A Literature Review and Meta-analysis of the Effects of Lockdowns on Covid-19 Mortality

[connda]

Submitted without comment:

A Literature Review and Meta-analysis of the Effects of Lockdowns on Covid-19 Mortality
By Jonas Herby, Lars Jonung, and Steve H. Hanke
Studies in Applied Economics - John Hopkins University

This systematic review and meta-analysis are designed to determine whether there is empirical evidence to support the belief that “lockdowns” reduce COVID-19 mortality...
While this meta-analysis concludes that lockdowns have had little to no public health effects, they have imposed enormous economic and social costs where they have been adopted. In consequence, lockdown policies are ill-founded and should be rejected as a pandemic policy instrument.

https://sites.krieger.jhu.edu/iae/files/2022/01/A-Literature-Review-and-Meta-Analysis-of-the-Effects-of-Lockdowns-on-COVID-19-Mortality.pdf

[Jeffr2]

I've seen studies that said lockdowns had minimal impact on business. Hard to tell with so many differing studies

[Chomper Higgot]

The report is written by Jonas Herby who has built a career around promoting deregulation, libertarian and rightwing politics.

 

He chooses some studies and draws conclusions from them.

 

Now, what ‘studies’ might an avowed anti-regulation, libertarian, right winger choose to read?!

 

What he doesn’t do is examine the data on public health outcomes v public health policy.

 

But here’s another question;

 

How did the OP come upon the obscure scribbling of this avowed anti-regulation, libertarian rightwing propagandist?

 

Edited February 3, 2022 by Chomper Higgot

[TheCowboy]

Commentary on flaws in this non-peer-reviewed study.  In particular, because early action (China, Australia, etc.) doesn't reduce non-existent deaths, it isn't counted as effective.

https://www.sciencemediacentre.org/expert-reaction-to-a-preprint-looking-at-the-impact-of-lockdowns-as-posted-on-the-john-hopkins-krieger-school-of-arts-and-sciences-website/

[Credo]

A review of the literature doesn't quite cut it for me.  First of all, very, very few places had what could be considered as a real 'lockdown'.  Thailand seemed to do better than most western countries.  The lockdown in the US was about as far from being a lockdown as things could get.  It also only lasted from 12:00 to midnight before this or that business was allowed to open.

 

The lockdowns were primarily designed to slow the spread and flatten the curve.  They were marginally effective in doing that, so using the metric of death rates is a bit of a canard.   We quickly learned that on a statistical basis certain demographics were likely to get seriously ill and had a high probability of death.   That was true then and still true.   

 

So the question is how many people would have died if the entire medical system collapsed?  

 

It's completely idiotic to think there wouldn't be an economic impact.  Of course there was and that is why built into the lockdowns were various programs to stimulate the economy.   

 

Where I live there is no lockdown and things aren't much better.  Supply chain issues are a problem and the labor shortage is acute.   Before vaccines were in arms, I am reasonably confident that if everything was running as 'normal' it would have been about as far from 'normal' as you can get.

 

Between saving lives and saving the economy, I'll go with lives.  

 

 

[SidJames]

Complete  & whole societal lockdowns do not work for medical purposes.

This will be proved by data studies from countries that do not have an agenda to prove that lockdowns work.

The reason that life expectancy & life quality have increased so much over the decades is because of economics, education & enlightenment.

A poorer country has less money to educate it's children, less money to spend on healthcare.

Populations with less money have less access to better quality fresh food, not much cultural enrichment to help them learn & enjoy their lives as happy people seem to live longer, better lives than miserable people.

Imprisoning people who have committed no crime apart from being alive is fundamentally plain wrong.

That is just my opinion but I have found lately that some people who disagree with me try to invest a political element to my opinion just because they have a different one to mine & therefore my opinion is not different but just wrong & therefore dismissed.

 

[placeholder]

I think the singly most telling point raised is that these authors' chief criterion for the effectiveness of a lockdown was if it reduced the mortality rate. But countries like Australia that imposed a strict lockdown early on didn't have much mortality to cut down on. Are these authors seriously proposing that the low low rate of mortality in Australia had nothing to do with the restrictions imposed?

There's a similar thing going on in the USA where some people are denying the results of studies showing a strong correlation between political party membership and covid death rates. The members of one party in poll after poll are shown to have a significantly lower vaccination rate than members of the other party. Yet somehow these critics come up with all sorts of rationales that invoke everything but this fact to explain the difference. Of course, ultimately, the only way such a repudiation makes sense is if you believe that vaccinations make no difference in the mortality rate. A belief that is evidently false.

[Jeffr2]

100% debunked by peer review here:

https://www.sciencemediacentre.org/expert-reaction-to-a-preprint-looking-at-the-impact-of-lockdowns-as-posted-on-the-john-hopkins-krieger-school-of-arts-and-sciences-website/