{"id":4676,"date":"2021-04-06T12:44:25","date_gmt":"2021-04-06T17:44:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gracegazette.org\/wordpress1\/?p=4676"},"modified":"2021-04-06T15:03:41","modified_gmt":"2021-04-06T20:03:41","slug":"one-year-later-a-look-into-the-catastrophic-lockdowns","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gracegazette.org\/wordpress1\/one-year-later-a-look-into-the-catastrophic-lockdowns\/","title":{"rendered":"One Year Later: A Look Into the Catastrophic Lockdowns"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Featured Image: Eneas De Troya<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Imagine sitting in school sometime in February, or let\u2019s say early March of 2020, talking with your friends, laughing with them, eating with them. Now imagine being told that this behavior was no longer acceptable and that you were acting carelessly for doing so. Imagine the simple gesture of shaking someone\u2019s hand would be deemed reckless and dangerous. Imagine being told that an entire nation was going into total lockdown. Imagine being told that it would be a quick two weeks until everything was back to normal. Well, folks, it\u2019s been over a year, and in many respects, we are still living in this Covid-19 dystopia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Throughout the outbreak of Covid-19, politicians around the world have imposed severe restrictions on business, travel, immigration, and everyday activities under the auspices of \u201cpublic health.\u201d The consequences of these policies have been catastrophic for the economy, public health, and society as a whole.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Do Lockdowns Even Work?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

When I first developed an opinion on the Covid-19 lockdowns, I looked at opening the country from a cost-benefit analysis. I believed<\/a> that opening would \u201ccertainly put more people at risk of contracting the virus,\u201d but thought that the economic and mental health consequences would outweigh the consequences of spreading the virus. As the virus has progressed in this country and throughout the world, the data has shown that there is no evidence that these lockdown measures actually work in their supposed goal of stopping the spread. When analyzing charts from an array of different countries and states, there appears to be no correlation between lockdowns, mask mandates, and other measures with lowered cases, hospitalizations, or deaths.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A Stanford University study<\/a>, which was published in the European Journal of Clinical Investigation<\/em><\/a>, compared and contrasted eight countries that imposed strict lockdown measures (England, France, Germany, Iran, Italy, Netherlands, Spain, and the United States) versus two countries that did not implement mandatory lockdowns or close down businesses (Sweden and South Korea). Among those ten countries, the study found no direct benefit of lockdowns in reducing the growth in cases of Covid-19. Furthermore, the study concluded that the lockdowns had no clear advantage over voluntary measures. The researchers stated, \u201cwe do not question the role of all public health interventions, or of coordinated communications about the epidemic, but we fail to find an additional benefit of stay-at-home orders and business closures.\u201d Another study by the University of Toronto\u2019s Dr. Rabail Chaudhry and others<\/a> collected data from the top 50 countries (in terms of Covid-19) and found that \u201crapid border closures, full lockdowns, and widespread testing were not associated with Covid mortality per million people.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Below are some charts from around the world: <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Not only does the data confirm the ineffectiveness of lockdown measures around the world, but the data has also shown their ineffectiveness in the United States. As the corporate press, the entertainment industry, and the so-called public health \u201cexperts\u201d praised<\/a> governors like the disgraced New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, they vilified Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. After Florida removed the majority of their Covid-19 restrictions, headlines like \u201cFlorida Man Leads His State to the Morgue\u201d in The New Republic<\/em><\/a> from June began to pop up. A December article from The Washington Post<\/em><\/a> even called DeSantis \u201ca Covid-19 catastrophe.\u201d As people fawned over Governor Cuomo as a potential presidential contender in 2024, he began to embark on a victory lap in the middle of the pandemic\u2014even writing a book<\/a> about his \u201cleadership\u201d during the pandemic. Celebrities like Trevor Noah<\/a> and Stephen Colbert<\/a>, as well as people all over social media, began identifying as \u201cCuomosexuals,\u201d<\/a> a term which the governor embraced. The governor even received an Emmy<\/a> for \u201chis masterful use of television to inform and calm people around the world.\u201d Meanwhile, DeSantis was dubbed \u201cDeathSantis\u201d<\/a> and consistently scrutinized for his actions.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

