Will People Ever Acknowledge Lockdowns Were A Total Failure?
On March 27th 1913, the population of Columbus, Ohio, started running. Afterwards, nobody was exactly sure why or when
James Thurber, the comic novelist, was a schoolboy in the town and recalled the incident in a famous article some years later.
He said that perhaps it was simply someone suddenly remembering an appointment to meet his wife, and then a paperboy in high spirits joined in, and then perhaps a portly man of affairs broke into a trot, and before you knew it, the entire high street, from the union depot to the courthouse, was running.
After the run had begun, people began to look for a justification, and the hubbub, the noise, eventually formed into one word: the dam had burst.
Nobody stopped to point out that there was zero evidence of it having burst and that, anyway, even if it had, it could not have possibly reached Columbus, Ohio. People ran on for several more miles and then, eventually, sheepishly returned to the town.
Here is the point: Thurber said that years passed before anyone dared mention it. Everyone carried on with their business as usual — and woe betide you if you made some jokey remark about the day the dam did not break.
It seems to me that we are in a very similar place with the lockdowns. Then, too, we saw herd instinct at its worst: people joining in one after another without stopping to think.
It is an interesting counterfactual to ask what would have happened if the first sign of the pandemic had not been in autocratic China but in a country where lockdowns, the confinement of the entire population, would have been unthinkable — let us say if it had started in the Netherlands or Canada or somewhere.
It started in China; then there was the attempt by the Italian Government to stop people moving from north to south; and then, suddenly, lockdowns, which had never been foreseen in any previous planning document, were considered a standard tool of public policy overnight.
We were panicked into a response that no one had foreseen prior to those days — by shrieking broadcasters such as Piers Morgan, night after night, saying, “Why aren’t we copying these other countries?”, and all the signs up saying, “Covidiots go home” — and, rather like the people of Columbus, Ohio, we did not stop to think, and we still do not want to go back and ask whether it was justified or proportionate.
It is not true to say that there was no plan or that it was a plan for the wrong pandemic. We had a plan that we had worked out in cooler-headed times, at precisely the moment when you are supposed to think rationally about these things.
We heard from my noble friend Lord Lansley about a number of the things in it.
He said, well, maybe we were wrong about those things, but there has been no evidence at all that the original 2011 plan was wrong to say that face masks would be ineffective at containing a disease or that closing schools would have little impact or, indeed, to make the basic supposition that if you are dealing with something that will spread throughout the population, your best bet is to do that in a way that minimises fatalities rather than pretending that you can stop it altogether.
Actually, there was one country that kept to our plan. They did not have the resources to do their own, so they simply downloaded ours. That was Sweden, which I will come back to in a moment.
Like James Thurber’s citizens in Columbus, we are finding it difficult properly to relive the indignities and horrors that we went through, from the grievous ones, such as people unable to say farewell to dying loved ones, to the trivial ones, such as the debates about whether a Scotch egg counts as a meal.
We have forgotten the taped-off playgrounds, the drones sent up to pursue solitary walkers, the police in Derbyshire pouring dye into a lake so it would be less of a beauty spot, and the ‘pingdemic’ — that bizarre period when people were self-diagnosing so that, if they could not take time off work they would self-diagnose as being all clear, and if they felt like a little time off they would claim to have been infected.
We have crammed all of these into some remote corner of our memory. In fact, the very difficulty of those things became an argument for continuing. We got into the worst kind of sunk cost fallacy.
In fact, the Secretary of State at the time explicitly used that argument: we have been through so much, so let us not let it all be for nothing.
By then, almost everything was pushed into a retrospective justification for the measures that we and other Governments — with one exception — had taken. If infections went up, everyone said, “Well, we can’t relax the restrictions. It would be extremely dangerous.”
If they came down, everyone said, “Oh, it’s working. We just need to carry on with this.” People kept on saying, “Follow the science”, but the one thing that we were not doing was applying the normal scientific method.
Karl Popper defines science as something that can be disproved, but woe betide you if you even asked the most basic questions at that time about whether there was proportionality.
We already had the evidence by the end of April 2020 that Sweden had followed the same trajectory as everywhere else: that the infections had peaked and declined in a place where there were only the most minimal of measures, banning large meetings but otherwise relying on people to use their common sense.
That is what a scientific approach would have done. It would have said, “Consider the control in the experiment.”
