In a report released on Wednesday, Johns Hopkins stated that not only did COVID lockdowns not work, but they influenced a laundry list of negative effects economically, physically, and mentally. The report was the result of a study conducted by the respected research university. The study found that lockdowns only prevented 0.2 percent of COVID deaths over the past two years.
Researchers found “no evidence that lockdowns, school closures, border closures, and limiting gatherings have had a noticeable effect on 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.”
Some critics of the report state that the report may come from one of the most prestigious universities in the United States, economists are the authors of the study rather than epidemiologists.
Their statement went on to say, “They (lockdowns) have contributed to reducing economic activity, raising unemployment, reducing schooling, causing political unrest, contributing to domestic violence, and undermining liberal democracy.”
Although economists at Johns Hopkins conducted the analysis of data, they cited numbers regarding the mortality rate of the COVID-19 virus. The study also added data not widely considered previously – how shelter-at-home orders could have actually contributed to the spread of the virus. When individuals were told to shelter in their homes, they could have unwittingly been locked in their homes with individuals carrying the virus. It is also possible that those who had the virus unknowingly brought it to vulnerable family members.
The study further cited “unintended consequences” of lockdowns as many were told to stay away from “safe outdoor spaces” and instead “pushing people to meet at less safe (indoor) spaces.” The study pointed out some areas in Sweden that stayed open yet overall “fared well” because citizens developed habits of precaution “without being ordered to do so.” The report stated, “When a pandemic rages, people believe in social distancing regardless of what the government mandates.”
After the announcement of the study’s findings, Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) spoke to Sandra Smith and John Roberts of Fox News, saying that these types of government edicts should be “boycotted.”
Paul described the lockdowns as “not based in science,” and he related, “we know that by and large masks did not work, Plexiglas did not work, and six feet of distance did not work.” The Johns Hopkins study did mention the use of masks, concluding that cloth masks had some use in preventing infection, but that there were a number of conflicting studies, which could not allow the authors of the study to come to a definitive conclusion.
Rand Paul said that the only thing we could know is that natural immunity and vaccines “worked to protect people from hospitalization and death and also slow some of the spread.”
Paul also pointed to multiple guidance measures touted by Dr. Anthony Fauci as ineffective. “He (Dr. Fauci) caused people to engage in activities they wouldn’t have normally by telling them it was safe when it wasn’t.” Paul pointed to an example of an 80-year-old wearing a cloth mask while taking care of a spouse with COVID, saying that advice “was a mistake.”
Paul pointed out that this was a study that is “an extensive analysis looking at dozens and dozens of studies, bringing them together, and said lockdowns did not reduce mortality but were devastating to the economy.”
Senator Paul has been an outspoken critic of Dr. Fauci, and he reminds Americans to “follow the science” when making decisions regarding social distancing, wearing a mask, and vaccinations.
