have to run against it.

The lockdowns worked far beyond the hopes of the locker downers.

[lightman]

So the Branch Covidians are going to advocate for harsher lockdowns.

I want a new planet.

[skeeter]

Destroying tens of billions in personal savings of the American middle class is a small price to pay as long as it helps the right people take charge.

[ArcadeQuarters]

The experts were wrong. The crazy right wingers were right... AGAIN.

[Skwor]

Lockdowns did not work and sane people knew they would not. Other things that sane people knew were a fraud / lie, clot shot, masks, ventilators, ban on ivermectin, mortality rates, denial of co-morbidities, not using VAERS, changing the definition of what a vaccination is, the untested MRNA can not change your DNA (most controversial but there is data that indicates it can and some of the leading researchers argue it does)

I think that is enough for this post.

[Sirius Lee]

Oh but they did work from the WEFtard POV. They proved that the vast majority of sheep can be spooked - or virtue signaled - into the curved lead-up alleys at the slaughterhouse.

They're still trying to figure out how they're going get the ones that headed into the woods instead for the next Big Scam.

[ScottinVA]

Of course saving 4,000 American lives is incredibly valuable. But saving 4,000 lives through lockdowns was also incredibly costly.

I'll bet the death toll from suicide and drug abuse as a result of social isolation was far more than the 4,000 supposedly "saved" due to lockdowns.

[bray]

They overturned a sitting President which was the goal.

[Sicon]

Wow. Next they'll be telling us that "social distancing", masks, and the "vaccines" didn't work, either. Who could have guessed?

Oh, that's right: anyone with more than two functioning brain cells.

[lightman]

Lives were not “saved”....deaths were merely postponed.