The Sunday Times, which has been one of the most zealous cheerleaders for both the lockdown policy and has often argued we should have locked down sooner and harder in 2020, has discovered – rather belatedly – that the lockdowns may have caused a teensy weensy bit of harm! Who would have thunk it!?! Tom Calver, the Data Projects Editor, has documented some of the damage.
Back in 2020, before the remarkable vaccine race was won, the only defence we knew would work against a terrifying new virus was a blunt tool straight out of the 17th century. We threw out the economic rulebook and locked down. Public health became about stopping Covid-19 at all costs. “One death is too many,” said Nicola Sturgeon, Scotland’s first minister. Even now, few would question the need for restrictions.
Yet more than two years on, we have time to reflect on the results of a once-in-a-lifetime social experiment — and the worrying side-effects, some predicted, some unforeseen, for Britons’ health, that are only just coming home to roost.
On the Booze
Habits of a lifetime changed during lockdown. In February 2020, the prevalence of “increasing or higher-risk drinkers”, as defined by an NHS survey, was 12.4 per cent. By June 2020, it had jumped to 18.7 per cent. Those numbers have not returned to normal: the latest survey from March 2022 showed that risky drinking levels were still at 17.7 per cent.
“The nature of everyone’s drinking changed. Instead of going to the pub, you could only drink at home with your housemates,” says Colin Angus, senior research fellow at Sheffield University. This switch made it harder for people to regulate their consumption. “When the pubs reopened, some people added back in the drinking they had been doing at pubs to their home drinking.”
The volume of alcohol sold has not shifted drastically, suggesting many other people have cut back or quit during lockdown. Nevertheless, modelling by Angus’s team suggests the lockdowns may eventually lead to an extra 7,000 alcohol-attributable deaths: some immediately through poisoning or alcohol- related injuries, and others longer-term, through liver conditions and cancers.
Their worst-case scenario, in which post-lockdown habits remain ingrained for years to come, suggests the lockdown booze burden could be as high as 25,000 deaths over the next 20 years — at a cost of £5.2 billion to the NHS.
Elsewhere, rising stress levels may have led to a surge in people taking up smoking. A study funded by Cancer Research UK last year found that the number of smokers aged 18 to 34 increased by a quarter, from 21.5 per cent before the pandemic to 26.8 per cent, suggesting an extra 652,000 young adults took to cigarettes during lockdown. Rates among older people, however, remained steady, perhaps as a result of health fears from the virus itself.
Out of Shape
The lockdown workout boom was well-documented. Making best use of the state-sanctioned single period of exercise a day became a national obsession. During one of the warmest springs on record, the Strava exercise app showed new records being set again and again as we embraced cycling, hiking and running.
Some habits have persisted: cycling rates in London, for example, have settled at 25 per cent above pre-pandemic levels.
Other habits have not. Last week a Nuffield Health survey found that nearly half of women, and a third of men, had done no vigorous exercise in the past year, with many citing lockdowns as a catalyst for giving up sports or hobbies.
The effect of lockdowns on childhood obesity has been striking. Levels had been flat in England, at about 9.9 per cent, for more than a decade. Then in 2020/21, they jumped to 14.4 per cent. As decades of policy have shown, these trends are hard to bring down again.
Mobility levels among older people are particularly striking. Polling by Age UK of 1,364 people over the age of 60 found that one in three had less energy since the start of the pandemic. One in four were unable to walk as far as before.
The piece goes on to itemise other harms, such as deteriorating mental health, then gets to the meat of the issue: the damage caused to our immune systems causing, among other things, a sharp increase in Hepatitis deaths among children.
Experts talk of an “immune deficit” after lockdown, where our immune systems, normally exposed to respiratory viruses, were effectively put into hibernation. Even mild social distancing was more than a match against the usual spread of influenza, norovirus and the common cold.
It remains to be seen whether, this winter, flu will cause havoc among a population that has had limited exposure to it for the past two years. Rates of influenza in Australia this year surged earlier, and higher, than in recent years, although hospital admissions were not as high as many feared.
At the start of 2022, experts began detecting an alarming rise in hepatitis cases among children. At least 270 cases have been confirmed, of which 15 were serious enough to need a liver transplant. For months the cause remained a mystery. Many believe Covid-19 itself is the cause, despite the outbreak arriving two years into the pandemic.
