Lockdowns during the Covid-19 epidemic saved just 1700 lives in the UK and 4000 in the US—a far cry from the 2.4 million deaths predicted to happen if we hadn’t locked down.
Researchers from Johns Hopkins University have discovered that lockdowns—which had a devastating effect on people’s lives, education, businesses, and the economy—had a modest impact on Covid’s death rate.
A more conservative approach of social distancing—but keeping shops, offices, and schools open—would have had a similar impact as a full lockdown.
The researchers analysed 22 studies and discovered that full lockdowns reduced Covid’s death rate by around 3.2 percent, which translates into 1700 lives saved in England and Wales, 6000 across Europe and 4000 in the US.
Health agencies had been persuaded to introduce full lockdown after modelling from epidemiologists at Imperial College London had predicted that there would be 2 million deaths in the US and 400,000 in the UK unless there was a complete closure of schools, shops, restaurants, and offices.
Lockdowns were “a global policy failure of gigantic proportions,” the researchers concluded in their 200-page report, Did Lockdowns Work? The Verdict on Covid Restrictions.
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