COVID-19

REPORT: Lockdowns had ‘No Noticeable Effect’ on Mortality

Did have ‘Devastating Effects’ on Economy and ‘Social Ills’

Published

1 year ago

February 2, 2022

Researchers at Johns Hopkins University have come out with a very direct message: “We find no evidence that lockdowns, school closures, border closures, and limiting gatherings have had a noticeable effect on COVID-19 mortality.”

The analysis states the lockdowns did not reduce deaths in the United States nor Europe. “The lockdowns during the early phase of the pandemic in 2020 reduced COVID-19 mortality by about 0.2%, said the broad review of multiple scientific studies” reports TheWashington Times.

Liberals love to “follow the science.” Under the pretense of their beloved “science” they have been screaming bloody murder, literally, that conservative leadership attempting to open back up the economy and reimplement freedoms, exactly what the researchers found, were murderers.

The research paper said while lockdowns did not save us from COVID-19 mortality, they did still have “devastating effects”. What did suffer devastating effects? Again, what conservatives and Republican leadership has been saying.

“They have contributed to reducing economic activity, raising unemployment, reducing schooling, causing political unrest, contributing to domestic violence, and undermining liberal democracy,” the report said.

“Such a standard benefit-cost calculation leads to a strong conclusion: lockdowns should be rejected out of hand as a pandemic policy instrument,” the paper concluded.

Another area of liberal illogic was also discussed in the research paper: “Lockdowns have limited peoples’ access to safe (outdoor) places such as beaches, parks, and zoos, or included outdoor mask mandates or strict outdoor gathering restrictions, pushing people to meet at less safe (indoor) places,” they wrote. “Indeed, we do find some evidence that limiting gatherings was counterproductive and increased COVID-19 mortality.”

The Washington Times reports on the history of the lockdowns:

Early on, many states and 186 countries imposed bans on work, socialization, in-person schooling, travel and other restrictions to limit the spread of the disease, citing recommendations by top health care experts.

Researchers at the Imperial College London, for example, predicted that such steps could reduce death rates by up to 98%. That never happened, according to the new study by researchers Steve Hanke, Jonas Herby, and Lars Jonung at Johns Hopkins.

“Overall, we conclude that lockdowns are not an effective way of reducing mortality rates during a pandemic, at least not during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic,” they wrote.

They examined deaths early during the pandemic and determined that, by end of the lockdown period studied, on May 20, 2020, a total of 97,081 people had died of COVID-19 in the U.S.

A prominent study at the time had estimated there would be 99,050 deaths without lockdowns. Mr. Hanke is the founder and co-director of the Johns Hopkins Institute for Applied Economics, Global Health, and the Study of Business Enterprise. Mr. Herby is special adviser at Center for Political Studies in Copenhagen, Denmark. Mr. Jonung is professor emeritus in economics at Lund University, Sweden.

They conducted a “meta-analysis” of dozens of studies that examined COVID-19 mortality rates. Despite the overall findings, they did note some evidence that closing bars helped to reduce deaths.

“Closing nonessential businesses seems to have had some effect (reducing COVID-19 mortality by 10.6%), which is likely to be related to the closure of bars,” they said.

The researchers said the timing of lockdowns, and unintended consequences, may play a larger role than expected in affecting mortality.

China

National Institutes of Health renews ‘bat coronavirus’ research funding

Published

1 month ago

May 9, 2023

Sara Carter Staff

Have we not learned our lesson? The now infamous National Institutes of Health has renewed a grant to EcoHealth Alliance for research on the “risk of bat coronavirus spillover emergence.” The news is shocking to many due to multiple agencies of the U.S. government supporting the lab leak theory of Covid’s origin.

“Zoonotic coronaviruses (CoVs) represent a significant threat to global health, as demonstrated by the emergence of SARS-CoV, MERS-CoV and SARS-CoV-2,” a press release read. “Bats were identified as the wildlife reservoirs of SARS-CoV by EcoHealth Alliance, and since then, we have published hundreds of novel SARS-related CoV (SARSr-CoV) sequences from wildlife in China and across Southeast Asia.”

In order to “ease” concerns and some objections, the press release noted on-the-ground work under the auspices of this new grant will not be conducted in China. The study is specific to southern China, but the “renewed work will involve collaboration only between EcoHealth Alliance and the Duke-National University of Singapore Medical School.”

All “recombinant virus culture or infection experiments” will also be removed from the research process. The press release assured that the research would not be “gain of function,” which involves extracting viruses from animals and engineering them in a lab to make them more transmissible or dangerous to humans.

The Biden administration has been supportive. National Review reports:

In February, national-security council communications coordinator John Kirby said the Biden administration supports gain-of-function research despite the potential risks as long as that it is pursued in a safe and transparent manner.

“[The president] believes that [the research is] important to help prevent future pandemics, which means he understands that there has to be legitimate scientific research into . . . the potential sources of pandemics so that we understand [them] and so we can prevent them from happening,” Kirby said.

However, let’s not forget:

in February, FBI director Christopher Wray told Fox News that Covid likely escaped from a laboratory in China, issuing the first public opinion of the sort from the agency on the origins of the virus.

“The FBI has for quite some time now assessed that the origins of the pandemic are most likely a potential lab incident in Wuhan,” Wray said. “Here you are talking about a potential leak from a Chinese government-controlled lab.”