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Home » Johns Hopkins economists says lockdowns are pretty much worthless

Johns Hopkins economists says lockdowns are pretty much worthless

The New Neo Posted on by

Now they tell us.

Actually, during these COVID years I’ve read several earlier studies questioning the effectiveness of lockdowns. I don’t recall where or when, but it’s been ongoing. However, I had to seek them out; I don’t recall them being featured in the MSM, which was pushing a different line.

Now we have this from some Johns Hopkins economists. It’s very long and complex, but here are some conclusions:

Overall, we conclude that lockdowns are not an effective way of reducing mortality rates during a pandemic, at least not during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. Our 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.” Our findings are also in line with Allen’s (2021) conclusion: “The most recent research has shown that lockdowns have had, at best, a marginal effect on the number of Covid 19 deaths.”…

Mandates only regulate a fraction of our potential contagious contacts and can hardly regulate nor enforce handwashing, coughing etiquette, distancing in supermarkets, etc. Countries like Denmark, Finland, and Norway that realized success in keeping COVID-19 mortality rates relatively low allowed people to go to work, use public transport, and meet privately at home during the first lockdown. In these countries, there were ample opportunities to legally meet with others.

This didn’t really need a study to discover, did it? A study can certainly validate what basically are commonsense notions of what’s reasonable and what’s not, and except for those first two “flatten the curve” weeks right at the beginning, it was obvious that the costs of lockdowns (political, economic, social, and even health-related) were going to probably be at least as bad as the benefits. But for whatever reason, lockdowns were preferred by the people in charge, perhaps because they liked being little dictators, perhaps because they believed it would help, perhaps because they wanted to hurt Trump, or perhaps some combination of such factors.

The article also says:

[Lockdowns] 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.

That’s a pretty strong statement, isn’t it? I wonder whether the left (which has now become the entire Democratic Party) will decide to follow the science next time, or even now. I really think it depends on who’s in charge. If it’s Republicans, and if crashing the economy while making people miserable can be blamed on those Republicans, then the left will scream “Lockdown! LOCKDOWN!!” once again. Right now there’s a push to relax things, but I believe that’s because the Democrats are in charge and at this point they feel they have been hurt politically by the continuation of the restrictions.

When Trump was president there was no downside whatsoever to scaring people out of their wits (literally), because all of the bad stuff could be blamed on Trump. Which was always absurd, because it became clear early on that countries generally had a trajectory that wasn’t all that related to government crackdowns on liberty. But I think the left’s approach worked politically anyway and damaged Trump. Now, however, it’s started to backfire on them.

[ADDENDUM: I’ve only read a portion of this article, but it seems relevant and worth reading.]

Comments

Johns Hopkins economists says lockdowns are pretty much worthless — 33 Comments

  1. Dems running scared with the Mid Terms coming up. More and more mandates will soon be dropped. By mid March Omicron will be mostly gone, infections down, hospitals emptying, etc and Biden will take credit for the “wonderful” news about COVID.

  2. Marty Makary (also of Johns Hopkins) has recently been speaking about the unwillingness of the MSM to mention this fascinating study. While most of the now-discredited “public health experts” on CNN and MSNBC (such as Hotez and Wen) have been, like the undeservedly-famous and absurdly-remunerated Fauci, fear-mongering and unreliable, Makary, like Stanford’s Bhattacharya (Great Barrington) has been, for quite some time, a voice of reason and good sense. It is now obvious to all rational persons that not only lockdowns but also “social distancing”, mandates, masks, as well as the incessant testing of those at little risk, have been not only useless but very destructive to many individuals and to society as a whole.

  3. The lockdowns accomplished the goals they were intended to achieve.

    SHIREHOME,

    Yes but it will little avail them given the rising inflation, millions of illegals and imposition of CRT upon children with protesting parents labeled domestic terrorists, to name but a few. The only things that can save the democrats from the politcal tsunami coming is to successfully steal the next election or manipulate events such that they have a semi-plausible rationale for Biden declaring Martial Law for the duration of the ‘national emergency’.