We had a laboratory-quality control there all along — we had a country that had stuck to the plan that we were panicked out of following.
What can we see about the results in Sweden? First, and most obviously, there is not a smoking crater where its economy used to be. In fact, Sweden suffered less of an economic hit in the pandemic than it did in the 2008 financial crisis.
The Swedish budget was back in surplus by 2021 — imagine that.
The last Government was done for by our selective amnesia about the cost of these lockdown measures and the current one will be too, because people still do not like to face the fact that for the better part of two years we paid people to stay at home, we borrowed from our future selves, and that money would eventually need to be paid back.
What if it was all for nothing? Let us ask the question: what price did Sweden pay for sparing its economy? At the time we were told that there would be an almost civilisational collapse there.
I remember the Sun had the headline, ‘Heading for disaster’, while the Guardian’s was, ‘Leading us to catastrophe’. The argument was not that Sweden might end up with a slightly better or worse death rate than other countries, it was that this would be an outlier by any measure — that there would be bodies piled up in the streets.
The data are now more or less in. It was very difficult to track these things at the time because different countries have different methodologies. Different countries have different ways of measuring fatalities.
Were people dying of Covid or with Covid? There were some territories which could not measure even that because they did not have a sufficiently advanced healthcare system.
I think of my native Peru, which had about the toughest lockdown on the planet and about the worst fatality rate — again, showing how little correlation there was.
The one thing you can measure with a consistent methodology is excess mortality. You can apply the same calculation to any given population. You can say how many people died in the previous three years, how many you would then expect to die in this period, and compare that with what actually happened.
You can be more sophisticated and factor in obesity and age profile and so on. However you do it, you find that Sweden ends up with one of, or on several measures, the lowest excess mortality rate in Europe.
This should be the only thing the inquiry is looking at and we are debating, and yet it is somehow considered bad form even to mention it. We are still, like the citizens of Columbus, Ohio, unwilling to face the fact that it may have been disproportionate.
Among the institutions that put Sweden as the single lowest excess mortality rate in Europe are the BBC and the ONS. This is the data. Yet there is this extraordinary readiness to tiptoe around rather than face them.
Should this not be the sole focus of the inquiry whose provisional findings we are discussing? Should not the only question that really matters be: were non-pharmaceutical interventions effective?
Given the cost of the ruined educations, the elderly people isolated and the debt, was it proportionate? We should not be asking that question in a vindictive spirit. I understand that people have to err on the side of caution, that there was a panicky atmosphere and that we were dealing with something we did not know.
It is understandable that people have to go with the best models they can find. But we no longer have to rely on models. We now have actual hard data.
Yet we seem extraordinarily reluctant to ask the central question: did lockdowns work?
Did they work a little bit but not enough to justify the dislocation? Did they work a great deal? Or, as the Swedish case prima facie would suggest, did they not work at all?
Did they in fact drive up the mortality rate because of unrelated healthcare problems — everything from unscreened diagnoses to the fact of confining people and denying them exercise?
How is it that we can have this lengthy and expensive inquiry — Sweden has completed both its inquiries and moved on while we were still getting around to phase 1 — and have had all those conversations, and not asked that one central question?
Looking at this interim report, it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that it is results-driven, or at the very least tendentious. In fact, you could infer almost everything you needed to know about this inquiry from the fact that, incredibly, witnesses were required to take a Covid test.
It must be the last place in discovered space where this is still a thing, where Covid is not treated as an endemic disease.
You could tell from the tone of the questions what the conclusions would be — that the Government should have done more; that it was insufficient; why did we not lock down earlier or why did we not lock down harder?
All of it begging the question, all of it making assumptions that have, until now at any rate, not been interrogated, let alone proved.
This matters because, as the Minister said at the start, there is bound to be another pandemic and therefore knowing whether lockdowns work should be a critical question of public policy.
Although, I have a horrible feeling that even if we were to rewrite, in a cool-headed way, a response plan without lockdowns, the evidence of 2020 is that such a plan, however reasonable and moderate, would be torn up in a panic under pressure from shrieking broadcasters and angry newspaper headlines.
This is a transcript of a speech given by Daniel Hannan (Lord Hannan of Kingsclere) in the House of Lords Debate on the Covid Inquiry that took place yesterday (September 3rd). Watch it here.
