Questions for Lockdown Apologists
We now have mortality data for the first few months of 2020 for many countries, and, as you might expect, there were steep increases associated with the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic in each one.
Surprisingly, however, these increases did not begin before the lockdowns were imposed, but after.
Moreover, in almost every case, they began immediately after. Often, mortality numbers were on a downward trend before suddenly reversing course after lockdowns were decreed.
This is an astonishing finding. But before I discuss its full import, and pose some questions to those who still defend the utility of lockdowns, I want to present the data that proves it.
Here’s a series of charts by the Financial Times showing overall mortality and “deaths in excess of normal levels” in 2020 for a number of countries:
As you can see, in every country there were significant increases in overall mortality beginning some time in February or March.
Now let’s add the lockdown dates in green for each country:
You will notice that only after each country (or city) was locked down did the increases begin. Moreover, they began immediately, and in nearly every case, precipitously.
Now let’s examine the data for a few of these countries and cities in greater detail.
Belgium
The Economist has published its own series of charts showing excess deaths in several countries. Here’s its chart for Belgium:
The national lockdown is shown to have occurred on March 18th. But that was only Phase 2 of the national lockdown. Phase 1, which included widespread business closures, began on March 13th.
Their chart, therefore, should really look like this:
Which shows no increase in mortality before the lockdown, and then an immediate and precipitous increase after it was imposed.
The Netherlands
Here’s The Economist’s chart for the Netherlands:
In a strange oversight, the lockdown that was declared on March 15 in that country is not indicated here. Moreover, the March 23rd “ban on public gatherings” shown in the chart was simply the bolstering of an already-existing ban on public gatherings that had been issued on March 12 (which was accompanied by the lockdown of nursing homes). The Dutch lockdown, therefore, began on March 12, escalated on March 15, and peaked on March 23.
Let’s add that information to the chart:
Once again, we see no significant increase in mortality before the start of the lockdown, and then an immediate, precipitous rise once the lockdown began.
(Note: The slightest increase in mortality is still observable immediately before the “Lockdown phase 1” line, but that is probably due to the fact that the Netherlands reports its mortality data on a weekly, rather than a daily basis, and March 12th (“Lockdown phase 1”) fell in the middle of the week. If we had daily data, we would probably be able to confirm that there was no increase at all prior to March 12th.)
Spain
Let’s move on to some larger countries.
Here’s The Economist’s chart for Spain:
Note that most of the excess deaths came from the Madrid region.
Here’s a chart I made of overall mortality in the Madrid region using the same data The Economist used (available here). Notice the steep rise in deaths beginning around March 9th:
Now let’s add the major lockdown orders to this chart:
You will observe here the same peculiar phenomenon we’ve observed thus far: significant rises in mortality do not pre-date major lockdown events, but rather coincide with them, or follow them very closely.
Next up, Britain.
The Economist draws the “National lockdown” line on Mar 23. But again, that was only Phase 2 of the lockdown. Phase 1 began on March 20.
Many of the excess deaths occurred in London. Let’s take a closer look at that data:
As you can see from this chart (created using The Economist’s own data set), there was no significant increase in deaths before March 20, and no increase at all before March 13.
Now let’s add the lockdown dates:
And we see the same phenomenon here as elsewhere— namely, no increase in overall mortality until after the lockdowns begin, and then a sudden, precipitous rise.
Italy
In Italy, the largest increase in deaths occurred in the Lombardy region. Let’s look closer at that data, and also plot the regional lockdown on February 22.
Once again: the sudden, precipitous increase in deaths followed the lockdown.
France
The greatest increase in deaths came from the Paris region, so let’s take a closer look at that data:
Again, the same phenomenon is evident here as elsewhere: no significant increase in deaths until after the lockdown was declared, and then an immediate, precipitous rise.
New York City
Here the “City lockdown” is shown to have occurred on March 22.
But let’s take a closer look. Here is the same data overlaid with lockdown orders:
Now it’s very clear: there was no increase in deaths before the start of lockdowns.
