I was a lockdown sceptic before the phrase was even a thing, from before it became very political. I just thought — it seemed to me obvious, though it obviously wasn't — that we should look at the risks (economic and health) as well as the benefits (alleged or otherwise). We needed to be sure that the "cure" wasn't worse than the disease. I thought.
Well!…
Pretty soon that view became a no-no. Early on in 2020 I was actually, really, to to my shock, accused of wanting to "kill people" with my views!
Many recent studies suggest that lockdowns caused greater harm than bemefit.
This is the latest, a meta study by Johns Hopkins University, reported by Fraser Myers in the alternative media outlet, Spiked. I’ll bet that Spiked is on the list of BBC sites they label “conspiracy theory newspapers”. But Spiked is not. It’s run by ex-Marxists, a lefty outfit, but with the integrity to look into issues and report them as they see them. Snip:
There have been a number of different attempts to estimate excess deaths during the pandemic period, but whatever methodology is used, the data always show two significant things. Firstly, there is no obvious correlation between the length or stringency of a nation's lockdowns and the level of excess deaths. Secondly, Sweden, which infamously shunned hard lockdowns, has ended up with some of the lowest excess deaths from the pandemic in Europe. Whichever calculation of excess deaths you use, whether it's from the Lancet, The Economist, the Spectator or the World Health Organisation, it is hard to avoid the conclusion that lockdown brought little gain for a lot of pain.