Stop Press: UsForThem has tweeted the contribution by Lord Frost to the same debate: “It is not even clear to me that we are going to get from the inquiry what we really need — a report on the costs and benefits of measures taken, factoring in the economic and social costs.”
See more here dailysceptic.org
Header image: Paul Alain Hunt
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VOWG
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We know it was a fraud yet allowed it to continue. If it happens again refuse to comply. I did.
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Alan
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Lockdowns were not a failure because governments now know how easy it is to control people.
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Tom
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I acknowledge that the fake pandemic was a failure except for the gullible that took experimental and deadly mRNA injections. None of this crap for me. The entire medical establishment is a hoax.
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Saeed Qureshi
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@ “The entire medical establishment is a hoax.”
I 100% agree.
The reason is that they (physicians) are considered and promoted as “scientists” or “science” followers when, in fact, they do not study or have expertise in science. Their training is based on a typical non-science undergraduate degree (M.D. or equivalent). They are trained only to write prescriptions based on listening to symptoms and reading the lab results.
Therefore, all claimed medical and health science (and research) institutions (including their diaries, considered peer-reviewed science journals) are based on false and fake science claims and need to be abandoned urgently.
https://bioanalyticx.com/romans-believed-in-witchcraft-so-do-modern-medical-scientists/
https://bioanalyticx.com/doctors-did-you-get-it/
https://bioanalyticx.com/origin-of-covid-19-fake-science-by-physicians/
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Jerry Krause
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Hi Saeed and PSI readers,
I basically stated this before but it seems Saeed hasn’t understood. Probably my fault so I will try to do bette. Need to begin with acknowledging that what is termed SCIENCE is PHYSICAL SCIENCE; which is based upon less than a hundred natural atoms (element)s) of which all MATTER is naturally composed. While not all atoms of a given element have the same mass; the physical and chemical properties of a given ELEMENT are basically the SAME.
However,, in what I term LIFE SCIENCE, no TWO INDIVIDUALS are basically the SAME. Hence the reaction of one individual to a given medicine (treatment) will NOT NECESSARILY have a SIMUAR reaction upon a different individual. And this has nothing to do with one’s education.
Have a good day
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Jerry Krause
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Hi Saeed and PSI Readers,
The fundamental physical sciences are physics and chemistry. I have personally discovered that some physicists (even) do not understand one of the first scientific laws that were discovered by chemists and which hangs in nearly every chemistry lecture hall and laboratory. This law is the PERIODIC LAW (chart) of the elements.
Have a good day
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Saeed Qureshi
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Hi Jerry:
I understand your point and tried to respond and explain it. However, you do not follow my view, i.e., I disagree that there is such a thing as LIFE SCIENCE. Life science is the user or a derivative of actual science/chemistry (and physics). My view is that if one has to understand so-called life science and/or medicines, one must first study and understand science/chemistry.
Please consider reading a recent article on my blog in which I have addressed the issue. I hope this will help you understand my view better. (https://bioanalyticx.com/origin-of-covid-19-fake-science-by-physicians/).
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Jerry Krause
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Hi Saeed,
Even you wrote: “the body is individualistic and varies from person to person, often hugely.” I question how long would would it take for any of your proposed “scientific” experiments take to produce one meaningful result? And I cannot imagine what the design of that experiment would be. It seems you like so many non-physical scientists like to argue Instead of accepting the Darwin’s idea of the allow evolution of ‘life”over billions of years is absolutely wrong because the eagle pair at Smith Rock Or need to incubate the eggs before baby eagles will hatch..
Have a good day
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Saeed Qureshi
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“I question how long would would it take for any of your proposed “scientific” experiments take to produce one meaningful result?”
I doubt that it can be done. Currently, a large number of unknowns and variables are involved. For that, scientists must study these unknowns and variables at cellular levels. After that, one could design experiments to observe healthy and diseased cells. Indeed, it will be a huge undertaking, but it is doable. There are no shortcuts. Sorry.
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Jerry Krause
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Hi Saeed,
You just wrote “I doubt that it can be done. “. So why you wasting your time writing about it?
There are two WRONG ideas–The Greenhouse Effect of atmospheric carbon dioxide (GHE) and Darwin’s theory of the evolution of LIRE which took billions of years to accomplish–for which there are common observations which REFUTE each. And both these wrong ideas greatly hinder progress.
