Did Covid Lockdowns Work?

commentary editorials

The Verdict on Covid Restrictions
By Cindy Sheehan
Jun 6

“The results of our meta-analysis support the conclusion that lockdowns in the spring of 2020 had a negligible effect on COVID-19 mortality. This result is consistent with the view that voluntary changes in behaviour, such as social distancing, did play an important role in mitigating the pandemic.1 day ago”

Did lockdowns work? The verdict on Covid restrictions

JONAS HERBY, DR LARS JONUNG & PROFESSOR STEVE H. HANKE

5 JUNE 2023

The purpose of this systematic review and meta-analysis is to determine the effect of lockdowns, also referred to as ‘Covid restrictions’, ‘social distancing measures’ etc., on COVID-19 mortality based on available empirical evidence. We define lockdowns as the imposition of at least one compulsory, non-pharmaceutical intervention (NPI). We employ a systematic search and screening procedure in which 19,646 studies are identified that could potentially address the purpose of our study. After three levels of screening, 32 studies qualified. Of those, estimates from 22 studies could be converted to standardised measures for inclusion in the metaanalysis.

They are separated into three groups: lockdown stringency index studies, shelter-in-place-order (SIPO) studies, and specific NPI studies. Stringency index studies find that the average lockdown in Europe and the United States in the spring of 2020 only reduced COVID-19 mortality by 3.2 per cent. This translates into approximately 6,000 avoided deaths in Europe and 4,000 in the United States. SIPOs were also relatively ineffective in the spring of 2020, only reducing COVID-19 mortality by 2.0 per cent. This translates into approximately 4,000 avoided deaths in Europe and 3,000 in the United States. Based on specific NPIs, we estimate that the average lockdown in Europe and the United States in the spring of 2020 reduced COVID-19 mortality by 10.7 per cent. This translates into approximately 23,000 avoided deaths in Europe and 16,000 in the United States. In comparison, there are approximately 72,000 flu deaths in Europe and 38,000 flu deaths in the United States each year. When checked for potential biases, our results are robust. Our results are also supported by the natural experiments we have been able to identify.

The authors of this study identified almost 20k other studies to use for this metaanalysis, but only 22 actually had the proper standardized methods to be used in this metaanalysis. Most “studies,” as we know were based on feelings and working backwards from the conclusion Big pHARMa actually wanted.

COVID-19 lockdowns were “a global policy failure of gigantic proportions,” according to this peer-reviewed new academic study. The draconian policy failed to significantly reduce deaths while imposing substantial social, cultural, and economic costs.

Those “substantial” costs were mostly paid by working-people and families, but had very positive effects on the billionaires; and politicians and media conglomerates that profited from Big pHARMa kickbacks, after companies like Pfizer made tens of billions of dollars from the eventual goal of a vaccine—it’s a vicious Merry-Go-Round and we NEVER get to grab that golden ring.

Herby, Jonung, and Hanke conclude that voluntary changes in behaviour, such as social distancing, played a significant role in mitigating the pandemic – but harsher restrictions, like stay-at-home rules and school closures, generated very high costs but produced only negligible health benefits.

As I, and many others have said, all along: People should have been able to access their own vulnerability to the immensely exploited germ, or germ-like coronavirus. We should have been supported when we were ill and chose to stay home and people who accessed their vulnerability as high could have been offered online work, schooling, and shopping. If online-work, for example, wasn’t available, then that vulnerable person should have been supported. Compulsory, universal prescriptions for lockdowns and restrictions have been shown in this study to be failures. I felt like Gavin Newsolini became my primary care physician, only worse than any other doctor. Before Covid19 could you have even imagined a physician, with full force of the state behind him/her prescribing a therapeutical for 100% of his/her patients without exams?

In each case, the restrictions did little to reduce COVID-19 mortality:

Shelter-in-place (stay at home) orders in Europe and the United States reduced COVID mortality by between 1.4 and 4.1 per cent;

Business closures reduced mortality by 7.5 per cent;

Gathering limits likely increased COVID mortality by almost six per cent;

Mask mandates, which most countries avoided in Spring 2020, reduced mortality by 18.7 per cent, particularly mandates in workplaces; and

School closures resulted in a between 2.5 per cent and 6.2 per cent mortality reduction.

As a grandmother who was involved in my grandchildren’s distance “learning,” I can attest to the fact that there was very little learning going on, yet the PTSD from those years (combined with the existential dread being pushed on them from media, teachers, and family members) will follow this Covid-generation for years, if not the rest of their lives.

There was never any empirical evidence that school closures would be helpful in ending the virus, in fact, the opposite was true in countries that did not close the schools. I have nothing but contempt for teacher unions, supposed leftists who were supposed champions of workers and families, and any privileged ahole who supported closing schools. I always knew the other measures were wrongheaded, and along with putting ill people in Long Term “Care” Facilities (Eldercide), school closures were a crime against our younger humanity, as Eldercide was a crime against our older humanity.

Here is a link to the 220-page study.

Locdown madness in editorials and commentary — Courtesy of Shutterstock

I don’t think many of us needed a metaanalysis (“gold standard”) study to recognize that the lockdowns and other restrictions were a global Crime Against Humanity (and this doesn’t even figure in the experimental Magic Needle Juice™), but such scholarly confirmation can be useful in our continuing quest to expose the truth, and trying to make sure this NEVER happens again.

Cindy Lee Sheehan is an American anti-war activist, whose son, U.S. Army Specialist Casey Sheehan, was killed by enemy action during the Iraq War. She attracted national and international media attention in August 2005 for her extended antiwar protest at a makeshift camp outside President George W. Bush’s Texas ranch—a stand that drew both passionate support and criticism. Sheehan ran unsuccessfully for Congress in 2008. She was a vocal critic of President Barack Obama’s foreign policy. Her memoir, Peace Mom: A Mother’s Journey Through Heartache to Activism, was published in 2006. In an interview with The Daily Beast in 2017, Sheehan continued to hold her critical views towards George W. Bush, while also criticizing the militarism of Donald Trump.

Ms.Sheehan was the 2012 vice-presidential nominee of the Peace and Freedom Party, and received 1.2% of the statewide vote in the 2014 California gubernatorial election.

The author graciously has granted this website permission to reprint selected essays.

The views and/or opinions expressed by the author are her own and do not necessarily reflect the views and/or opinions of APS Radio News or of its affiliate, APS Radio.