Tuesday, 15 August 2023

“Pandemic Costs: the costs of Lockdowns vs Mortality” | Peter Forsythe April 2020

I posted this early in the pandemic. I think it stands up pretty well.

Despite this, most people, I think, stay committed to various governments' Lockdown narratives. 

If anything they say lockdowns should have been "sooner, faster, harder". Harder, harder…

There is zero evidence — even three years later — that lockdowns were effective. See this Scotland study as the latest such, showing meagre effects of NPIs and even of vaccines. Especially since the elderly, the most at risk, also tended to be the most vaccine hesitant — even here in Hong Kong where one can’t blame the hesitancy on the likes of JFK Jr. And vaccines were pushed in the young who were, and remain, minimally at risk from Covid. 

There is no evidence that the benefits (fewer covid deaths … perhaps) outweigh the costs (livelihoods, excess non-Covid deaths, mental health, education).