Help me to convince the scientific communty of these OBSERVED FACTS by having a discussion here at PSI.
Have a good day
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Saeed Qureshi
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Hi Jerry:
You are selectively reading my post.
I wrote, “I doubt that it can be done.” about the current situation, aka medical (BS) science.
However, further, I wrote, “Indeed, it will be a huge undertaking, but it is doable. There are no shortcuts.”
So, if one follows the (actual) science, one must study the variables and their variations in health and illness states and then possibly suggest remedies. If one likes to follow the actual science, this is how it must be done. Otherwise, the rest is just research money/funding grabbing.
One more thing: I do not consider biology, medical science, or virology to be science. These are narratives based on subjective observations, not scientific or factual/laboratory-based subjects such as physics and chemistry, which are the only (actual) science subjects to me.
Joe
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It appears you were educated by the khazarian Mafia!
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Jerry Krause
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Hi Saeed,
You just concluded “One more thing: I do not consider biology, medical science, or virology to be science. These are narratives based on subjective observations, not scientific or factual/laboratory-based subjects such as physics and chemistry, which are the only (actual) science subjects to me.”
“These are narratives based on subjective observations, ” Are not chemistry/physucs aka based upon subjective, reproducible observations (measurements)? But if the individuals of biology can al be different; how can there necessarily be a reproducible observation?
Have a good day
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Saeed Qureshi
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@ “Are not chemistry/physucs aka based upon subjective, reproducible observations (measurements)?”
No, science works with physically existing, precise, and reproducible things/materials. On the other hand, biology works with imaginary/subjective things, like viruses, toxin/toxicology, etc.
@ “But if the individuals of biology can al be different; how can there necessarily be a reproducible observation?”
Reproducibe observations will be made for the content of the body or cells, which can only be handled by the principles of physics and chemistry; biology cannot do it.
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Jerry Krause
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Hi Saeed,
What regulates one’s body temperature? I ask this question because I certainly do not know. But as a mechanic I can explain what regulates the water temperature of an internal combustion engine of most cars or tractors.
Have a good day
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Saeed Qureshi
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Hello Jerry:
It is a different topic unrelated to what we have been discussing here. I do not want to discuss it, and I do not have time for it. Sorry.
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Jerry Krause
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Hi PSI Readers,
Ponder what Saeed just wrote. I had really considered him to be different from Herb, Howdy, and many others whose names I forget.
You have to decide: Am I a physical scientist or is Saeed who claims the knowledge of chemistry and/or physics can explain what has been observed about biology–the study of living things?
I’m sorry too.
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Saeed Qureshi
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Hi Jerry:
Biologists, virologists, medical experts, and other subclasses explain biology with chemicals/chemistry (viruses, DNA, RNA, spike protein, isolation, sequencing, medicines/chemicals, chemical-based testing, etc.). I am OK with it. However, the issue is that they apply science/chemistry incorrectly and do not realize this because they do not have relevant education and training in science/chemistry. You are missing this point as well.
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Jerry Krause
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Hi Saeed,
While as physical chemistry post-doc at Cornell University I had opportunity to several
Seminars and Lectures – Chemistry and Chemical Biology
Cornell University’s Chemistry Department’s Baker Lecture Series about Chemistry and Chemical Biology
Baker Lectures. This is the oldest and one of the most prestigious series of endowed lectures sponsored by a chemistry department at an American university.
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Jerry Krause
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Hi Saeed
Relative the previous, unintended comment, I had opportunity to attend several of these series lectures about Chemical Biology. I remember because the lecture had to be moved to a larger lecture. hall because the members of the biology department attended. The lecturer was Gerald Edelman and the topic of his lectures was the Immune Response. And during the lectures he considered much physical chemistry, which I believe I understood and he understood.
So could you give an specific example of a case where a biologist used chemistry or physics wrongly and how you would have used it correctly.
Have a good day
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Saeed Qureshi
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Hi Jerry:
You have not read my last comment carefully. I mentioned some examples of wrong use of chemistry concerning viruses and vaccines, such as “viruses, DNA, RNA, spike protein, isolation, sequencing, medicines/chemicals, chemical-based testing, etc.”
In one of my recent blogs, I provide some other examples: (https://bioanalyticx.com/origin-of-covid-19-fake-science-by-physicians/).
