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.

More To The Story

According to a report by The Telegraph, excess deaths in the U.K. in the last few months show “the number of excess deaths not from Covid dwarfs the number linked to the virus.”

Typically, excess death counts measure how many deaths there are in a year compared to the number of expected deaths for that year.

The data and the report come as calls to reinstate mask mandates are starting to percolate again in the country.

More from The Telegraph:

Figures for excess deaths from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) show that around 1,000 more people than usual are currently dying each week from conditions other than the virus.

The Telegraph understands that the Department of Health has ordered an investigation into the figures amid concern that the deaths are linked to delays to and deferment of treatment for conditions such as cancer, diabetes and heart disease.

The report dives a little deeper into the death numbers, noting they don’t appear to be tied to COVID:

Since the beginning of June, the ONS has recorded nearly 10,000 more deaths than the five-year average – around 1,089 a week – none of which is linked to Covid. The figure is more than three times the number of people who died because of the virus over the same period, which stood at 2,811.

If the deaths were not COVID-linked, one has to ask were they vaccine-related in any way?

According to the article, Dr. Charles Levinson, the chief executive of Doctorcall, said his company was seeing “far too many” cases of undetected cancers and cardiac problems, as well as “disturbing” numbers of mental health conditions.

The most recent vaccination data for the U.K shows the country is over 75 percent vaccinated.

What about excess deaths in the United States?

According to the website government data tracking website USAFacts, “In the second year of the COVID-19 pandemic, preliminary CDC data shows there were 3.4 million deaths in the US, 17% higher than what was expected for the year.”

“With nearly 500,000 more deaths than what was expected, the excess death rate for 2021 was three percentage points higher than in 2020, the first year of the pandemic. The overall death rate for 2021 was also 2% higher than 2020 and 19% higher than in 2019,” according to USAFacts’ report first published in January of this year.

In the U.S., there seems to be a level of incuriousness from the CDC when it comes to excess deaths. Instead, the agency seems more interested in debunking adverse reactions and direct deaths tied to the mRNA shots.

As of March of this year, the CDC has stated that the experimental Pfizer and Moderna mRNA vaccines were not the cause of direct deaths per an analysis of the U.S. adverse event monitoring system data. According to the related paper published in The Lancet medical journal, the scientists involved “found no unusual patterns in cause of death among the death reports received.”

However, a report by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (USDA) pertaining to documents on Pfizer’s clinical trials of their vaccines may say otherwise.

According to the USDA report, the total number of deaths in the vaccinated group was 24 percent higher than the number of deaths in the placebo group, yet the report claimed "None of the deaths were considered related to vaccination."

Half of the group involved got the vaccine and half received the placebo; just under 22,000 individuals were involved in total.