One of the claims put forward by the authors of The Great Barrington Declaration is that lockdowns unfairly shifted the burden of COVID-19 onto the working class. As Martin Kulldorff and Sunetra Gupta argued in a piece for the Toronto Sun last November:
Low-risk college students and young professionals are protected; such as lawyers, government employees, journalists, and scientists who can work from home; while older high-risk working-class people must work, risking their lives generating the population immunity that will eventually help protect everyone.
The same idea was captured in a viral tweet by the art critic J.J. Charlesworth:
To evaluate this claim, let’s begin by looking at some of the data from Britain. Last July, the ONS attempted to quantify the extent to which different jobs can be done from home. Unsurprisingly, they found that higher-paying jobs in the professional and managerial classes are much easier to do from home, whereas lower-paying jobs in the skilled and unskilled working class are much harder to do from home. (‘Front-line doctor’ is an exception.)
While “key workers” are drawn from all income deciles, a relatively large percentage are drawn from the 2nd, 3rd and 4th deciles – particularly in the food and necessary goods sector. And according to the ONS, 15% of such workers were at an increased risk of COVID-19 because of a pre-existing health condition.
In January of 2021, the ONS computed age-standardised mortality rates for COVID-19 in different occupations. They found that men in professional and managerial occupations were substantially less likely to die of COVID-19 than those in service and elementary occupations:
The pattern among women was similar, although somewhat less pronounced. (The highest age-standardised mortality rate was for women working as plant or machine operators.)
In a study published in Nature, Elizabeth Williamson and colleagues analysed data on a large sample of British adults, and found that individuals from the bottom quintile for area deprivation were significantly more likely to die of COVID-19, even after controlling for age, sex, ethnicity and a number of pre-existing health conditions. This may be because such individuals had greater exposure to the virus, although there are other possible explanations.
It’s important to note that men in elementary occupations and skilled trades are more likely to die for any reason than men in professional and managerial occupations. In other words, there is a mortality gradient across occupations for all-cause mortality, as well as for COVID-19. This means that the two gradients may be partly caused by the same factors – such as more men in working class occupations having pre-existing health conditions.
Furthermore, the fact that people in working class occupations were more likely to die of COVID-19 does not, by itself, prove that lockdown shifted the burden of COVID-19 onto the working class. Such people might have been more likely to die of COVID-19 even in the absence of lockdown – say, because they were less able to engage in voluntary social-distancing.
In order to evaluate the claim that lockdown shifted the burden of COVID-19 onto the working class, we need to compare countries or states that did lock down with those that did not. Of course, the only major country in Western Europe that did not lockdown is Sweden.
In an unpublished paper, Sunnee Billingsley and colleagues analysed Swedish data, and found that workers in frontline occupations were not more likely to die of COVID-19 when adjusting for individual characteristics. Their findings indicate “no strong inequalities according to these occupational differences in Sweden and potentially other contexts that use a similar approach to managing COVID-19”. This supports the Great Barrington Declaration authors’ claim.
Another way of testing the claim that lockdown shifted the burden of COVID-19 onto the working class is by comparing infection rates across social classes before and after lockdown.
In a study published in BMC Public Health, Nathalie Bajos and colleagues analysed French data, and found that individuals in the highest social class saw a substantial decline in the risk of infection after the country went into lockdown, whereas individuals in the lowest social class saw a much smaller decline. Though it’s possible these differences emerged due to voluntary changes in behaviour that happened to coincide with the start of the lockdown.
Overall, there is tentative evidence that lockdown did shift the burden of COVID-19 onto the working class. However, comparative studies will be needed to investigate this claim more systematically.
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They’ll simply decide that they weren’t done properly and needed to be longer, harder and more restricitive
Although possible they have absolutely no evidence that that would work either. They already know, if it makes an iota of difference, that lockdowns are ruinous to society. The longer the lockdown, the more ruinous. Whatever ‘they’ find and ‘they’ decide, I ain’t doing it, no matter the consequences. And I think I speak for many.
Amen
So typical of them
I don’t care whether lockdowns and masks “work” or not. I’m not doing them for the flu/a bad cold. Normal life is much more important.
Amen. I second that. The motion carries.
I do wonder if these quangos would be missed at all if they were obliterated (yes, I mean that literally) because they appear able to do nothing other than contribute to government’s effluent overspill.
I’ve noticed a marked increase in public mask wearing hereabouts in the last couple of weeks, regardless of actual evidence or politicised ‘consensus’ change. For some, the mindf*ck damage is in too deep. Sad.
I observed this very morning a lady in her car driving along with a mask on, her husband (presumably..) sat in the passenger seat with face uncovered. Could be an interesting conversation over breakfast..
Indeed. I keep seeing couples in the supermarket where one is bemaskec and the other not. I wonder whether they cohabit and did they travel to the shop in separate vehicles
I’ve not noticed where I live, but in 2020/21 there were quite a lot of people not wearing masks and I never suffered verbal abuse for not wearing a mask and wasn’t aware of anyone else being subjected to this. Apart from constantly voting SNP it seems like Scots have a certain amount of common sense.
They should have read the bsi-guide-for-personal-safety-equipment-0520 v1.4 June 2020. Remember that in the UK, most of the junk sold to the public were NOT classified as “masks” – indeed, they would have tiny labels that say no (if you had a magnifying glass to hand), so as to avoid being done under trading standards. In the BSI guide they were classed as “face covering” and it said that: “The manufacturer/seller must not call it PPE or a medical device nor make any claim that the product will provide protection to any specific individual ”, and “General product safety regulations (product must be safe i.e. non- toxic, non-choking etc) ”. In short, they were of no physical value at all.
I’ve still got a copy of that one. And I never bought any of them.
So, ‘surgical masks’ were they?
It comes to something when NHS hospitals have face nappy mandates for more of the year than when they have not enforced this violation of human rights. But facts don’t matter in Clown World, seemingly. Anyone here in Leicester? Stay healthy and stay out of hospital. You also have the bonus of not being ‘Matt Midazolam’d’
”People in some parts of Leicester’s hospitals will be required to wear face masks again after a rise in coronavirus cases among patients.
Face coverings are now needed in clinical areas of the Leicester Royal Infirmary, the Leicester General and Glenfield Hospital, senior medics said.
University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust (UHL) insisted the number of infections were “low”.
However, it said the step would protect, patients, staff and visitors.
UHL’s chief nurse Julie Hogg said: “We are constantly monitoring Covid-19 levels in our hospitals, and as a result we are reintroducing mask wearing in clinical areas.
“The number of patients testing positive for Covid remains low but has increased, and we are determined to ensure the safety of patients, colleagues and visitors to the hospital.
“Mask wearing is not mandatory in non-clinical spaces, such as offices, lifts, restaurants and corridors, but we will keep the situation under review.”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-leicestershire-66988015.amp
The UHL Chief Nurse obviously knows the square roor of sweet FA about aerosol viral transmission. How the hell has she risen to this position of authority?!
I live in the Leicester area. I wonder what will happen if I need to go to hospital and refuse to wear their stupid muzzle. Will I be denied access? Denied treatment? What a world.
Yet more reason to look elsewhere for treatment and to take care of ourselves as a matter of urgency. How can these people be trusted with needles and scalpels if they think wearing a cloth over one’s mush will safeguard anyone.
The Conspiracy against “We, The People” was NOT a Theory. Shame on those who remained silent in 2020/2021. ALL Th evidence was already there.