    They’ve almost seized enough rope with which to hang themselves.

  4. “Now, however, it’s started to backfire on them.”

    Actually, EVERYTHING is starting to backfire on them…which is an occupational hazard when you create an impermeable—-i.e., an essentially totalitarian-type—echo chamber, which blocks you from seeing, hearing, noticing and therefore responding to REALITY.

    (Think Lear’s utter and ultimately fatal disregard of his “Fool”…)

    The problem that “Biden” and the woke Left (and not-so-woke Left) face is one that they themselves have created: They have tremendous power, including the power of the media and infotech, to not only broadcast what they wish to broadcast but to squelch—as in “censor”—anything and everything they wish to conceal—and they KNOW that they have MUCH that they MUST conceal, that they MUST cover up, that they FEAR will ever see the light of day….

    A totalitarian’s dream!—which leads, however, to that same totalitarian’s nightmare, since said totalitarian has no basis on which to assess the CONSEQUENCES of his decisions.

    Has no basis on which to gauge REALITY…when surrounded by “Yes men”…

    (Nothing new here of course….)

    Actually though, TRUE news does “get out” (at least some truths can STILL leak out into the public domain…in spite of the BEST EFFORTS of “Biden”, the media, infotech’, the academy’s and now aging “LET-YER-FREE-FLAG-FLY” Rock’n Roll singers—who would’ve ever thunk that?). Such “leaks”—the TRUTHS that do an—are denied, ridiculed and shut down (or tried to) by the elites and their cohorts; but attempts at shutting them down don’t always work—and in fact, CAN even…yes, BACKFIRE…by creating an even greater interest in those opinions that the “elites” (and their representatives and supporters) bend over backward to cancel and then moan about when they don’t succeed.

    The Truth Will OUT. (IOW “Biden” has not yet been able to convert the US into North Korea, though “he” IS doing “his” damnedest….)

    Turley has a FASCINATING (not to mention extraordinary) post that describes how in the Joe Rogan vs. Cancel Culture debate, MARKET FORCES have stepped in to “protect” Rogan and free speech—at least for now—from the powerful forces—LED BY THE “PRESIDENT” of the US—that desperately want to cancel both Rogan AND free speech:
    https://www.zerohedge.com/political/can-joe-rogan-save-free-speech
    Key term:
    “…echo chambers…” (and their mass cult-like creation thereof…though as we’ve seen above, an echo chamber MAY expedite the eventual “death” of tyranny…)
    Key grafs:
    ‘…Censorship is in vogue. Prince Harry (who called the First Amendment “bonkers”) has supported Young in his quest to silence Rogan on Spotify. One’s commitment to a cause today is measured by one’s intolerance for opposing viewpoints.
    ‘As a result, social media companies and other corporations now regulate speech in the United States to a degree that an actual state media would struggle to replicate. Faced with a growing cancel culture, companies are scrubbing their platforms of dissenting viewpoints and converting forums into echo chambers.
    ‘In the use of private companies, the left has achieved an ignoble distinction. While liberal writers and artists were blacklisted and investigated in the 1950s, liberal activists have succeeded in censoring opposing views to a degree that would have made Sen. Joe McCarthy (R-Wis.) blush. Rather than burn books, they have simply gotten stores to ban them or blacklist the authors.
    ‘For these companies, there is no value to protecting the speech rights of dissenting voices with powerful politicians, academics, and even some in the media demanding more censorship.
    ‘But then they went after Rogan….” [bold font in original]

  5. Echo chamber, continued…
    In fact, the “Biden” administration has NO IDEA why anyone might doubt what it claims or alleges; OR why anything it may claim or allege MIGHT BE CONSIDERED SIMPLY NOT CREDIBLE—except to conclude that the doubter MUST be influenced by (that always useful) “Russian disinformation” or even be a tool of the Russians….

