Tuesday, February 8, 2022

Lockdown effectivity?

Here's an interesting critique of a recent paper about the ineffectiveness of “lockdowns,” that is being picked up and pushed by deniers of anti-pandemic policies. This article, and the paper itself, are both interesting reading. In my opinion, no anti-pandemic policy will work, if you have enough people refusing to follow it. Y'all be careful out there! 

If Your Time is Short:
 
* Three economists affiliated with Johns Hopkins University found that COVID-19 lockdowns barely reduced deaths, but the paper has not been peer-reviewed and is considered a working paper. Johns Hopkins University did not endorse the study. 
 
* Other research has found that lockdown measures have helped save millions of lives during the pandemic. 
 
* Several experts have criticized the paper and point to issues such as the authors’ extremely broad definition of lockdown (to include any government mandate that limits peoples' possibilities), a limited focus on the first wave of the pandemic, a comparison of policies that look very different from country to country, and an exclusion of studies that look at the science of disease transmission.
 
* These authors have questionable credibility in my mind; one of them has expressed his opinion online about "fascist" vaccine policies and has made false claims about the pandemic.

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