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Lockdowns a “Global Policy Failure of Gigantic Proportions”, Say Experts

by Will Jones
3 July 2023 5:15 PM

Lockdowns were “a global policy failure of gigantic proportions”, driven by Government fear campaigns and “fantasy numbers” from dud models, a top international team of researchers has concluded. The Epoch Times has more.

The days of Covid lockdowns may be behind us for the time being, but a multinational academic team has conducted a broad analysis of government pandemic actions and found them to be “a global policy failure of gigantic proportions”, often driven by state and media-sponsored fear campaigns.

Their findings, published in a book titled ‘Did Lockdowns Work? The Verdict on Covid Restrictions‘, are based on a worldwide meta-analysis that screened nearly 20,000 studies to determine the benefits and harms from health diktats, including lockdowns, school closures and mask mandates. According to economist Steve Hanke, one of the co-authors, one of the things that drove countries into a state of panic and draconian policies was reliance on mortality models from sources like Imperial College London (ICL) that generated “fantasy numbers” showing that millions of deaths could be averted by instituting crippling society-wide lockdowns.

Prior to the Covid outbreak, “most countries did have a plan to deal with pandemics”, Hanke told the Epoch Times, “but after the Imperial College of London’s ‘numbers’ were published, those plans were, in a panic, thrown out the window.

“In each case, the same pattern was followed: flawed modelling, hair-raising predictions of disaster that missed the mark and no lessons learned,” he said. “The same mistakes were repeated over and over again and were never challenged.”

Hanke is an economics professor and co-director of the Johns Hopkins Institute for Applied Economics, Global Health, and the Study of Business Enterprise. The other co-authors of the study are Jonas Herby, special adviser at the Centre for Political Studies in Copenhagen, and Lars Jonung, an economics professor at Lund University in Sweden.

While the meta-analysis surveyed thousands of studies, it found that only 22 of them contained useful data for the study. The report focused on mortality rates and lockdown policies during 2020.

“This study is the first all-encompassing evaluation of the research on the effectiveness of mandatory restrictions on mortality,” Jonung stated. “It demonstrates that lockdowns were a failed promise. They had negligible health effects but disastrous economic, social and political costs to society.”

According to Hanke, the ICL models predicted that lockdowns would prevent between 1.7 million and 2.2 million deaths in the United States. The meta-analysis, however, indicates that lockdowns prevented between 4,345 and 15,586 deaths in the United States. This fits a pattern of overstated predictions from the ICL, which health officials either didn’t know about or overlooked, he said.

“There is a long history of fantasy numbers generated by the epidemiological models used by the Imperial College of London,” Hanke said. “Its dreadful record started with the U.K. foot-and-mouth disease epidemic in 2001, during which the Imperial College models predicted that daily case incidences would peak at 420. But, at the time, the number of incidences had already peaked at just over 50 and was falling.”

In 2002, the ICL predicted that up to 150,000 people in the U.K. would die from mad cow disease; in 2019, the BBC reported that the number of U.K. deaths from mad cow disease was 177. In 2005, Neil Ferguson, who led the ICL [team], predicted up to 200 million deaths from the H5N1 bird flu, which had at that time killed 65 people in Asia; according to the World Health Organisation (WHO), between 2003 and 2023, 458 people died from H5N1 worldwide.

The ICL’s habit of ‘crying wolf’ did not prevent the BBC, once COVID-19 struck, from relying on its data to broadcast dire weekly warnings to its 468 million listeners, in 42 languages worldwide.

“Maybe the Imperial College models are ideal fear-generating machines for politicians and governments that crave more power,” Hanke said. “H.L. Mencken put his finger on this phenomenon long ago when he wrote that ‘the whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by an endless series of hobgoblins.’”

While there were some U.S. states that never issued lockdown orders, including Wyoming, Utah, South Dakota, North Dakota, Nebraska, Iowa and Arkansas, Sweden was the rare national exception that refrained from forcing people into lockdowns. American governors who refused to lock down their states were harshly criticised in the media, which predicted that this would cause mass deaths.

Worth reading in full.