Yet research groups from Glasgow University and University College London have found evidence that points to the fact that children missed out on exposure to two key viruses when growing up: adenovirus, which normally causes colds, and adeno-associated virus 2 (AAV2), which is normally harmless. Cases of adenovirus plummeted during lockdown, but returned as restrictions were lifted.
However, it is too simplistic to say that lockdown itself has led to a net rise in hepatitis cases, says Professor Judith Breuer, who carried out the UCL study. “I think the message we’re getting is that we may have uncovered something that typically happens over a longer period of time. We’re seeing rare complications, that would normally be spread out over the course of two years, being bunched together.”
In other words, the outbreak may only seem bad because we’re getting it all at once.
Easy to criticise the Sunday Times for being so late to the party – but there’s more rejoicing in heaven… etc., etc.
Worth reading in full.
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So given all the time which has elapsed since March 2020, all of the data collected, all of the scientific papers and articles written demonstrating and describing the many harms done to us as individuals and as a society as a result of lockdowns, why have I not heard a single Western government state that they will categorically *not* be bringing these restrictions back this year?
Late to the party? Unfortunately, neither the ST nor this Tom bloke have actually arrived at the party yet, at best they might still be wiping their feet on the Welcome mat and debating whether to enter, but that’s it.
“Before the remarkable vaccine race was won” – what exactly does that mean? Presumably that the vaxx saved the day, which is a ridiculous statement in July 2022, with 3x and 4x catching corona again and again and authorities gearing up people to take poke 4 or 5 of a vaxx now proven to be ineffective and far from safe. Oh, a race was won all right, the race between which pharma company was going to rake in the most money with their liability-free poison. The race between the vaxx and the virus? The vaxx lost.
“The only defence we knew would work” – actually, that should read “the only superstitious defence we could come up with and which we knew full well would NOT work”. And if it worked, governments wouldn’t be whining all summer about the summer wave and would not be preparing for the coming winter wave.
“Even now, few would question the need for restrictions.” Funnily enough, I am hearing more and more people wake up to the realisation that virtually all of the measures were pointless and, in fact, did nothing. The only ones still claiming they were and are needed are the perennially terrified and the politicians and public health authorities that need to keep the plebs in the dark for as long as possible while they find a way of extricating themselves from this global clusterfruck.
Even the bit about the limited exposure leading to increased infection/disease is watered down by saying we’re seeing what we would have seen anyways, just lumped together, when we have no idea what the longer-term implications of this lack of exposure might be, certainly when combined with the vaxx.
Even if the ST were not behind a paywall, I sincerely doubt the article is worth reading in full, the apologist whining is still vomit-inducing, even if it is a trembling, milquetoast first step in the right direciton.
Excellent comment. Bang on the button.
The vaccine race was certainly remarkable, ie, worthy of being kept in mind. That’s one of these adjective people like to misuse when the want to impress others with how sofissicated they are (instead of coming accross as mindless cheerleaders for something). But something being remarkable doesn’t imply that it’s remarkable because its positive qualities. It’s – for instance – certainly remarkable that it was claimed the failure of the vaccine to protect people from COVID would be due to other people not taking it.
I find the most remarkableist of all the fact that they are still managing to convince people to keep taking something that *even* the manufacturers and public health officials say doesn’t work against the current variant and is exceedingly temporary. But yes, blaming the lack of effectiveness on the people who didn’t take it was a new low. It does, of course, fit in with the ever-changing feel-good definitions of what a vaccine is (apparently any old chemical garbage they want to inject people with, regardless of results), what a pandemic is (a person sneezing, or not, a person testing positive or, apparently, testing negative and but still believing they are sick), what a recession is (a slow-down in the economy that gives us all a welcome rest), what inflation is (something that will make us all consume less and save the planet, primarily by causing lots of famine deaths).
And yeah, I made up the work ‘remarkableist’, just like they made up the claim that this garbage is ‘safe and effective’.
“Safe and effective” always reminds me of the Andre Preview sketch from Morecambe abd Wise:
“I’m playing all the right notes but not necessarily in the right order.”
Not late to the party, cowards trying to cover their stupidity and maliciousness, now the game is up, with their ridiculous mitigation about ‘terrifying new virus’ and miracle vaccines.
Disingenuous, duplicitous slimeballs.
Slimeballs – I admire your restraint 😉
They may be trying to cover up their stupidity, but they need to work a damn sight harder. The damage and destruction is still ongoing, the media helped cause it, the media can help turn it around. They have family and friends getting harmed by all of this too, time to start fighting the good fight.
