Lockdowns: the worst public health catastrophe in human history

RICHMOND, BC, CANADA – MAR 29, 2020: International departures section of YVR which is nearly empty due to the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic Via 123RF

In Brief

• The Facts:

  • There is a wealth of data showing that lockdowns have killed more people than COVID.

  • There are hundreds of studies that also show the failure of these interventions to stop the spread of COVID.

• Reflect On:

  If there is strong data showing lockdowns are ineffective in stopping the spread of COVID, then why are they still being used if they have already killed millions of people? What is going on?

Calling lockdowns the worst public health catastrophe in human history is not unreasonable, and many who have studied the implications of lockdowns on human health and the global economy echo this sentiment.

The phrase seems to have been coined by Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, MD, PhD., a professor of both medicine and economics at Stanford University. He made this comment quite early on in the pandemic when lockdowns were imposed, and continues to stand by it as more evidence emerges regarding just how catastrophic lockdowns have been. In fact, he stated his position again in a recent tweet regarding a new study published in the journal Nature.

Multiple academics throughout the pandemic have shown how catastrophic lockdowns are and have been, but there wasn’t a peep from mainstream media. For the most part, mainstream media labelled those who oppose lockdowns as “anti-lockdown” instead of having an appropriate discussion regarding the evidence calling these measures into question.

Early on, renowned Swedish Clinical professor in infectious disease and professor of epidemiology from the Karolinska Instituet, Anna-Mia Elkström, along with professor Stefan Swartling Peterson, a Public Health Physician and Professor of Global Health also from the Karolinska Institutet, found that nearly one year into the pandemic, lockdowns may have killed more people than COVID. They did so by going through data collected by UNICEF and UNAIDS. They were interviewed about these findings multiple times in Sweden.

Just nine months into the pandemic, on an international scale the lockdowns placed 130 million people on the brink of starvation, 80 million children at risk for diphtheria, measles and polio, and 1.8 million patients at risk of death from tuberculosis. The lockdowns in developed countries devastated many in poorer countries. The World Economic Forum estimated  that the lockdowns will cause an additional 150 million people to fall into extreme poverty, 125 times as many people as have died from COVID.

Just seven months into the pandemic, Germany’s Minister of Economic Cooperation and Development, Gerd Muller, cautioned that global lockdown measures will result in the killing of more people than COVID itself.

Just five months into the pandemic a Lancet study reported that government strategies to deal with COVID such as lockdowns, physical distancing, and school closures are worsening child malnutrition globally, whereby “strained health systems and interruptions in humanitarian response are eroding access to essential and often life-saving nutrition services.”

Taken together, the data are clear both that national lockdowns are not a necessary condition for Covid-19 infections to decrease and that the Prime Minister was incorrect to suggest to MPs that infections were increasing rapidly in England prior to lockdown and that without national measures, the NHS would be overwhelmed…Lockdowns have never previously been used in response to a pandemic. They have significant and serious consequences for health (including mental health), livelihoods and the economy. Around 21,000 excess deaths during the first UK lockdown were not Covid-19 deaths. These are people who would have lived had there not been a lockdown. – Professor David Paton, Professor of Economics at the University of Nottingham and Professor Ellen Townsend, a Professor of Psychology at the University of Nottingham School of Medicine

Perhaps a better alternative would have been a more focused protection plan, like the The Great Barrington Declaration suggested early on in the pandemic.

So, it’s not like this information was being unacknowledged completely. It was well known. The main argument from pro-lockdown advocates was the idea that it helped to limit the spread of COVID, leading to a decreased pressure on healthcare systems around the globe, as well as as a decrease in the death toll.

Studies emerged claiming that lockdowns would be and were successful at limiting the spread of COVID. These were beamed out across multiple mainstream media outlets, while studies purporting that lockdowns did nothing to stop the spread of COVID were completely ignored and unacknowledged within the mainstream. A proper discussion around this was not had. In fact, the number of studies claiming lockdowns had no effect on the spread of the virus far outnumber those that claim it did.

