Liberal media blackout on Johns Hopkins study finding pandemic lockdowns ineffective, harmful

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A Johns Hopkins University study finding that COVID-19 lockdowns were entirely ineffective went over like a lead balloon with the corporate media, be it the leading newspapers or cable news.

According to a John Hopkins meta-analysis of several studies, lockdowns during the first COVID wave in the spring of 2020 only reduced COVID mortality by .2% in the U.S. and Europe, Fox News reported.

“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,” wrote the researchers. “In consequence, lockdown policies are ill-founded and should be rejected as a pandemic policy instrument.”

“We find no evidence that lockdowns, school closures, border closures, and limiting gatherings have had a noticeable effect on COVID-19 mortality,” the study declared. “They have contributed to reducing economic activity, raising unemployment, reducing schooling, causing political unrest, contributing to domestic violence, and undermining liberal democracy.”

The findings received no mention on any of the five liberal networks this week, according to Fox News.

“According to Grabien transcripts, CNN, MSNBC, ABC, CBS and NBC all ignored the anti-lockdown findings after having spent much of the pandemic shaming red states with minimal restrictions and events deemed by critics as ‘superspreaders,'” the network reported. “It wasn’t just the networks avoiding the study. The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Associated Press, Reuters, USA Today, Axios, Politico among other outlets also turned a blind eye to the findings, according to search results.”

White House press secretary Jen Psaki responded to the findings to stress that most of the lockdowns took place under the previous administration and said President Biden is not pro-lockdown — she did not dispute the report.

 

The researchers included Johns Hopkins University economics professor Steve Hanke, Lund University economics professor Lars Jonung, and special advisor at Copenhagen’s Center for Political Studies Jonas Herby.

“We find little to no evidence that mandated lockdowns in Europe and the United States had a noticeable effect on COVID-19 mortality rates,” the researchers wrote, after analyzing the effects school shutdowns, business closures, and mask mandates, among other lockdown measures, had on COVID-19 deaths.

What’s more, studies that looked at shelter-in-place orders along with other lockdown measures found that shelter-in-place orders actually increased COVID-19 mortality by 2.8%, Fox News noted — studies that looked at only shelter-in-place orders found they reduced COVID-19 mortality by 5.1%.

“[Shelter-in-place orders] may isolate an infected person at home with his/her family where he/she risks infecting family members with a higher viral load, causing more severe illness,” the researchers wrote.

“But often, lockdowns have limited people’s 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 added.

The study did show that closing down non-essential businesses reduced the mortality rate, but noted that this was likely the effect of closing bars.

Meanwhile, Fox News reported that the unintended consequences of lockdowns included “rising unemployment, reduced schooling, an increase in domestic violence incidents, and surging drug overdoses.”

The article noted that CDC data showed from May 2020 to April 2021, there was a 28.5 percent increase in overdose deaths in the U.S., with 100,306 recorded deaths during this period, and cited a study from the National Commission on COVID-19 and Criminal Justice showed an 8.1 percent increase in domestic violence last year after lockdown orders were issued.

“These costs to society must be compared to the benefits of lockdowns, which our meta-analysis has shown are marginal at best,” the researchers wrote. “Such a standard benefit-cost calculation leads to a strong conclusion: lockdowns should be rejected out of hand as a pandemic policy instrument.”

Here are but a few responses to the story from Twitter:

Tom Tillison

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