    No, it has NO idea at all…as this astounding press conference demonstrates:
    “This Is Alex Jones Territory!…”—
    https://www.zerohedge.com/political/alex-jones-territory-watch-reporter-destroy-admin-spox-over-russian-false-flag-claims

  7. Speaking of Dr. Hotez, this was in the local news Congresswoman Lizzie Fletcher nominates Dr. Peter Hotez, Dr. Maria Elena Bottazzi for Nobel Peace Prize. We now have Democrats trying to run other nation’s award system. This same Rep. recently toured a major water pipeline program in Houston. My friend is in the board running the project, so cordially participated in the tour. She wanted to see it to emphasize federal infrastructure projects. The project began about 2 years ago and is entirely funded by local taxes. It is all theater and people are tired of playing along as real freedom and rights are eroded.

  8. A few notes on Dr. Peter Hotez:
    “…Dr. Peter Hotez admits he fabricated false attack against Sharyl Attkisson”—
    https://sharylattkisson.com/2021/06/read-dr-peter-hotez-defamation/

    “Tucker Carlson slams COVID ‘nutcase from Baylor’ Peter Hotez for ‘discrediting American medicine'”—
    https://www.foxnews.com/media/tucker-carlson-covid-peter-hotez

    “Tucker [Carlson]: Dr. Peter Hotez a ‘charlatan’ who wants dissenters jailed”
    https://video.foxnews.com/v/6294878028001#sp=show-clips

  9. We knew early on, from the data, that the best strategy was to protect and treat the most vulnerable. We even knew the profile of who was in that most vulnerable category. Yet our leaders did what they always do: focused on a one size fits all approach, facts and evidence be damned, and they ended up seriously harming a great many people and communities.

  10. Common sense is worthless against political COVID. The CDC has pretty much trashed the available data and you can be sure that their masters will not fund any realistic investigations. Any outside investigations will be career enders and invitations to “Life with the IRS”. The rule is, “Follow (Our) science (or else)”.

    I am beginning to believe that the story is in the vaccination exemptions. Congress, the judiciary, employees of vaccine manufacturers, and illegal aliens were exempt. Welfare recipients are ignored. Deaths and disability among the useful employees will “make room” for the new population and for the useless oppressed minorities. They don’t care about deaths and pain. Anything is justified to get their fantasy society.

  11. “Yet our leaders did what they always do….”
    “I am beginning to believe that the story is in the vaccination exemptions….”

    This is undoubtfully so. BUT it misses the main point: which is, the absolute NEED to cause huge political damage to the sitting president—as well as ultimately being the rationale for ramming through unprecedented and indiscriminate levels of mail-in balloting—so as prevent that president’s re-election.

    To this end, people’s lives were sacrificed (mostly the elderly and those with so-called “co-morbidities”), statistics were manipulated and falsified, and the economy and people’s lives were shattered.

    (And so, the political angle was paramount—and the hell with the population—though the Democrats and their confederates, as befits their “modus operandi”, made damn sure to accuse Trump of politicizing Covid for his own political benefit—and they still do so).

    And YET, all of this still wasn’t enough to cause sufficiently grave electoral damage to Trump. In fact, it was appearing increasingly that his popularity was gathering strength…in spite of the best, most concerted efforts of Democratic party demogoguery and the corrupt media/info-tech manipulating the “news”.

    And so—as “insurance” (that term made so “popular” by Peter Strzok and his squeeze)—they used the pandemic, which they promoted, manipulated and exacerbated, to force illegal changes in voting laws in a variety of “swing” states, which enabled them—together with other electoral hanky panky—to steal the 2020 election. (So that those virus victims “would not have died in vain”…or been financially and/or socially cut off at the knees, etc….)

