Were lockdowns ineffective?

Putting belief to the test, LITERATURE REVIEW AND META-ANALYSIS OF THE EFFECTS OF LOCKDOWNS ON COVID-19 MORTALITY, January 2022, Studies in Applied Economics.

Bio plausibility is not always correct when applied

Early epidemiological studies predicted large effects of NPIs.

Imperial College London, Ferguson et al. (2020) predicted that suppression strategy based on a lockdown would reduce COVID-19 mortality by up to 98%.

Ferguson, Neil M, Daniel Laydon, Gemma Nedjati-Gilani, Natsuko Imai, Kylie Ainslie, Marc Baguelin, Sangeeta Bhatia, et al. 2020. “Impact of Non-Pharmaceutical Interventions (NPIs) to Reduce COVID- 19 Mortality and Healthcare Demand,” March, 20.

Systematic review and meta-analysis

To determine whether there is empirical evidence to support the belief that “lockdowns” reduce COVID-19 mortality.

Lockdowns

The imposition of at least one compulsory, non-pharmaceutical intervention (NPI).

NPIs

Government mandates

Limit internal movement, close schools and businesses, ban international travel.

This study

Systematic search and screening procedure

18,590 studies identified

After three levels of screening,

34 studies ultimately qualified.

Of those 34 eligible studies,

24 qualified for inclusion in the meta-analysis.

Three groups of study

Lockdown stringency index studies

Shelter-in-place- order (SIPO) studies

Specific NPI studies

Oxford COVID-19 Government Response Tracker (OxCGRT)

The nine metrics used to calculate the Stringency Index are: school closures; workplace closures; cancellation of public events; restrictions on public gatherings; closures of public transport; stay-at-home requirements; public information campaigns; restrictions on internal movements; and international travel controls.

A higher score indicates a stricter response (i.e. 100 = strictest response).

186 countries covered

Countries with more than one million citizens are included, 153 countries in tota.

An analysis of each of these three groups support the conclusion that lockdowns have had little to no effect on COVID-19 mortality.

Stringency index studies

Find that lockdowns in Europe and the United States only reduced COVID-19 mortality by 0.2% on average.

Shelter-in-place- order (SIPO) studies

SIPOs were also ineffective,

only reducing COVID-19 mortality by 2.9% on average.

Specific NPI studies

also find no broad-based evidence of noticeable effects on COVID-19 mortality.

Conclusion

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.

In consequence, lockdown policies are ill-founded and should be rejected as a pandemic policy instrument.

Critique

We exclude papers which analyze the effect of early lockdowns in contrast to later lockdowns.

Retrospective study

Pick your own end points

Vast array of differing countries and circumstances

E.g. compliance in US, Germany, Italy, China

Inferences from past to the future

Pandemic fatigue

Herby (2021) illustrates, voluntary behavior changes are essential to a society’s response to an pandemic,

account for up to 90% of societies’ total response to the pandemic

Written by economists, principle, damage that lockdowns did to the economy

Were papers chosen to support the theme?

Most of the papers used were by economists, not scientists or medical people

Outcomes were solely deaths, did not include 'cases, hospitalizations or other measures’

Those who were going to die were going to die whether you locked down or not

The disease itself and the fitness of the patients was largely the determinant

Do not consider the wider factors that could also have affected the economy had there not been lockdowns

E.g. mayhem would have ensued for hospital capacity and routine medical care without lockdowns

Retrospectoscope

This debate may follow party lines

Growing anti-science feeling in the US

A future epidemic agent could have totally different characteristics

Bella

Omicron today keeps the Delta away