“It created all kinds of new disciplines, such as clinical science (clinical trials), health science, pharmaceutical science, public health science (epidemiology), pharmacology, pharmacy, immunology, molecular biology, and vaccinology, to name a few.
It should be noted that all the abovementioned disciplines are based on fake and fraudulent science/chemistry. In general, they are all based on medicine (chemical) testing, and anyone trained in analytical science/chemistry can see and say confidently that all the disciplines and their studies are fake and false as they are all based on phony testing (fancy name diagnosis).”
In short, from working at Health Canada (30 years), where I had close interactions with various subject experts in biology, medical “science,” etc., I was deeply disturbed by the incorrect use and claims of chemistry. It is a long list. I do not have time to discuss them individually and in detail.
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Jerry Krause
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Hi Saeed,
“I do not have time to discuss them individually and in detail.” This is your BIG PROBLEM. Galileo, Newton, etc. took time to see things in DETAIL.
Have a good day
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Saeed Qureshi
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@ “… took time to see things in DETAIL.”
Indeed, I took the time to explain in detail by writing on my blog, in the book, and in many published journal articles. I have been doing it for at least 25 years. However, I do not have time to explain things just for the argument’s sake. Sorry.
It is quite humbling to be considered in line with Galileo and Newton. I hope I will meet such expectations, even a very tiny fraction of the achievements of these great scientists and scholars. I greatly appreciate your kind words. Thank you.
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Jerry Krause
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Hi Saeed,
“Indeed, I took the time to explain in detail” What have you explained in detail? I have trying, without success, to get you, here at PSI, to quote one thing, which you have explained in detail, that has been observed. (seen). Hence, there is nothing to argue about,
Have a good day
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Saeed Qureshi
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Now, you are a frustrated and angry one. Sorry!
Jerry Krause
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Hi Saeed,
“Now, you are a frustrated and angry one.” TRUE!
But I don’t believe you are “Sorry”.
Have a good day
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Moffin
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Jerry. You are not supposed to expose the emperor’s new clothes, but good on you.
I do not mind Dr Qureshi saying viruses do not exist but not providing an alternative hypothesis is merely irresponsibly opening pandora’s box.
I do not mind being wrong but show me how I am wrong.
Have a nice day yourself.
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Moffin
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Hi Jerry again. On the life sciences, I have taken particular interest in the work of Sacharit Bhakdi, a microbiologist of around 80 years old. I also take heed of the work of Dr Robert Clancy, also around 80 years old.
Both these scientists explain the mechanisms at work in relation to the immune system. One refers to the cells that control the immune response as the General of the army and the other describes it as the Conductor of the orchestra.
Both these gentlemen were pioneers in their field. To suggest either of these two are not scientists is very unfortunate.
Both these scientists state mRNA shots should be stopped, for now.
Cheers Jerry.
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Jerry Krause
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Hi Moffin,
Thank you! Your other comments were good. Have a good day
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Saeed Qureshi
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Hello Moffin:
@ “ … but not providing an alternative hypothesis is merely irresponsibly …”
May I ask why I should provide an alternative hypothesis? My position is that, as claimed, the virus has not been isolated or does not exist. It is based on scientific requirements and is a fact. Case closed.
Dr. Sucharit Bhakdi is a physician with an M.D. I do not consider physicians to be scientists as they do not study or are trained in science. He has made false claims about virus isolation. I have critically evaluated one of his articles concerning the virus (isolation) claim but have not seen a response. Furthermore, I feel he has been quiet about the topic nowadays. (https://bioanalyticx.com/comments-on-the-article-do-viruses-exist-by-michael-palmer-m-d-and-sucharit-bhakdi-m-d/).
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Robert
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Saeed it is nice to see you pushing a few buttons. Do not let it worry you. I learned in my life some what late that most of the illness I suffered from was as a result of what I was eating and what I was not eating. Medicine would hardly be needed if the average person just new that. Like what toxins are in the different families of plants and which to eat sparingly or not at all and the ones that we should eat more of. A good doctor should know that. But they do not even study it as it would be bad for business. This covid fiasco opened my eyes as I realized that a lot terminology doctors use is not based replicated proven methods but more on odds ratios and averages and generalizations. They need your constructive criticism. Have a good day.
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