    It has got to be the hugest scandal—the most spectacular case of non-military, political malfeasance—not only in the country (where it clearly exceeds even Russiagate), but on the planet.

    “Non-military”?

    Actually, “coup” is the only way to describe it.

  12. Barry: and they are getting away with it.

    That is probably the interest of the Corruptocrats and RINOs. I suspect that the exemptions are more for the CRT Race fantasies. During the Obama era, there were a lot of “forced” retirements in the USPS that made “room” for Progressive “pets”. Vaccination side-effects would similarly make room in the ranks of the gainfully employed. Vacancies plus DIE policies would bring in more “pets”.

    There have been a huge number of “adverse side- effects” reported for these vaccines that the CDC has buried in their jumble of “data”, and there hasn’t been any time to look for potential auto-immune disease side-effects.

  13. Of course lockdowns don’t work and cause more devastation than they prevent.

    Do people know that “quarantining” of people who weren’t sick, contact tracing, entry and exit screenings, and border closures were not recommended in ANY circumstances in WHO pandemic planning guidelines as recently as 2019? What we’ve done is absolutely off the rails.

  15. JAW3, thanks. That is an incredible article, and it’s from nearly a year and a half ago!!
    I wonder why this hasn’t been more widely distributed. (Or has it?)

  18. “Never fails to disappoint”…perhaps…but sure is still able to (somewhat) surprise!
    “Report: CNN in Talks to Pay Chris Cuomo $9M in Hush Money to Protect Zucker, Network”—
    https://www.newsmax.com/us/cuomo/2022/02/03/id/1055441/

    Now that’s REALLY taking corruption to the next level!
    (Unless Zucker is merely angling for a job in the “Biden” administration—how about heading the FCC?)

  19. Just got into a FB argument about the JHU study. This person said the study was invalid since it was not done by public health officials or epidemiologists…sigh…they always resort to the logical fallacy of argument by authority. Then she went on to say the study was invalid as it only contained 34 samples. She totally ignores the fact that it is a meta-analysis; a combination of data from 34 previous papers.

    Sorry had to rant a bit. Arguing with these people is like talking to child with their hands over their ears. Maybe a waste of time, but I think it’s important to counter their idiocy.

  20. it was not done by public health officials or epidemiologists

    You mean by the people Dr. Atlas has reported cannot be bothered to read or discuss studies. I love it.

  21. Update on the argument: now she says the people who made the JHU study have “suspicious backgrounds” so the study can’t be trusted. Again, no refutation of the actual data, now just personal attacks on the researchers. They are so damn predictable.

  22. What will come after all this? The trend is clear with states like Florida, Texas, and countries like Denmark and the UK going back to normal. By the vernal equinox it will be a new world.

    The MSM will be heaping wrath on anyone who points out the insanity of the Covid Era. Attempts to investigate big pharma will be shouted down.

    I would like to see the slogan for the 2022 election be Defund the Swamp. Slash budgets, question everything.

    A search just found the average federal employee salary is $109,992. This is ridiculous.

    Defund the Swamp.

  23. now she says the people who made the JHU study have “suspicious backgrounds” so the study can’t be trusted.

    Remember The Lancet study on statistical modeling of death tolls in Iraq? Those people really did have suspicious backgrounds and their models were critiqued not merely by stats geeks but by leftoids associated with Iraq Body Count. Did she have an opinion about that, or is she a typical street-level Democrat for which each day begins anew?

  24. To give some folks a little slack: If nothing works when the world is coming down around your ears–NARRATIVE–then that means there’s nothing you can do and that’s scary.
    So….Something must be done and it will be, perforce, imbued with Power to help with the problem, whatever it is.
    Doing due diligence finds that the prescribed action is useless and…we’re back to helpless. Can’t have that.

    That’s an irrational mental process but is fairly common. Then you add that authority has to be seen to be doing Something and..authority will be doing something. A school super who doesn’t close the schools is blamed if some kid gets or dies of covid. If the kid dies at home because his parents couldn’t make their schedules work for just that one hour…..nobody notices and the super certainly isn’t going to be in trouble.

