Meta-analysis: Lockdowns do not reduce COVID mortality and are harmful

Early in the pandemic, Dr. Anthony Fauci, NIAID director, recommended a nationwide shutdown to prevent the spread of COVID.  As a result, lockdowns were instituted across the USA.  Many other countries took their cue from the United States and instituted lockdowns as well.  Initially the goal was to “flatten the curve”, meaning to reduce pressure on the health care system.  This morphed into an all-out war against the spread of the virus.

The lockdowns alarmed many including 600 doctors who wrote a letter to then President Donald Trump warning that the lockdowns in and of themselves were a “mass casualty event”.  “The downstream health effects...are being massively under-estimated and under-reported. This is an order of magnitude error," according to the letter initiated by Simone Gold, M.D.  Clearly, the doctors believed that the damage the lockdowns were causing greatly outweighed their perceived benefit.

At the time, Dr. Gold and the other doctors, were vilified and pilloried for their views.

Since then, many studies have been written and published showing the inefficacy of lockdowns in preventing the spread of the virus and the tremendous damage they cause economically, socially, and to mental and physical health.

Last week, a meta-analysis of the effects of lockdowns on COVID-19 mortality was published by researchers at Johns Hopkins University.  This paper analyzes 34 studies that collected data from the first wave of the pandemic. The researchers address the question, “What does the evidence tell us about the effects of lockdowns on mortality?” The researchers’ conclusion, “The evidence fails to confirm that lockdowns have a significant effect in reducing COVID-19 mortality. The effect is little to none.”  In fact, according to the meta-analysis, lockdowns have reduced mortality by 0.2% on average.

The paper continues, “The use of lockdowns is a unique feature of the COVID-19 pandemic. Lockdowns have not been used to such a large extent during any of the pandemics of the past century. However, lockdowns during the initial phase of the COVID-19 pandemic have had devastating effects. They have contributed to reducing economic activity, raising unemployment, reducing schooling, causing political unrest, contributing to domestic violence, and undermining liberal democracy. These costs to society must be compared to the benefits of lockdowns, which our meta-analysis has shown are marginal at best. Such a standard benefit-cost calculation leads to a strong conclusion: lockdowns should be rejected out of hand as a pandemic policy instrument.”

The meta-analysis results are, “in line with the World Health Organization Writing Group (2006), who state, ‘Reports from the 1918 influenza pandemic indicate that social-distancing measures did not stop or appear to dramatically reduce transmission […] In Edmonton, Canada, isolation and quarantine were instituted; public meetings were banned; schools, churches, colleges, theaters, and other public gathering places were closed; and business hours were restricted without obvious impact on the epidemic.’”

The meta-analysis has been impossible to ignore even by the mainstream media.  When asked about the study out of Johns Hopkins showing that lockdowns have failed, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki claimed that the current administration is not pro-lockdown, blaming instead, the previous administration.  Psaki said, “We’ve not been pro-lockdown … most of the lockdowns actually happened under the previous President.”  She conveniently sidesteps the fact that the architect of White House COVID policies including lockdowns was and still is Dr. Anthony Fauci who has not yet been fired for his disastrous policies.

The robust and free exchange of information is vital for a healthy society.  What was considered by mainstream media to be “misinformation” last year is now touted on the front cover of magazines and in mainstream newsrooms.  The result of silencing critics is oftentimes catastrophic.  In fact, it has proven to be the difference between life and death.