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Lockdowns “Did Not Lead to Reductions in Excess Deaths” – Study

by Will Jones
25 June 2021 12:34 AM

A new study, published as a working paper for the leading U.S. think tank National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), has shown (once again) that lockdown policies produced no discernible reduction of the pandemic death toll. If anything, they increased it.

The study uses excess deaths rather than Covid deaths to avoid the problems of different ways of counting Covid deaths, and also to capture policy deaths from lockdowns and other Government responses. It looks at the death tolls in 43 countries and all U.S. states to see how they varied with the length and timeliness of lockdown “shelter-in-place” (SIP) orders.

The authors find that longer lockdowns led to more excess deaths: “Countries with a longer duration of SIP [shelter in place] policies are the ones with higher excess deaths per 100,000 residents.” For U.S. states the finding was similar but less pronounced.

In U.S. states, earlier lockdowns were associated with slightly higher excess deaths rather than lower as lockdown theory would predict. In the comparison of countries, on the other hand, the predicted relationship was found.

To account for differences between countries and states (such as demographics) the authors carried out “event studies” to see how much each country or state’s excess deaths changed following lockdown from its pre-lockdown trend. This analysis showed that, prior to implementing lockdown policies, the trend of lockdown countries was towards having lower excess deaths than countries that didn’t implement lockdowns. However, after lockdown those trends were reversed so that lockdown countries started to have progressively worse excess deaths compared to no-lockdown countries.

The results from the event study regression models suggest that difference in excess mortality between countries that implemented SIP versus countries that did not implement SIP was trending downwards in the weeks prior to SIP implementation. Had this pre-existing difference in mortality trends continued, we would expect lower excess mortality in the weeks following SIP implementation in countries that implemented SIP policies relative to countries that did not implement policies. However, we find that the pre-existing trend reversed following implementation of SIP policies. This suggest that our estimates of the effects of SIP on excess mortality are conservative as pre-existing trends are biased towards finding a protective effect of SIP.

The authors conclude that “the implementation of SIP [lockdown] policies does not appear to have met the aim of reducing excess mortality”.

They offer some reasons for why this might be the case.

There are several potential explanations for this finding. First, it is possible that SIP policies do not slow COVID-19 transmission. As discussed earlier, prior studies find only a modest effect of SIP policies on mobility. A potential reason for the modest impact on mobility may be that individuals change behaviour to avoid COVID-19 risk even in the absence of SIP policies. It is also unclear whether modest reductions in mobility could slow the spread of an airborne pathogen.

Second, it is possible that SIP policies increased deaths of despair due to economic and social isolation effects of SIP policies. Recent estimates in the U.S between March and August 2020 show that drug overdoses, homicides, and unintentional injuries increased in 2020, while suicides declined.

Third, existing studies suggest that SIP policies led to a reduction in non-COVID-19 health care, which might have contributed to an increase in non-COVID-19 deaths. For example, one study in the United Kingdom predicts that there will be approximately an additional 3,000 deaths within five years due to a delay in diagnostics because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

In light of this evidence, continued reliance on SIP policies to slow COVID-19 transmission may not be optimal. Instead, the best policy response may be pharmaceutical interventions in the form of vaccinations and therapeutics when they become available. Early evidence suggests that initial vaccination efforts have led to large reductions in COVID-19 incidence. Policy efforts to promote vaccination are thus likely to have large positive impacts.

The study adds to the ever-growing collection which show that lockdowns are not just extremely costly, so unlikely to be worth the price tag, but perhaps most damningly fail to achieve their primary goal of reducing deaths.

Read the full study here.

Stop Press: HART‘s Professor Marilyn James was on talkRADIO yesterday afternoon talking to Mark Dolan about the paper. Watch it here.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KYZ2Ae5Upy4&t=746s
Tags: Excess deathsLockdown harmsLockdownsNBER

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19 Comments
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Hugh
Hugh
3 years ago

So, now we know (if we didn’t already), these lethal policies increased deaths – and there is a protest about it tomorrow (Saturday).

I received an e-mail from The White Rose about it, with the message that the location was to “be announced”. However, I’m not on Telegram, don’t have a smart (arse) phone, so – is there any point travelling down from the North on the off chance for the London demo? And if I do, how will I find it?

Nb this survey does not include countries in Africa such as Zimbabwe, so it is probably not including many deaths due to starvation in the third world resulting from these (genocidal?) lockdown policies and restrictions. (And yes, I saw the article saying that “their” plan included deaths by starvation).

Last edited 3 years ago by Hugh
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MikeAustin
MikeAustin
3 years ago
Reply to  Hugh

“is there any point travelling down from the North on the off chance for the London demo? And if I do, how will I find it?”
Yes! As soon as you get to a tube station, you will see others clearly heading for the demo. I come in from the west and always meet groups of people at the tube station. And if you head for Hyde Park Corner, you will not go far wrong.

12
0
Hugh
Hugh
3 years ago
Reply to  MikeAustin

Thanks. Now for parking…

4
0
Annie
Annie
3 years ago
Reply to  MikeAustin

HOC it is.

