COVID Lockdowns: The Deadly Gift That Keeps on Giving

(Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images)

The response to COVID-19 has been like Godzilla attacking Japan – individuals panicking and scrambling about willy-nilly. The authorities, utilizing all its energy and ego, determined the easiest way to guard the individuals is to place them into solitary confinement. What was presupposed to solely be 15 days to “flatten the curve” has changed into greater than a 12 months of pandemic lockdowns and masks mandates. The financial system has taken a extreme hit and companies have closed their doorways for good. Have these stay-at-home measures precipitated extra hurt than good? According to a number of research, that is undoubtedly the case.

Researchers from the Rand Corporation and the University of Southern California analyzed the medical worth of lockdowns. They noticed 43 international locations and all U.S. states, publishing the findings in June as a working paper of the National Bureau for Economic Research titled “The Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic and Policy Responses on Excess Mortality.” Notably, the examine authors mentioned:

“We fail to find that SIP [sheltering in place] policies saved lives. To the contrary, we find a positive association between SIP policies and excess deaths. We find that following the implementation of SIP policies, excess mortality increases.”

In truth, researchers predicted nearly from the start that social and financial turmoil would find yourself resulting in tens of 1000’s of “deaths of despair” attributable to such troubles as alcoholism, drug overdoses, and suicides. As lockdowns continued, unemployment skyrocketed, and psychological well being and substance abuse applications have been interrupted. People desperately needing assist weren’t capable of get it.

The City Journal reported, “The number of people killed last year in motor-vehicle accidents in the United States rose to the highest level in more than a decade, even though Americans did significantly less driving than in 2019.” And, “it was the steepest annual increase in the fatality rate per mile traveled in nearly a century, apparently due to more substance abuse and more high-speed driving on empty roads.”

The Elderly

Seniors are particularly susceptible. Besides the efforts of New York Governor Andrew Cuomo tossing COVID-infected sufferers into nursing properties, the locking down of those institutions appeared to have precipitated extra hurt than good, particularly for these affected by Alzheimer’s and dementia. According to an article from September 2020 revealed in a outstanding Washington newspaper, “more than 134,200 people have died from Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia since March. That is 13,200 more U.S. deaths caused by dementia than expected, compared with previous years.”

To put that into perspective, diabetes and coronary heart illness are two of the most important sources of extra deaths, however dementia has produced extra deaths than these two mixed. Depression is a giant trigger. Humans are social creatures and a part of the therapy for Alzheimer’s is routine contact with household and pals. Visitors additionally support in serving to to feed and bathe their family members, however these duties fell to workers who have been already closely burdened as a result of lockdowns, so quite a lot of the sufferers weren’t getting the common remedies and a spotlight they so wanted.

Sharon O’Connor runs a program at Iona Senior Services in Washington D.C. She mentioned, “We have clients who have lost 30 pounds. Some just don’t have a reason to get up anymore, so they stay in bed all day. Others sit by themselves in a dark room.”

What About the Children?

A group of researchers from Johns Hopkins and Duke analyzed the results of previous recessions on mortality. The paper, “The Long-Term Impact of the COVID-19 Unemployment Shock on Life Expectancy and Mortality Rates” estimates the U.S. will expertise greater than 1 million extra deaths over the following twenty years as a result of huge “unemployment shock” final 12 months.

In one other examine, targeted on the impression of the pandemic on training, researchers famous how instructional ranges have an effect on not solely revenue means but in addition life expectancy. According to the City Journal. the work means that the “learning loss” from faculty closures will price this era of scholars “more years of life than have been lost by all the victims of the coronavirus.” The report states:

“These findings suggest that the decision to close US public primary schools in the early months of 2020 may be associated with a decrease in life expectancy for US children.”

(Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images)

Have the Lockdowns Worked?

The City Journal reported, “When the 50 states are ranked according to the stringency of their lockdown restrictions, you can see one obvious pattern: the more restrictive the state, the higher the unemployment rate. But there’s no pattern in the rate of Covid-19 mortality.”

Hundreds of 1000’s of extra deaths have occurred because the nation was put into isolation. And the toll will solely proceed to extend. How many preventative physician’s appointments have been missed that would have caught early indicators of most cancers or coronary heart illness? Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, a professor at Stanford Medical School calls the lockdowns a “trickle-down epidemiology.” He mentioned:

“Lockdowns are the single worst public health mistake in the last 100 years. We will be counting the catastrophic health and psychological harms, imposed on nearly every poor person on the face of the earth, for a generation.”

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