National Post: "Given the “devastating effects” that lockdowns have caused, the authors recommended they be “rejected out of hand as a pandemic policy instrument.”
"In both Europe and the United States, researchers found that a lockdown could only be expected to bring down mortality rates by 0.2 per cent “as compared to a COVID-19 policy based solely on recommendations.” For context, 0.2 per cent of total Canadian COVID-19 fatalities thus far is equal to about 70 people.
"An April study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, for instance, determined that U.S. “shelter-in-place” orders “had no detectable health benefits.” However, that study concluded that the policy failed mostly because Americans had already begun to follow social distancing protocols on their own.
"Similarly, Johns Hopkins researchers concluded that policymakers may be underestimating how much of COVID’s spread was mitigated simply by the private actions of citizens. If lockdowns were ineffective, they write, “this should draw our focus to the role of voluntary behavioural changes.”
"It will be years until researchers have a complete picture of the harms caused by lockdown policies, including damage to mental health and corresponding spikes in cancer and overdose fatalities.
"What is known, however, is the cost: Government-imposed lockdowns spurred by the COVID-19 pandemic have proved to be one of the most expensive single events in human history. In Canada alone, the first year of the pandemic yielded a $343 billion federal deficit driven largely by payments to workers unemployed by government-mandated closures of gyms, restaurants and other public spaces."
Comments