After Florida\u2019s phase three reopening, which essentially fully opened the state, Dr. Anthony Fauci<\/a>, director of the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said Florida was \u201cAsking for trouble.\u201d Andy Slavitt<\/a>, a White House senior advisor to the Covid-19 response, said, \u201cPlaces like Florida didn\u2019t learn the lesson from observing New York. And they\u2019re not going to succeed in opening the economy now.\u201d Mike Osterholm<\/a>, the director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, warned that \u201cFlorida will be a house on fire.\u201d Even after lifting the state\u2019s lockdown measures, Florida has better numbers than lockdown states like California and New York while maintaining a flourishing economy with the lowest unemployment<\/a> rate (4.8 percent) of any large state in the nation\u2014lower than Texas (6.8 percent), Illinois (7.7 percent), New York (8.8 percent), and California (9 percent). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Image: Diana Robinson<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite concerns over Florida\u2019s high elderly population (the second oldest state in the U.S.<\/a>) and its relative laissez-faire approach to the pandemic response, Florida has prevailed. Allysia Finley points out in The Wall Street Journal<\/em><\/a>:\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Covid death risk increases enormously with each decade of age. More than 80% of Covid deaths in the U.S. have occurred among seniors over 65. They make up a larger share of Florida\u2019s population than any other state except Maine. Based on demographics, Florida\u2019s per-capita Covid death rate would be expected to be one of the highest in the country.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

None of this happened. In fact, Florida\u2019s death rate is lower than the national average, and when comparing the sunshine state to New York, Florida<\/a> ranks 27th in deaths compared to New York, which ranks second. Florida, the second oldest state in the nation, has a death rate that is only slightly higher than California\u2019s, a much younger state. Moreover, \u201cFlorida\u2019s death rate among seniors is about 20% lower<\/a> than California\u2019s and 50% lower<\/a> than New York\u2019s, based on Centers for Disease Control and Prevention<\/a> data.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Below are some charts comparing Florida to other states: <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Moreover, instead of sending Covid-19 positive patients to nursing homes\u2014a policy implemented in states like New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and most notably New York, where over 15,000 people have died<\/a>\u2014Florida adopted a much different strategy. As Finley<\/a> notes:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[DeSantis\u2019] administration halted outside visitations to nursing homes and bolstered their stockpile of personal protective equipment. Florida\u2019s government also set up 23 Covid-dedicated nursing centers for elderly patients discharged from hospitals. Nursing-home residents who tested positive and couldn\u2019t be isolated in their facilities were sent to these Covid-only wards. Florida set up field hospitals to handle a surge in cases that models predicted in the spring, although it never materialized.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Remarkably, the vastly different responses by Florida and New York have caused the same people in the corporate press to change their tune and begin to praise Florida\u2019s response.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Image: Gage Skidmore<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Florida is no exception in the United States when it comes to the ineffectiveness and irrationality of lockdowns. By a show of example, Alabama and Mississippi, two neighboring states, had different Covid-19 policies: Alabama implemented a mask mandate, while Mississippi lifted their mandate\u2014both states have had similar results.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Five states in the Southeast (Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, and South Carolina) all implemented mask mandates at different dates and have had roughly the same results. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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While Oklahoma did not impose a mask mandate, and the neighboring state of Arkansas did, the curves are the same.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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After Texas<\/a> fully reopened\u2014allowing businesses to operate at 100 percent capacity and lifting their state’s mask mandate\u2014people were quickly open to blame Texas\u2019s \u201creckless\u201d policy. In spite of the outrage, cases, deaths, and hospitalizations continue to fall<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Despite imposing a litany of restrictions compared to Arizona and Nevada, California\u2019s rate cases were very similar to that of Arizona and Nevada.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Here is a look at the desert countries in Arizona, California, Nevada, and Utah. Once again, different policy, same results. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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This is not to say that masks have no use, especially in places like hospitals, where someone cannot avoid close contact,  as studies<\/a> have shown. However, a study from The New England Journal of Medicine<\/em><\/a> concluded that wearing a mask outside health care facilities offers little, if any, protection from infection.\u201d Furthermore, it went to say that \u201cthe desire for widespread masking is a reflexive reaction to anxiety over the pandemic.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Economic and Public Health Impact of Lockdowns<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even with the mountain of evidence that lockdowns do not work in stopping the spread of the virus, the economic and public health effects are insurmountable. In May 2020, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said he would not be willing to sacrifice human lives<\/a> in order to open the economy, calling it \u201cabsurd.\u201d The premise of this statement is completely wrong because human life and the economy are inseparable from one another. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A January 2021 publication from researchers from Duke, Harvard, and Johns Hopkins<\/a> concluded that there will be more than 800,000 excess deaths from the virus over the next 15 years in the United States as a result of the economic impact of the lockdowns. The research also found major increases in mortality rates and decreases in life expectancy. According to the researchers, the excess deaths caused by the devastating economic and public health consequences of the lockdowns will \u201cfar exceed those immediately related to the acute Covid-19 critical illness and that the recession caused by the pandemic can jeopardize population health for the next two decades.