7
0
Lockdown Sceptic
Lockdown Sceptic
3 years ago
Reply to  Hugh

LONDON -~TOMORROW
Sat, 26 June, 1pm
The Next Big One!
Freedom from Vax Passport Enslavement
Hyde Park, North Carriage Drive Entrance

https://t.me/londonrallies
https://www.standupx.info/

0
0
Brett_McS
Brett_McS
3 years ago

Another Exhibit for Nuremberg II.

11
0
Annie
Annie
3 years ago

The deductions these people make are dazzling in their penetration:
.
existing studies suggest that SIP policies led to a reduction in non-COVID-19 health care, which might have contributed to an increase in non-COVID-19 deaths. 

My bold.

And not only do they believe in the Ho,ply Snake Lil, but they obviously want coercion to force it into everybody.

The mouse that roars becomes the jackal that yaps.

Last edited 3 years ago by Annie
6
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Annie
Annie
3 years ago
Reply to  Annie

Holy Snake Oil.
The devil id in my typing, as usual.Mea oleagina culpa.

4
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iane
iane
3 years ago
Reply to  Annie

I liked the original version!

0
0
imp66
imp66
3 years ago

Data showing lockdowns don’t work! THEY won’t let such trivialities derail the Great Reset, obvs! Onward and downward, everyone!

6
0
peyrole
peyrole
3 years ago

When exactly did it become obligatory to have to have an ‘expert’ think tank tell us what we already knew before it becomes OK to think it?
At sometime over the last couple of decades or so the human race has lost its f***ing mind.

8
0
iane
iane
3 years ago
Reply to  peyrole

Not really: it’s still there but 90% of the population are now Homo Non Sapiens – those who find thinking too effortful!

0
0
Monro
Monro
3 years ago

‘Let’s be clear. The lockdowns weren’t adopted on the basis of any scientific research. It was pure panic and herd mentality from our political leaders and health care experts. They were idiots and they should admit their idiocy, so that we don’t repeat the same mistake in the future.’

https://healthy-skeptic.com/2021/06/23/lockdowns-dont-work-period/

‘The lockdowns implemented in the name of public health entailed trade-offs that were not adequately considered. Lockdowns may prevent some COVID-19 deaths by flattening the curve of cases and preventing stress on hospitals. At the same time, lockdowns cause severe adverse effects for many millions of people, disproportionately for those already disadvantaged among us. The collateral damage included severe losses to current and future wellbeing from unemployment, poverty, food insecurity, interrupted preventive, diagnostic, and therapeutic healthcare, interrupted education, loneliness and deterioration of mental health, and intimate partner violence. The economic recession has been framed as the economy vs. saving lives from COVID-19, but this is a false dichotomy. The economic recession, through austerity in government spending on the social determinants of health, can be expected to cause far more loss of life and wellbeing over the long-run than COVID-19 can. We must open up society to save many more lives than we can by attempting to avoid every case (or even most cases) of COVID-19.’

https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpubh.2021.625778/full 

Nailed it!

7
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Moist Von Lipwig
Moist Von Lipwig
3 years ago

The study also found that painting your arse sky blue didn’t make polar bears extinct in Arizona.

6
0
iane
iane
3 years ago
Reply to  Moist Von Lipwig

Can we test that on Bozo though?

0
0
Moist Von Lipwig
Moist Von Lipwig
3 years ago
Reply to  iane

Bozo should be exiled to Michael Moore’s underpants.

0
0
JayBee
JayBee
3 years ago

Unless one was dealing with a plague- or Ebola-like disease, it was always thus and very obvious from the start to anyone with an IQ above 50.
The net QALY loss in each lockdown country alone has been put by various scientists at multiples of 100x to 250x, and that leaves the toll of our lockdowns s in the 3rd world aside.
Britons will eventually have the responsibility for having killed around 5 million people there, on par with the Holoaust’s toll, Germans even more, Americans around 30+million people, on par with Stalin’s murders (120 million dead allocated by rounded up share of World GDP).
But then, maybe that’s the whole point of them anyway.

3
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iane
iane
3 years ago
Reply to  JayBee

“to anyone with an IQ above 50.”

I think one needs to add something like,’ who actually used their brain to think about this, rather than taking the spoon-fed, nanny-knows-best approach’!

0
0
mmacg
mmacg
3 years ago

I have compiled a list of 41 papers evaluating the efficacy of mandatory restriction.

I have also compliled a list of the pandemic planning documents which were universally discarded when the SHTF.
Also included in a list of pre-pandemic papers is one from 2006, the one that started the whoole idea of lockdown. It was a schoolgirls science project in which she created a model for lockdowns. Daddy wrota a paper around it and got it published and here we are.

There are several other similar lists around, which I consulted. I believe this is the most comprehensive list.

39 of 41 papers found no measurable benefit or positive effect from mandatory restriction in comarison the voluntary action.

https://ltexpat.blogspot.com/2021/05/are-lists-of-documents-and-papers.html

0
0

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