A dirty fight will do. Elbows, gouging, broken bottles – it doesn’t matter to me. We’ve held our line and waited for others join; that line is getting wider, bigger, more dense. And we undoubtedly stand at the front. I’m talking to people regularly who couldn’t smell a rat at the start, but sure as hell can now. Something is brewing. They’ve overplayed their hand and, with or without MSM, I think the sh*t is about to hit the fan.
Yes. This has gone far too far. I’ve said before, I can understand the initial panic. Just an example – in NL in March 2020 the schools were supposed to stay open, Rutte was adamant about that on the Thursday he announced the first measures. Come Sunday evening he had to say schools would be closed because teachers made it clear they would not show up and parents made it clear they would not send their kids. They got over that after having them under their feet for 2 months, most of that time spent playing outside with their mates, on the advice of the public health authorities. By May 2020 they were desperate to get them back in schools – where they happily thrived without masks. Countries and states where they insisted on masking young children take note – IT MAKES NO DIFFERENCE!!!
The winter lockdown of 2020/21 could have been avoided if all the billions wasted on nonsense and been spent on setting up protocols for hospital surge capacity. The lockdown of autumn/early winter 2021/22 was simply a piss-take. They had full knowledge the vaxx had failed and should been preparing surge capacity rather than giving another round of pokes, which was inevitably followed by a huge increase in infections.
Last week when they announced a 4th (or 5th) jab for everyone over 12 starting September was just too much. They know the risks far outweigh any so-called benefits for anyone under 50 (imo, for anyone of any age), yet they still wish to pump this garbage into people? I am thoroughly ashamed of the Dutch government and the Dutch medical establishment for going along with this. They never had the ‘fill them up with drugs, there’s gold in them thar pills’ approach of the US, so why they are persisting now – it is embarrassing and enraging in equal measures. At this point it is getting harder and harder to see this as anything other than deliberate intent to cause harm/death. They can keep saying it’s a conspiracy theory and that they really are holding up four fingers, but I know when I see one big fat finger being flipped at me.
“At this point it is getting harder and harder to see this as anything other than deliberate intent to cause harm/death.”
As I have been saying for many months. Welcome.
I sincerely hope that the sh1t does hit the fan. But I have been saying this for over two years now.
I reckon that in 2025/6 is when it will really hit with an increase in ‘unexpected’ deaths and severely declining birth rate in highly jabbed countries.
“The race between the vaxx and the virus? The vaxx lost.”
Slight correction Jane – humanity lost because these injections are designed to kill.
Beautifully put
‘… the only defence we knew would work against a terrifying new virus..’
So terrifying and so new it caused tens of millions who lacked any natural immunity against it to fall very sick, confined to their homes and beds during January to March 2020, resulting in near shut down of the economy due to mass absenteeism from workplaces…
Oh, wait…
War is peace
Freedom is slavery
Ignorance is strength
“Public health” makes you sick
I can’t read it in full because I FINALLY got around to cancelling my Sunday Times subscription (of almost 30 years). Their attitude to the pandemic was sickening, and that to the vaccines (and those with enough sense to remain unvaccinated) was even worse.
Dominic Lawson was particularly bad. His stance was that his (Down’s syndrome) daughter was vulnerable and therefore the unvaccinated were selfishly spreading it and she might catch it. No matter that her vaccine should be protecting her. Or more importantly, which is where his investigative efforts and opprobrium SHOULD have been directed, if she had caught covid in the first wave she would have been bundled off without representation and likely murdered with a cocktail of midazolam and god only knows what else. It wasn’t just the old folk they killed.
I cancelled my Times subscription about 4 years ago when became clear it had morphed into The Guardian-light.
“Back in 2020, before the remarkable vaccine race was won”
That presumably would be the race to bring the first vials of poison to market?
There’s no rejoicing in this house.
Very belatedly acknowledging that the policy you championed for two years has caused significant and irreversible harm to hundreds of thousands of people is no cause for rejoicing.
“Back in 2020, before the remarkable vaccine race was won”
and before 2030+ deaths and 1.5+ million adverse reactions from the the experimental gene therapy treatments…..
Sorry but they still don’t get it.
Mass hypnosis and the gateway to tyranny
https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/mass-hypnosis-and-the-gateway-to-tyranny/
John Roberts
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