    I’d say the blame lies on the people who live for panic, who find their worth in how quickly and deeply they fear and comply.
    If it weren’t for the safetyism assigned to covid and making all other increased risks invisible, we wouldn’t be in this fix because nobody would be buying it.

    You can’t sell if nobody’s buying.

  25. And don’t forget about booster vaccines. The CDC recommended boosters before there was any evidence if they were or were not a good idea. (Aren’t we supposed to not recommend things until there was actual evidence it’s a good idea?) Anyway I’ve read that the studies have now come in and they’re pretty much worthless as well. (You don’t need boosters yet for earlier variants and the boosters only give you a month for omicrom which is far more mild.) I’m not holding my breath waiting for the CDC to say that boosters are no longer recommended even if that’s what the science actually says.

  26. Dick Illyes,

    I like those slogans. As I’ve written before; the Democrat and Republican’s biggest fear is that the Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street both realize they share a common enemy.

  27. “… the average federal employee salary is $109,992.”

    Plus: Very comfy retirements, right?
    And: Hard as heck to fire!

    Also: Do they even pay for health insurance? (– not sure.)

  28. We stopped locking down in Texas a long, long time ago. Ditto Florida, and neither state was any the worse for it, when compared against lockdown states. (We don’t even mask.) This has been painfully obvious for some time.

  29. RMc,

    My wife is a retired DoD employee.

    Retirement is 60% pension of final salary.

    Yes, they pay for health insurance. Benefit is that there are many plans to choose from; United Health to BC to everything in between.

    Yes, and you’re right, hard as heck to fire…much to the annoyance of my wife while supervising with some very incompetent people.

  30. physicsguy,

    What fascinates me about such folks is the insight into their biases. I was concerned about the virus in early 2020, but by Easter we had evidence showing it was not impacting children. We were also seeing encouraging evidence that folks under the age of 50 who were not diabetic or obese had high survival rates.

    I’ll admit I had a bias. My bias was hoping that COVID-19 would not be as terminal as predicted. I followed any reasonable, valid sign that gave credence to that hope. And, most all of us eventually saw it would be nowhere near as fatal as WHO and CDC predictions. Thank goodness!!

    But people like the woman you have been debating with have the opposite hope. She wants it to be deadly. She wants people to remain frightened, and masked. She latches onto any sign she can find that it is worse than it is.

    What does that say about who she is? Yikes!

  31. Final update on my “discussion” with your typical street level Democrat/lefty:

    Her final statement is that since she doesn’t think the study may be valid, not worth her time to actually read the study and find flaws. This after I asked her for specifics and gave her the link to the actual paper. I know, impossible to change a closed mind, but there were a few others who were reading and might be influenced a little bit.

  32. I have come to the conclusion everything about Covid was done to get rid of DJT, from concept to carrying out lockdowns and shutting down the economy.
    Trump is gone, though the Left is scared to death of him that he will return.
    They are still in love with keeping a boot stomped on society with Fake Vax passports.

  33. BigD:

    Pretty much worthless for what?

    It helps to be specific. If you’re talking about whether boosters prevent people from catching Omicron, I would agree that they are close to worthless and perhaps in fact worthless.

    But if you’re talking about serious cases – ICU hospitalizations and even deaths – the evidence is fairly clear that they are very helpful and remain helpful against Omicron, which although milder is not always mild.

    I’ve discussed these facts and the evidence behind them in other posts and comments. Don’t have time to go into it again right now, but the evidence is quite convincing as far as I’m concerned. People keep posting links here that say otherwise, and I’ve looked at the studies behind every one of them, and they have never even come close to refuting what I just wrote here. Often, the person trying to explain what the studies are saying simply doesn’t understand the statistics.

    That’s what I’ve found so far.

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