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A report from the United Nations<\/a> in April 2020 found that hundreds of thousands of children are at risk of dying due to the consequences of shutting down the economy, as many children have been stuck without needed resources for survival. The report stated that \u201ccould cause hundreds of thousands of additional child deaths this year, effectively reversing recent gains in reducing infant mortality.\u201d Moreover, it found that 42 million to 66 million are at risk of falling into \u201cextreme poverty,\u201d which would add to the already estimated 396 million children facing extreme poverty from 2019. \u201cWhen you ask them to stay home, in many cases you\u2019re asking them to starve,\u201d said Benjamin Geden<\/a>, the deputy director of the Wilson Center\u2019s Latin American Program and former South America director on the National Security Council at the White House. Not only is it entitled and out-of-touch to coercively deprive people to earn a living in the United States, it is entirely ludicrous to impose lockdowns in third world countries. Additionally, a UNICEF report<\/a> from May warned of 1.2 million child deaths as \u201cvisits to health care centres are declining due to lockdowns, curfews and transport disruptions, and as communities remain fearful of infection.\u201d The UN also warned that up to 130 million people are at risk of starvation as a result of shutting down the economy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In August of 2020, the CDC<\/a> found that a staggering 25.5 percent<\/a> of people ages 18 to 24 have contemplated suicide in the past 30 days, which was previously at about 7 percent<\/a> from 2008 to 2015, according to the Substance Abuse Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA). As of October 2020, the CDC estimates<\/a> that 93,814 have died from \u201cexcess deaths,\u201d unrelated to the virus, \u201c42,427 from cardiovascular conditions, 10,686 from diabetes and 3,646 from cancer\u201d as a result of shutting down medical care that they deem \u201cnon-essential.\u201d According to The New York Times<\/em><\/a>, a just \u201cthree-month lockdown across different parts of the world and a gradual return to normal over 10 months could result in an additional 6.3 million cases of tuberculosis and 1.4 million deaths from it.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Former advisor to the World Health Organization (WHO) Professor Karol Sikora<\/a>, estimated that up to 60,000 cancer patients are going to die as a result of the lack of cancer services due to the lockdowns, and \u201c15,000 patients\u2014of all ages\u2014will suffer illness or be forced to undergo unnecessary invasive treatments due to the loss of cancer services.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As reported in The Lancet<\/em><\/a>, a peer-reviewed medical journal, people with dementia and other severe mental health illnesses are far more likely to die \u201cduring lockdown.\u201d The report found that those suffering from dementia are 53 percent more likely to die from the lockdowns and that mentally ill elderly patients are 123 percent more likely to die. This is a direct result of isolating patients who need extra support and medication, which is no longer available due to an outrageous and draconian government response.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Societal Impact of Lockdowns<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Using 36 studies (43 estimates) and seven other preliminary national estimates, making up a total of 50 estimates, Stanford physician and scientist John P.A. Ioannidis<\/a> found that for those under the age of 70, the death rate \u201cranged from 0.00% to 0.57% with a median of 0.05% across the different global locations (with a corrected median of 0.04%).\u201d Furthermore, the Covid-19 mortality rate for children is lower<\/a> than it is for influenza (the flu), while higher for old people. Even if lockdowns worked in their supposed goal (they do not), we should still ask ourselves, is the irreparable damage of locking down for a respiratory virus with such a low mortality rate worth it? What are the consequences of lockdowns, and is there more to life than the avoidance of death? Historian and former senior judge on the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom, Lord Sumption<\/a>, could not have stated it better:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What sort of life do we think we are protecting? There is more to life than the avoidance of death. Life is a drink with friends. Life is a crowded football match or a live concert. Life is a family celebration with children and grandchildren. Life is companionship, an arm around one\u2019s back, laughter or tears shared at less than two meters. These things are not just optional extras. They are life itself. They are fundamental to our humanity, to our existence as social beings. Of course, death is permanent, whereas joy may be temporarily suspended. But the force of that point depends on how temporary it really is.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