Tags: Cost-benefit analysisCOVID-19Imperial CollegeLockdownLockdown costLockdown harmsModellingNeil FergusonPandemicThe Science

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25 Comments
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EppingBlogger
EppingBlogger
2 years ago

What sources were there in addition to ICL. We’re there a lot of others.

has anyone studied their history, methodology and financing.

36
0
Richard Austin
Richard Austin
2 years ago
Reply to  EppingBlogger

The Bill Gates Foundation heavily funded Ferguson. No coincidence there. It seems to be a no go area where any authorities are concerned as to how, why, who these pseudo-scientists are funded. Probably because there is so much money swimming around for those willing to do and say what they are told. Ferguson has been doing it for years, certainly at least 30.

Last edited 2 years ago by Richard Austin
8
0
transmissionofflame
transmissionofflame
2 years ago

Why do they keep mentioning “pandemics”?

The word “failure” implies that the perpetrators were intending to improve public health, and believed in what they were doing. I’ve seen very little evidence of that. The most charitable explanation is of very early panic once they were told the virus came from a lab, followed by doubling down to cover up the leak and the needless panic. Then there are other explanations that have even less to do with “public health”.

95
-1
Castorp
Castorp
2 years ago
Reply to  transmissionofflame

Democide. No other explanation is remotely plausible.

34
-1
Jon Garvey
Jon Garvey
2 years ago

Incidentally, since they mention the foot and mouth outbreak, it’s instructive to remember that, like COVID, that epidemic started from lab leak from a government animal research laboratory in Pirbright.

Tot it up, and there seem to be more disease outbreaks from the units set up to study them safely than there are from nature.

120
0
Roy Everett
Roy Everett
2 years ago
Reply to  Jon Garvey

Global List of Lab leaks.

23
0
Sforzesca
Sforzesca
2 years ago
Reply to  Roy Everett

I think they’ve missed a quite recent one from some sort of lab in China I believe.

16
-1
Jon Garvey
Jon Garvey
2 years ago

Whitty testified to the Inquiry that overestimates of numbers are “useful for planning purposes.” It sounds so sensible to budget for all contingencies, doesn’t it, until you look at the real damage it does.

81
0
Matt Dalby
Matt Dalby
2 years ago
Reply to  Jon Garvey

An overestimate would be useful if it had an approximate probably attached to it e.g. the model said there is a 5% chance of 500,000 deaths without lockdown. That way governments could have contingency plans for a worst case scenario and look for indications e.g. rapidly increasing number of deaths that the worst case may be happening before putting the plans into action. The problem with the ICL models is either that they only gave one figure for expected deaths, or decisions were based on the worst case even if it was stated by the modelers that it had a very low probability of happening.

30
0
Jon Garvey
Jon Garvey
2 years ago
Reply to  Matt Dalby

According to the report cited, the modellers had at least some caveats, which were ignored by governments in forming policy, and made into firm predictions for the benefit of the public.

That isn’t to say that Ferguson et al didn’t want it that way, as he’s never apologised for the foot and mouth disaster or anything else he got wrong… just collected the gongs.

3
0
Jon Garvey
Jon Garvey
2 years ago

The book can be downloaded free as a pdf from the linked website.

15
0
huxleypiggles
huxleypiggles
2 years ago

https://www.westonaprice.org/health-topics/hpai-virus/#gsc.tab=0

And this is how food industries are being decimated – more nonsense “viruses.”

25
0
huxleypiggles
huxleypiggles
2 years ago

“Prior to the Covid outbreak, “most countries did have a plan to deal with pandemics”, Hanke told the Epoch Times, “but after the Imperial College of London’s ‘numbers’ were published, those plans were, in a panic, thrown out the window.”

I do not believe this. The bottom line is that national governments acted on instructions received from the Davos Deviants. The DD’s knew exactly what disasters the Lockdowns would create and the results we have seen fitted their sick, warped plans.

Governments did not ‘panic,’ they did as they were told. To suggest panic is to continue to support, even push the cock-up theory and we know that is BS.

Last edited 2 years ago by huxleypiggles
76
-3
James.M
James.M
2 years ago
Reply to  huxleypiggles

Someone should tell Toby Young.