In January of this year, Bendavid, along with other professors from Stanford School of medicine reported,

“In the framework of this analysis, there is no evidence that more restrictive nonpharmaceutical interventions (‘lockdowns’) contributed substantially to bending the curve of new cases in England, France, Germany, Iran, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, or the United States in early 2020.”

A paper published by the National Bureau of Economic Research in June 2021 found that excess deaths increased shortly after the implementation of these measures.

A paper published by SSRN, a well known global E-Library that provides 1,063,815 research papers from 693,848 researchers in more than 65 disciplines explains,

The extent of human life loss due to lockdowns themselves has never been taken into consideration in the decision-making process…The forecasts which were chosen for political decision making systematically overestimated the threat, supporting excessive measures. The pro-lockdown evidence is shockingly thin, and based largely on comparing real-world outcomes against dire computer-generated forecasts derived from empirically untested models.

 Donald Luskin of the Wall Street Journal explained early on in September 2020,

“Six months into the Covid-19 pandemic, the U.S. has now carried out two large-scale experiments in public health—first, in March and April, the lockdown of the economy to arrest the spread of the virus, and second, since mid-April, the reopening of the economy. The results are in. Counterintuitive though it may be, statistical analysis shows that locking down the economy didn’t contain the disease’s spread and reopening it didn’t unleash a second wave of infections.”

There are now more than 400 studies on the failure of compulsory COVID interventions.

The benefits of the societal lockdowns and restrictions have been totally exaggerated and the harms to our societies and children have been severe: the harms to children, the undiagnosed illness that will result in excess mortality in years to come, depression, anxiety, suicidal ideation in our young people, drug overdoses and suicides due to the lockdown policies, the crushing isolation due to the lockdowns, psychological harms, domestic and child abuse, sexual abuse of children, loss of jobs and businesses and the devastating impact, and the massive numbers of deaths resulting from the lockdowns that will impact heavily on women and minorities. 

Dr. Paul Elias Alexander, former COVID Pandemic evidence-synthesis consultant advisor to WHO-PAHO Washington, DC (2020) and former senior advisor to COVID Pandemic policy in Health and Human Services (HHS). Quote taken from his article, “More Than 400 Studies on the Failure of Compulsory Covid Interventions.”

With all of this data available, lockdowns are still being implemented all over the world. Austria and Germany have locked down those who are unvaccinated, despite the fact that the shots do not adequately contain the spread of the virus. This is why we are seeing outbreaks in highly vaccinated populations, and have for some time now.

With the emergence of the new Omicron variant, whispers of future lockdowns are again beginning to take place. This is what happens when science and data on one end of the coin is completely ignored, unacknowledged and ridiculed, and science and data on the other side of the coin is given the spotlight.

Mainstream media and “the powers that be” will not even entertain a discussion regarding evidence that calls into question the desires they wish to take to supposedly combat the spread of COVID. With all of this happening, it becomes easier to see that what’s taking place is politically motivated.

Powerful people are using this crisis to exercise more power and control over the citizenry. It’s been a common theme throughout human history. Not only do they gain more power and control, they also become wealthier. All of this is done under the guise of goodwill and service to others.

All is not doom and gloom however, COVID has been a great catalyst for humanity to “wake up” and see these aspects of our world that, to some, may not have been as transparent before. This alone is an extremely positive and encouraging factor, as these measures can only go as far as people comply. The “power” truly is in our hands, and the more we are inappropriately pushed, the more people who support and follow these measures will start speaking up against them.

I’ll leave you with a quote from Edward Snowden, the NSA whistleblower who blew the whistle on the U.S. government’s massive illegal surveillance program that was and still is collecting massive amounts of data on all U.S.citizens, and citizens around the world.

As authoritarianism spreads, as emergency laws proliferate, as we sacrifice our rights, we also sacrifice our capability to arrest the slide into a less liberal and less free world. Do you truly believe that when the first wave, this second wave, the 16th wave of the coronavirus is a long forgotten memory, that these capabilities will not be kept?