Lockdown saved as few as 1,700 lives in England and Wales in spring 2020, according to a landmark study which concludes the benefits of the policy were “a drop in the bucket compared to the staggering collateral costs” imposed.
Sweden didn’t lock down and Sweden had fewer deaths per million of course….also, our own pre-getting-frit plan was to do the same as Sweden.
Ho hum
It was worth it, Even if it saved one life !
Anyone found stepping outside their house should have been executed by specially trained killer bees.
Wibble, gurgle, froth…
YouTube are now allowing videos that question the 2020 US election result to be aired.
Be interesting to see how long YouTube can keep any proper scrutiny of Covid off the platform…..
Apparently, 330 ‘scientific papers’ on Covid lockdown measures, distancing and masks have been retracted in the last year.
COVID was an utter disaster insofar as it demonstrated to politicians what they could do to the peasants with a healthy dose of fear. Hence the proliferation of 15 minute towns, ULEZ in London and a turn of the screw on good ole climate change/Gerbil worming…
Now do the “vaccines”.
“our own pre-getting-frit plan was to do the same as Sweden.” It was more interesting than that. The Swedes didn’t have a pre-arranged plan so they looked at other countries’. They liked the British one best so they adopted it. Boris, alas, abandoned it under pressure from a collection of the usual suspects. Flabby-faced coward!
Blimey “Otto..”… I didn’t know that you were a member of the SAGE committee.. 🙂
This report will be re-issued word-for-word in 20 years’ time, but with the word ‘Lockdown’ TippEx-ed out and replaced by ‘Net Zero’.
All those Covid graphs from 2020 were really just global warming graphs, but with ‘Degrees Centigrade’ TippEx-ed out and ‘Cases’ scribbled over the top.
The likes of Ferguson and Vallance had been climate cranks long before they became Covid cranks.
Data please.
Oh. ‘As few as…’ – 1 700, not 1 699, not 1 701… so no data.
Since all deaths were in the near or soon to be dead, no lives were saved.
It should be expressed in life-years. That number would be a truly shocking return for the damage wrought.
As with Al Beeb when they scream ‘100,000 deaths in India due to high temperatures’, they never seem to say that the same report also mentions 900,000 deaths due to cold temperatures.
May 2023, coldest on record for the Arctic.
Last 6 months in Antarctica – coldest for that period on record.
Delhi – coldest May for 120+ years.
Australia – record cold temperatures for many cities.
Vast swathes of England covered in cloud for the last two weeks and experiencing below average temperatures but they make a point of saying Glasgow experienced 23 degrees.
“We’ll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false.” – William J. Casey, CIA Director (1981)
This sort of study is usually so immersed in approximations, estimates, biases, and confounders that 1700 probably isn’t really distinguishable from zero.
(And that’s assuming that the authors are competent, diligent, and honest, which I incline to assume because their conclusion is anti-Them.)
First, I suggest reading https://www.snopes.com/news/2022/02/03/johns-hopkins-study-on-lockdowns/
Then consider that a lockdown might save no lives at all without that being an argument against it. A lockdown is a requirement to do something. It will achieve nothing if everyone would already have done what is required, but critics of lockdowns always seem to have the implicit position that not only should there not have been a mandatory requirement, but that people should not have done what was required on their own initiative (becuase a requirement to do whatever you are already doing is not one to worry about).
Thanks, Charles. What do you make of “It’s a … working paper that has not been endorsed by the university”? I’ve never published a paper “endorsed” by any of my universities. What the hell are Snopes talking about?
Surely, Charles, isn’t the argument that people are better placed to judge what is appropriate in their own lives than government, which isn’t, is?
I would cite the two women got their collars felt by plod for sitting at opposite end of a park bench having coffee. The risk was infinitesimally small but they still got coshed by the blunt instrument. (Later adjudged the police had exceeded their powers?)
Charles
“but critics of lockdowns always seem to have the implicit position that not only should there not have been a mandatory requirement, but that people should not have done what was required on their own initiative”
Not true. Most critics of lockdown were advocating self-responsibility, the opposite of what you are suggesting.
“Snopes”
FS – *LOL*
@dearieme – ” What do you make of … ‘not been endorsed by the university'”
I assume it’s a response to some people referring to the paper and claiming that it must be good quality because it’s “from Johns Hopkins University and Lund University” and then saying “Johns Hopkins is one of the most respected medical schools in the world” as the Telegraph does.
@bloke in spain – “isn’t the argument that people are better placed to judge what is appropriate in their own lives than government”
I am best placed to judge my life, you are best placed to judge yours, but I am not best placed to judge yours, nor you mine. There are very many things in society which only work because people are constrained to act in ways that are not in their own selfish interests. For example, the whole idea of private property relies on us not being able to merely take what we want.
@PF – “Most critics of lockdown were advocating self-responsibility,”
If self responsibility means that you already do what lockdown requires, then lockdown saves no lives but also has no cost. In particular, the “staggering collateral costs” can only occur because people have changed their behaviour in response to lockdown requirements. A study of whether lockdown is good or bad is different from one which studies whether people should freely gather or not. These should not be confused, yet very frequently are, including in this case.
Not just another of Bojo’s Blunders, possibly his greatest. Even Jeremy would have been an improvement. What is the GOAT equivalent of greatest cunt of all time?