Paper: Lockdowns took more lives than they saved

"lockdowns may claim 20 times more life years than they save"

A paper published in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health claims that lockdowns may have taken 20 times more life years than they saved.

“The price tag of lockdowns in terms of public health is high: by using the known connection between health and wealth, we estimate that lockdowns may claim 20 times more life years than they save,” the paper’s summary reads. “It is suggested therefore that a thorough cost-benefit analysis should be performed before imposing any lockdown for either COVID-19 or any future pandemic.”

The paper concluded that “While our understanding of viral transmission mechanisms leads to the assumption that lockdowns may be an effective pandemic management tool, this assumption cannot be supported by the evidence-based analysis of the present COVID-19 pandemic, as well as of the 1918–1920 H1N1 influenza type-A pandemic (the Spanish Flu) and numerous less-severe pandemics in the past.”

The paper summarized the following conclusions:

• Neither previous pandemics nor COVID-19 provide clear evidence that lockdowns help to prevent death in a pandemic.

• Lockdowns are associated with a considerable human cost. Even if somewhat effective in preventing COVID-19 death, they probably cause far more extensive (an order of magnitude or more) loss of life.

• A thorough risk-benefit analysis must be performed before imposing any lockdown in [the] future.

The section titled "preparedness plans describes how governments created detailed plans for influenza-like pandemics years ago and that all of them state lockdowns should be used as a “means of last resort only.”

"It should be mentioned that the same conclusions—no clear benefit of lockdowns in case of pandemic—were made by national and international bodies before COVID-19 emerged,” the paper says.

The paper also includes this line, which is particularly damning given the World Health Organization was knee-deep in directing pandemic responses:

"Noteworthy, the World Health Organization (WHO) published its comprehensive 91-page preparedness plan [6] in October 2019!

The WHO document, for example, explicitly mentioned that:
social distancing measures “can be highly disruptive” and should be carefully weighted travel-related measures are “unlikely to be successful”; “border closures may be considered only by small island nations in severe pandemics”
contact tracing and quarantine of exposed individuals are not recommended in any circumstances.

All the above plans were abandoned without any serious discussion at the very beginning of the COVID-19 crisis: The authors failed to find a single mention of these plans in publications of national health ministries in either country. Lockdowns, border closures, contact tracing, and quarantines became the main instruments.

According to the paper, “Numerous deaths can be attributed to the interruption of normal social life and routine regular social interactions.”

A list of “direct factors” was included:

• increased mortality due to postponement of diagnoses and routine treatments

• increase in mortality due to non-arrival at hospitals 

• increase in mortality due to a decrease in the level of income and as a result—use of less safe cars, reduction in the scope of physical activity, etc.

• “deaths of despair” caused by drugs, alcohol, and suicide following loss of social economic status

• increase in violence, including domestic violence; dismantling of families

• severe health damage to the elderly in particular—physical and mental deterioration (usually irreversible) due to loneliness, lack of movement, and routine supportive care.

“The lockdown policies had a direct side effect of increasing mortality. Hospitals in Europe and USA were prepared to manage pretty small groups of highly contagious patients, while unprepared for a much more probable challenge—large-scale contagion. As a result, public health care facilities and nursing homes often became vehicles of contamination themselves—to a large extent because of the lockdown-based emergency policy implementation,” explained the paper, citing New York as an example.

The discussion portion of the paper also implies pandemic decisions, including lockdowns were politically motivated.

“Even in democratic countries with limited and accountable governments, decisions are made not by angels but by humans (even if they are elected representatives of government officials) with their own characters, biases and interests,” according to the paper, which later says, “However, decisions on lockdowns may have also been politically motivated—see sect. V.5 of the Collection [4].”

Additionally, the paper’s discussion portion cites governments and public healthcare officials “enjoyed unprecedented expansion of power—to
close schools and universities, send people to self-isolation, issue stay-at-home orders (de facto—house arrest without a court order), and more [2,3].”

That expansion of power was not limited to people and government entities, it also included an “unprecedented” expansion of funding, namely the $2.3 trillion U.S. Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economy Security Act (“CARES Act”).

The topic of information suppression is also addressed in the paper

The questions of to what extent, why, and how the dissenting (disapproved by healthcare officials) scientific opinions were suppressed during COVID-19 [55] deserve a special and urgent analysis. Suppression of “misleading” opinions causes not only grave consequences for scientists’ moral compass; it prevents the scientific community from correcting mistakes and jeopardizes (with a good reason) public trust in science. At least, publicly funded research should be scrutinized for conflict of interest to avoid artificial scientific consensus.

The full paper can be downloaded here.