(Note: I plotted the state lockdown on Mar 20, which is when it was announced and went into partial effect.)
Let’s take a look at one more case.
Ecuador
A severe national lockdown was decreed in Ecuador on March 16th, and went into effect on March 17th. The Guayas province, which contains Ecuador’s most populous city, suffered the highest rate of overall mortality. Here’s the mortality chart (from the Financial Times) for that region:
And here’s a closer look:
As with all the other cases we’ve examined here — and as with all the countries and cities for which we have good mortality data — only after the lockdown began was there a significant increase in deaths.
All this leads to the following questions, which we pose to anyone who continues to defend the use of lockdowns as an effective means to prevent excess deaths.
Q: Why was there no significant increase in overall mortality, in any country we have good data for, before the start of lockdowns?
Q: Why does a precise and exact correlation exist between the start of lockdowns and significant rises in overall mortality?
Or:
Q: How is it that governments in every country imposed lockdowns at precisely the same time relative to the future precipitous rise in their populations’ overall mortality rate?
And:
Q: How is it, moreover, that this moment in time happened to fall immediately before that precipitous rise?
Most attempts to answer these questions would probably involve the assertion that the authorities in every country had some notion of the true prevalence of the virus at the beginning of the pandemic. But we know now that that was not really the case. In the early weeks and months of 2020, testing was extremely limited. This was based, partly, on the assumption that the virus was not yet widespread. As testing was systematically expanded, the number of positive results increased, and this increase was generally believed to correspond to the actual spread of the virus.
Now retrospective testing (what little has been performed) has shown that the virus was circulating — and killing — weeks, or even months before it was initially detected in many countries. Other researchers are coming to the same conclusion; the prevalence of the virus was vastly underestimated at the beginning of the pandemic.
Which leads us to our final question:
Q: If health authorities vastly underestimated the prevalence of the virus at the beginning of the pandemic, why did the virus nevertheless wait until lockdowns were imposed to suddenly start killing at levels which exceeded normal deaths?
Read more at jamesfetzer.org
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Brian James
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Dec 2, 2020Politicians eat own words after dining out, taking trips
But their actions aren’t living up to the rhetoric, creating a real political problem for some of the most vocal leaders in California’s fight to contain the coronavirus.
https://www.ivpressonline.com/news/nation/politicians-eat-own-words-after-dining-out-taking-trips/article_f4231bbd-7d0a-5368-b1f5-b6d71a5d923a.html
Dec 4, 2020 Lockdowns Haven’t Brought down Covid Mortality. But They Have Killed Millions of Jobs.
Strict lockdowns have devastated millions of families’ incomes while failing to bring success in suppressing covid mortality.
https://youtu.be/wtc2pe2MGbU
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Mark Tapley
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The numbers are whatever the Zionist operatives say they are. When you have a fake virus you have to have fake numbers and also need a fake test. This medical fraud is conditioning the barnyard animals to give up their most valuable asset, their natural rights while damaging the economy to eliminate what is left of the middle class so Jewmerica can be better merged with other third world countries. While the Zionist political puppets continue to ruin our economy the Chinese have abandoned their part of the hoax and are long back to normal.
The long planned covid scam was also a cover for another multi trillion dollar theft by the banking cartel as was done in 08-09. Eugenicist Gates had his pre pandemic meeting on 10-18-19 then shortly after our sinecure senators had their closed door meeting and started pulling money out of the market after tipping off their big donors. Stagged riots were also part of the program.
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Lloyd
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When you say “Zionist operatives’ you start sounding like the publisher of the Protocols of Zion, not a truthful book. Please realize you can have people conspiring to obtain power without and Jewish culture involved.
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JohnB
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It is a very truthful book. You probably mean its supposed provenance is untruthful, which is fair enough.
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Andy Rowlands
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This is a very good article highlighting not only that lockdowns are useless, but that they may even cause deaths to increase.
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Tom O
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It is not unreasonable to expect an increase in disease death after the lockdown – people infected prior to the lockdown would continue to have the disease progress, However, that should have been a quick rise and then fall if lockdowns worked.