16
0
Vhilts
Vhilts
2 years ago

There is certainly a common factor with all these overestimates and ensuing disasters- one bloke called Ferguson. How on earth is he still being believed. He is a mathematician and nothing else. Well maybe an astrologist. Most lunatics who interfere with government and lives to this extent are usually ‘dealt with’ . He is more suited to the national lottery show like mystic Meg.

54
0
DevonBlueBoy
DevonBlueBoy
2 years ago
Reply to  Vhilts

Actually he’s a physicist. His crap, totally wrong forecasts from the past are precisely the reason why he was listened to by those morons in government

12
0
Bill Hickling
Bill Hickling
2 years ago

How can it be that Ferguson has never been brought to book for his fantastical modelling that fanned the flames of Covid hysteria and informed governmental policy?

69
0
transmissionofflame
transmissionofflame
2 years ago
Reply to  Bill Hickling

Perhaps he was telling people what they wanted to hear. Between Ferguson, SAGE and the government, the WHO and who knows who else, I could never quite work out whose hand was up whose backside – just that most or all of them were lying about almost everything.

57
0
prod_squadron
prod_squadron
2 years ago

I recall one of the modellers from (possibly) Warwick saying that they were specifically asked to model only worst case scenarios, not anything more realistic. Might have been the second lockdown.

I also recall Vallance airily telling the select committee that models are only “scenarios not predictions” so I don’t believe he was ever in a panic and he was in charge.

40
0
Godfree Roberts
Godfree Roberts
2 years ago

China’s lockdowns, which affected only 7% of the citizenry, were highly localized and very comprehensive.
To say Chinese lockdowns ‘worked,’ however, is misleading. Dynamic Covid Zero (the WHO Pandemic Manual repackaged) did work, and retained the support of 82% of Chinese.

0
-7
huxleypiggles
huxleypiggles
2 years ago

https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/french-riots-an-ideal-excuse-for-another-lockdown/

We on here are not alone in suspecting the French riots will lead to martial law and lockdowns.

21
0
Richard Austin
Richard Austin
2 years ago

I loathe Ferguson but I have to say I’ve rarely eaten so well as when the mad git made his mad cow prediction. I was buying great cuts for next to nothing, it was like paradise! If only he had made a similar prediction on red wine and beer!
On a serious note, I genuinely think he should be prosecuted. He has a track record of turning up with insane predictions and he has never even been close to the Universe let alone the ball park.
His latest sojourn into his fantasies was funded by Bill Gates to the tune of £22 million. Is that not cause enough for Plod to stop dancing and get investigating what he was actually asked to deliver by Good Old Uncle Bill?

8
0
Richard Austin
Richard Austin
2 years ago

I firmly believe that any modelling should have to prove it can model a known similar event to within +/- 5%. The factors are all known, the outcome is known. If modelling is any use then it has to be able to predict, with reasonable accuracy, past events, current events and possible future events. It really should be the acid test before Government even begins to accept it.
In the case of Ferguson this should have been obvious. His track record is appalling. I remember all those pyres of sheep all around the country. All the cattle destroyed. All the Butchers Shops ruined. Ferguson got his money and walked free to wreak even more destruction.
I accept anyone can get things wrong but his modelling is known to not work and has been known not to work for 30 years. Why was he allowed anywhere near any form of power other than cleaning toilets? Who appointed him to destroy all those lives in all those cases of his predictions? Why is it not being asked “Who the hell appointed Ferguson?”.

Last edited 2 years ago by Richard Austin
11
0
Jon Garvey
Jon Garvey
2 years ago
Reply to  Richard Austin

The problem with that is that models are tuned (arbitrarily) to make them “predict” past events. That’s how the climate models work: always right about the past (including when the datasaet is modified), and always wrong about the future, because they were not modelling reality but adjusted to fit.

As John von Neumann said: “With four parameters I can fit an elephant. With five I can make him wiggle his trunk.”

Climate and epidemiological models have dozens of parameters, each infinitely variable to taste.

4
0
AllMouthAndTrousers
AllMouthAndTrousers
2 years ago
Reply to  Jon Garvey

No climate model can accurately predict the past climate, they have over a dozen different models which can “predict” periods of the climate within the parameters laid down. Which is like saying I can hit the bullseye on the dartboard every time if you give me 20 goes at it.

Last edited 2 years ago by AllMouthAndTrousers
1
0

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