The Verdict on Lockdowns: High Cost, Minimal Benefits

What were the benefits and costs of the COVID-19 restrictions implemented over the last two years? It's a good time to ask that question, especially now that the masks are coming off and the lockdowns are canceled.

One useful scorecard comes from the prestigious National Bureau of Economic Research, in the form of a paper by three market-friendly economists, Casey Mulligan (University of Chicago), Stephen Moore (Heritage Foundation) and Phil Kerpen (Committee to Unleash Prosperity).

They evidently disagree with the nation's most prominent advocate of massive restrictions, Dr. Anthony Fauci, who recently argued, "I don't think we're ever going to be able to determine what the right balance is" between costs and benefits.

The three economists used clear metrics to measure and compare the effects of widely different policies followed in the 50 states and the District of Columbia.

For economic effects, they look at changes in unemployment rates and gross domestic product. For education, noting the poor performance of remote education, they look at the proportion of in-person schooling in the 2020-2021 school year. For health, they look at the number of COVID-19-associated deaths reported to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the excess mortality (number of deaths) over pre-COVID-19 years.

Medically Induced Coma: Pandemic of Fear!
by Michael Braunstein

May 9, 2020, Updated November 4, 2021:

Don’t look now, but the guy driving the bus is wearing a white coat and has a stethoscope draped around his neck. We’ve been hypnotized to believe he should be in charge.

During the economic disaster of 2008, when thousands of businesses were going under, I noticed something. Two specific industries were flexing their finances and instead of contracting, they were expanding. Both the so-called “healthcare” industry and the ivory tower of academia were gobbling up land and businesses like drunken sailors quaff rum on leave in paradise.

Locally, we saw research hospitals grow exponentially as large plots of land became available or were made available. Omaha Steel ceased to exist. Small businesses around three major campuses disappeared, replaced by buildings and parking lots. The conveniently demolished Aksarben facilities became the location of university housing and allied enclaves. A historical arena was demolished to make way for… wait for it… an arena. Make no mistake, the medical system and its academia ally had money — and power — to throw around.

This is not to cast aspersions on the men and women who work in the fields of healthcare or academia. In many cases, I have heard them describe themselves as victims of the very systems that have captured them. It’s the system that has become the problem.

Mission creep. Over the past century, the Western medical system has become horrifyingly powerful; to the point that it dictates much of our social, political and legal policies. One need look no further than the 2020 coronavirus pandemic to see the effect of doctors and medical “experts” in positions of power.

The obvious problem is that they use data and talking points that are arguable and often contradictory. But more importantly, they should not be leaders but only parts of a stable of advisors. How did they get such leadership power? The short answer is that we, the people, gave it to them by embracing our fear. Look how our fear of being sick fed the institutions and made them monsters.

The institution currently known as the Centers for Disease Control or CDC sets policies that are far beyond its intended mission when it was created in 1942 and then known as the Communicable Disease Center.

Its mandate was to focus on viruses and communicable diseases. But it grew in power and now spends most of its budget on facilities, travel, administrative costs while it researches gun violence, workplace accidents, how parents should raise children and what the kids should eat at school.

All those are valid concerns but not those for which the CDC was intended. It has failed in its mission to control disease. The CDC is joined by the National Institutes for Health, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, the World Health Organization and scores of other public and private “healthcare” institutions in wielding tremendous power and influence over governments, media and populations. It’s because we gave them that power.

hypochondria [ hahy-puh-kon-dree-uh ] noun Psychiatry.
1 an excessive preoccupation with one’s health.
2 excessive worry or talk about one’s health.

One could say modern medicine was simply opportunistic and preyed on human fear. As technologies emerged in the 19th century particularly, the medical system positioned itself as the savior of all things mortal. The system touted an ability to defy nature and reverse physical infirmity and in some cases it was a justified boast. But it went off the rails as all things of human hubris will. Nature gets last at bat.

Let’s save a bit of blame for the vitamin, supplement, holistic healthcare community, too. It has also exploded over the past couple decades as people seek solutions to health issues that are real or feared. One socially redeeming value the holistic community displays is the nod it gives to natural substances and practices. But our human hypochondria is the real disease here and drives us to the health food store as much as to the hospital.

Pandemic or pandemonium? So we find ourselves with a novel illness of unknown origin that has spread around the globe. That virus is real and whether a large part of the mortality is from procedural mistakes both social and medical it has become a source of fear. Or is it? Is not our real problem that we have become obsessed with the body, that the body has become the primary focus of our existence? There are other things, you know.

If one believes that all we are is a body and nothing else is real or of import, we are ignoring some pretty vital aspects of life. Remember, the clinical term for abnormal obsession with bodily disease and symptoms is hypochondria. We’ve got a global version of it.

This panic would probably not be so severe were it not for the ability to transmit information instantly in this age of the internet. Our fears are joined together and encased in an onslaught of information that distracts us from our own inner voice. Contradictory data are held up by disparate doctors and we waft between them day by day. Life takes a back seat to fear.

Look, every body that arrives on Earth is guaranteed to last a lifetime. Don’t let fear cut that lifetime short.

Be well.
https://thereader.com/voices/medically-induced-coma

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