Lockdowns

I suspect that there were tens of thousands of bloggers who publicly objected to lockdowns when they were first proposed to control COVID-19 as it began to spread in March, 2020. I was one of them (e.g., here, here, and here).

Governors in blue states (e.g., Cuomo, Whitmer, Newsom, Northam) have continued to act as petty dictators over the intervening months, ruining lives and livelihoods, destroying small businesses, creating collateral public health problems and accomplishing little if anything that has worked to slow the spread of the virus. Pushback has been continuous, but progressives and their leaders continue their lockdowns along with never-ending virtue signaling supported by widespread, media driven hysteria.

The American Institute for Economic Research (AIER) has taken a hard look at the efficacy of lockdowns and writes:

The use of universal lockdowns in the event of the appearance of a new pathogen has no precedent. It has been a science experiment in real time, with most of the human population used as lab rats. The costs are legion. 

The question is whether lockdowns worked to control the virus in a way that is scientifically verifiable. Based on the following studies, the answer is no and for a variety of reasons: bad data, no correlations, no causal demonstration, anomalous exceptions, and so on. There is no relationship between lockdowns (or whatever else people want to call them to mask their true nature) and virus control. 

Perhaps this is a shocking revelation, given that universal social and economic controls are becoming the new orthodoxy. In a saner world, the burden of proof really should belong to the lockdowners, since it is they who overthrew 100 years of public-health wisdom and replaced it with an untested, top-down imposition on freedom and human rights. They never accepted that burden. They took it as axiomatic that a virus could be intimidated and frightened by credentials, edicts, speeches, and masked gendarmes. 

The pro-lockdown evidence is shockingly thin, and based largely on comparing real-world outcomes against dire computer-generated forecasts derived from empirically untested models, and then merely positing that stringencies and “nonpharmaceutical interventions” account for the difference between the fictionalized vs. the real outcome. The anti-lockdown studies, on the other hand, are evidence-based, robust, and thorough, grappling with the data we have (with all its flaws) and looking at the results in light of controls on the population. 

Blue state governors have, in fact, conducted "a science experiment in real time, with most of the human population used as lab rats." The problem is that those same governors are woefully ignorant of science, statistics or data analysis and care little for the "lab rats" that have been forced to participate in their irresponsible experiment.

AIER provides links and summaries to 24 scientific papers (spend some time reviewing a few) that present hard data indicating that lockdowns don't work. As an example, consider this paper which concluded that “full lockdowns and wide-spread COVID-19 testing were not associated with reductions in the number of critical cases or overall mortality.” 

Even worse, data collected after lockdowns have been imposed indicate that they do far more harm that good. You'd think that the media might take a look and begin to honestly inform the public that sainted blue state Governors such as Cuomo and Newsom made catastrophic errors that not only don't "follow the science" but in fact, are in direct conflict with it. Or maybe Anthony Fauci, MD might call a news conference and discuss why his lockdown recommendations should continue to be followed in light of peer-reviewed scientific findings that inidcate that lockdowns don't work. But no ... all of that might harm the catastrophist narrative, so covidiocy continues.

UPDATE:

Karol Markowicz discusses a cancel culture that makes many Americans, particularly the few progressives who recognize the idiocy and ineffectiveness of business and school closures, afraid to voice an opinion that doesn't conform with the catastrophists who use their masks as a mode of virtue signaling. She writes:

Schools had been open in other countries for months, and they were all reporting lower positivity rates than their surrounding communities. My arguments were measured and evidence-based: The data were making the case for reopening schools all by themselves.

Yet most of the rest of the media seemed determined to tell the story from only one perspective: that of lockdown hard-liners, not least teacher-union bosses. This paper aside, very few outlets pushed for school openings. 

On the left, the conversation is heavily policed, with clear red lines drawn around “unacceptable” opinion. Reopening schools was treated as “irresponsible,” even though the numbers said otherwise. It wasn’t until Oct. 9 when things began to shift. That’s when a piece headlined “Schools Aren’t Super-Spreaders” appeared in The Atlantic. The piece didn’t exactly break new ground. What mattered is that it appeared in a liberal publication. That made it OK to believe and say what even many liberal parents knew but didn’t dare voice. 

In the main body of this post, I reference irrefutable and voluminous evidence that business lockdowns are as ineffective in combating the virus as school closures. To the best of my knowledge virtually none of this has been referenced in the mainstream media. Those of us who discuss these studies and argue that the destruction of lives and livelihoods is irresponsible and borderline insane are accused of being "uncaring."

Markowicz notes that Team Apocalypse membership is overwhelmingly progressive. Its members think, as usual, that they're the smartest most "scientifically" responsible kids in the room as they propose "solutions" to the viral spread that don't work (e.g., consider the recent spread in CA which has the strictest lockdown in the nation) but do cause great and unnecessary damage. 

Very few on the left have pointed out that, hey, these lockdowns don’t seem to be working at all. The groupthink on the left is fiercely enforced.

One liberal mom who frequently engages me online, anonymously, told me she’s afraid of having her livelihood targeted for speaking out on schools. “I will not use my real name and identity, because it is widely known that the activist community purposely baits people with racially charged statements, for the sole purpose of trapping someone and reporting their content to an employer.”

And it’s not just about schools. New York City restaurants remain closed for indoor dining, even though Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s own statistics show they account for 1.4 percent of cases. Indoor dining ­remains open in the rest of the state, despite their case numbers being higher than in the city.

There has been no pushback against this, neither from liberal outlets nor most Democratic politicians. The “Believe in Science” political mantra trumps everything, not least actual scientific reasoning. There’s no introspection on why mostly locked-down New York and California have more cases than mostly open Florida. 

Introspection? From the Left? You've got to be kidding.