None of this is to minimize the severity of the virus, especially the risk it poses to the more vulnerable. While we should not assume what is best for the most vulnerable, we should prioritize the most vulnerable. As Lord Sumption posits, \u201cGuidance is fine. Voluntary self-isolation is fine, and strongly advisable for the more vulnerable. Most of them will do it by choice. But coercion is not fine. There is no moral or principled justification for it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What Should Have Been Done<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Instead of imposing harsh lockdowns as the majority of countries and states did, the United States and the world should have followed a policy of \u201cFocused Protection:\u201d identify where the significant risk is\u2014seniors, obesity, and those with pre-existing conditions\u2014and attack the virus from there, all the while allowing those who are a much smaller risk to resume their lives. This strategy was embraced by states like Florida and countries like Sweden, which are doing far better than many countries that embraced lockdowns, and notably advocated for in the Great Barrington Declaration<\/a>\u2014a statement that was written and signed by three infectious disease epidemiologists and public health scientists\u2014Dr. Jay Bhattacharya of Stanford University, Dr. Martin Kulldorf of Harvard University, and Dr. Sunetra Gupta of Oxford University. The declaration seeks a major overhaul of the Covid-19 policy, arguing that the collateral damage from the lockdowns is so severe that a policy of lockdowns should be out of the question. Since its signing in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, on October 4, 2020, the declaration has received nearly 820,000 signatures: about 764,000 from concerned citizens, about 14,000 from medical and public health scientists, and about 42,000 from medical practitioners from around the world. The declaration states:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Current lockdown policies are producing devastating effects on short and long-term public health. The results (to name a few) include lower childhood vaccination rates, worsening cardiovascular disease outcomes, fewer cancer screenings, and deteriorating mental health\u2014leading to greater excess mortality in years to come, with the working class and younger members of society carrying the heaviest burden.\u00a0<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

The declaration also identifies ways of how a strategy of \u201cFocused Protection\u201d would be implemented. For example:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nursing homes should use staff with acquired immunity and perform frequent testing of other staff and all visitors. Staff rotation should be minimized. Retired people living at home should have groceries and other essentials delivered to their homes. When possible, they should meet family members outside rather than inside.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Unsurprisingly, the Great Barrington Declaration has been smeared<\/a> by critics as being \u201cfar-right extremism\u201d even though two of its drafters are on the Left. The declaration has also been deemed as \u201cpseudoscientific\u201d by \u201cwanting to let the virus run free,\u201d which is not what the strategy of  \u201cFocused Protection\u201d advocates for.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Case for Hope<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Image: Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While the last year has been horrific in many respects, with Covid-19 claiming millions of lives worldwide and the catastrophic economic, public health, and societal impacts, there is a reason to be hopeful. The implementation of the Covid-19 vaccine is an excellent tool to reach immunity. Covid-19 deaths are plummeting<\/a> in the United States, and vaccinations are rising. States like Texas and Mississippi<\/a> have completely reopened. Governors like Cuomo<\/a> are finally being held accountable for their actions in relation to nursing homes. Even states which implemented very harsh restrictions<\/a> are beginning to lift them. The lockdowns should be lifted once and for all, and life should resume. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

All charts in this article from Ian Miller<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Featured Image: Eneas De Troya Imagine sitting in school sometime in February, or let\u2019s say early March of 2020, talking with your friends, laughing with them, eating with them. Now… Continue reading “One Year Later: A Look Into the Catastrophic Lockdowns”<\/span> <\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39,"featured_media":4678,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[13],"tags":[648,742,649,180,854,653],"appful":[],"class_list":["post-4676","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-opinions","tag-coronavirus","tag-covid","tag-covid-19","tag-featured","tag-lockdown","tag-pandemic"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9uEnr-1dq","jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/gracegazette.org\/wordpress1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/49778866168_dded06f343_o-scaled.jpeg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gracegazette.org\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4676","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gracegazette.org\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gracegazette.org\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gracegazette.org\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/39"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gracegazette.org\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4676"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/gracegazette.org\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4676\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4704,"href":"https:\/\/gracegazette.org\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4676\/revisions\/4704"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gracegazette.org\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4678"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gracegazette.org\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4676"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gracegazette.org\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4676"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gracegazette.org\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4676"},{"taxonomy":"appful","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gracegazette.org\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/appful?post=4676"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}