In “real life,” we may move within feet of each other as we move through stores, etc., but that doesn’t automatically mean we will be infected as we walk passed someone that has the disease. On the other hand, if we are contained within a small area constantly with someone that has the disease, and in a lockdowned home, we will continuously be exposed to the disease until we catch it. Since they tell us how contagious the disease is, it is a wonder, really, that far more people being confined within a home with a sick person does NOT get sick – all should if the “experts” were right.
We have been told all sorts of information about this virus – how long it can live on a stainless steel surface, or on porcelain, or in the air or on money or on a touchscreen even how contagious it is, but we can’t be told what the actual virus is. I have yet to figure out how you can know how long a virus can live in the air, or anything else about it, if you don’t have an isolated virus to work with. But that’s another story from the Twilight Zone. Or is that the Toilet Zone, or at least a bull’s stall?
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Andy Rowlands
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Well said Tom.
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Sonny Thorgren
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I fully agree
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Chris
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Covid19 is a hoax. That is why this is so precise. The numbers will look anyway that they want them to. Many people who didn’t take the test came up positive early on. Showing that the tests are set to what is desired by the politicians. Encouraging testing gets these fake tests through which gives them the numbers. If we were to use only clinical diagnosis, which is impossible, then only those that are not pneumonia would be listed. They wouldn’t have many “cases” to go on. This all reminds me of the movie War Games. It’s just a simulation.
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Mark Tapley
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Right. It is amazing to me how may cucked idiots can’t figure that out. If you have a fake virus then you also need a fake test. With the PCR they just predetermine the number of positives they want and then run enough cycles to get that result. As far as the numbers that has always been a lie. For years the criminal CDC has greatly exaggerated the annual flu numbers which rarely kill any one unless they already have one foot in the grave. Everything the Zionist say and do is a lie and a fraud. How could the criminal elite that contrive the wars, did 911, WMD’s, fake shootings all over the place, staged riots, fake Floyds and steal trillions in ” bailouts” for their super rich cronies do anything else but lie and steal from what they consider just livestock on the global plantation?
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Mike McShane
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Well said sir. This whole shit show was in the planning for years and well written about by the global degenerates in their disgusting books and papers right back as far as H.G Wells (open conspiracy and the new world order) Zbigniew Brzezinski, Sir Julian Huxley, Aldous Huxley, Bertrand Russell, Dr Carroll Quigley just to name a few. none of what they were planning was ever hidden, our noses have always been rubbed in it. The msm and think tanks are also in the mockery business and it has been particularly brutal in the last 9 months, every day I see fake names fake shootings fake this or fake that being carried out by intelligence agencies with no end in sight?? Lord help us!
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Ken Hughes
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I conclude that the “authorities” had their own crystal balls. They clearly knew beforehand when the pandemic would hit.
Or, if you don’t believe in crystal balls, then one would have to conclude they actually rigged the death figures to coincide with their planned “pandemic”, a Plandemic.
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Andy Rowlands
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I find it hard to disagree with your reasoning Ken 🙂
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Alex M
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I’m surprised no one is suggesting what seems to me the perfectly logical explanation, which is that lockdowns kill people. Lots of people. Old people, lonely people, depressed people, anxious people, unemployed people. Those massive spikes in deaths represent deaths of despair. And these deaths were actually preventable, unlike most of those caused by the virus itself. All we had to do to avoid them was… nothing.
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John Aspray
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I have a FOIR in (due 21st Dec) asking for the NUMBER of PCR tests performed in the county of Dorset. I have raised this question with both my county health dept. and Public health England.
Initially Public health Dorset denied that they held such records, but I had it confirmed by the patient liaison team for the local hospitals that PHD did have them. This is confirmed by the fact that back in August they supplied me with a figure for the week 6th to 13th Aug. The number of positive tests for that week was 21, and working on a figure of 750k, works out at 0.0028% of the population. The number of tests performed was 9369, ie roughly 1.25% of the population. 0.22% of people tested were positive.
I very much look forward to their reply.
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