Posted on 03/12/2021 7:51:43 AM PST by Sam's Army
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott announced last week that his state is ending its mask mandate and business capacity limits. While Democrats and many public-health officials denounced the move, ample data now exist to demonstrate that the benefits of stringent measures aren’t worth the costs.
(Excerpt) Read more at wsj.com ...
We have since learned that the virus never spreads exponentially for very long, even without stringent restrictions. The epidemic always recedes well before herd immunity has been reached. As I argue in a report for the Center for the Study of Partisanship and Ideology, people get scared and change their behavior as hospitalizations and deaths increase. This, in turn, reduces transmission.
I’ve looked at more than 100 regions and countries. None have seen exponential growth of the pandemic continue until herd immunity was reached, regardless of whether a government lockdown or other stringent measure was imposed. People eventually revert to more-relaxed behavior. When they do, the virus starts spreading again. That’s why we see the “inverted U-shape” of cases and deaths everywhere.
Sweden was the first to learn this lesson, but many other countries have confirmed it. Initially held up as a disaster by many in the pro-lockdown crowd, Sweden has ended up with a per capita death rate indistinguishable from that of the European Union. In the U.S., Georgia’s hands-off policies were once called an “experiment in human sacrifice” by the Atlantic. But like Sweden, Georgia today has a per capita death rate that is effectively the same as the rest of the country.
That isn’t to say that restrictions have no effect. Had Sweden adopted more-stringent restrictions, it’s likely the epidemic would have started receding a bit earlier and incidence would have fallen a bit faster. But policy may not matter as much as people assumed it did. Lockdowns can destroy the economy, but it’s starting to look as if they have minimal effect on the spread of Covid-19.
After a year of observation and data collection, the case for lockdowns has grown much weaker. Nobody denies overwhelmed hospitals are bad, but so is depriving people of a normal life, including kids who can’t attend school or socialize during precious years of their lives. Since everyone hasn’t been vaccinated, many wouldn’t yet be living normally even without restrictions. But government mandates can make things worse by taking away people’s ability to socialize and make a living.
The coronavirus lockdowns constitute the most extensive attacks on individual freedom in the West since World War II. Yet not a single government has published a cost-benefit analysis to justify lockdown policies—something policy makers are often required to do while making far less consequential decisions. If my arguments are wrong and lockdown policies are cost-effective, a government document should be able to demonstrate that. No government has produced such a document, perhaps because officials know what it would show.
Prior to last year this was the CDC and WHO position on lockdowns.
They don’t work once something reaches pandemic level. Travel restrictions and more do not actually have much effect.
How quaint.
They actually think the “lock down” had anything to do with the virus. I was a spectacular success in its true purpose. The removal of Trump from office.
The purpose of the lockdowns was to permit corrupt voting. A knock-off advantage was a training exercise — training US citizens to behave like sheep. And, it worked. Don’t forget, the reported “deaths” are a lie by CDC (WHO) directives. Those are people who have died with the virus in their system or simply because they exhibit symptoms. And, they are almost always folks already weakened by other problems. Imagine, you are in an ambulance suffering a heart attack. Then, the bus hits a speed bump and you die. No EMT dude or ER receiving doc is going to say: “Oh, it was definitely the speed bump that did him in.” Actual, medically proven deaths by Covid are ~10%.
When this is all over the lockdowns will have caused more damage than the virus ever did.
Freedom? Freedom? We don’t need no stinkin freedom
15 days (plus or minus several months) to flatten the Orange Man
Maybe not. But Trump was forced. It would have been suicide if he did not do it. I wonder how many people it saved. Or did it just delay what was going to happen.
There would not have been a lock down if it was not an election year (and most likely there would not have been a virus if it was not an election year).
Covid19 did what the Chinese wanted, remove the one many willing to stand up to them.
It sure made for convenient timing to assist them in dealing with the pro-democracy movement in Hong Kong as well.
“The removal of Trump from office.”
That, and other things as well (such as the destruction of small business owners, to replace with a new class bolstered by targeted aid - based on race/gender - for small businesses).
It was exposed as a hoax when the news accidentally reported that 2/3 of NYC’s new cases were people in quarantine in their homes...
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