Will Governments and Organizations Pay Attention to Study Results?

            Soon after COVID-19 came to America, members of the government told us to stay home for two weeks to “flatten the curve.” Then the lockdown was extended in most areas of the nation, and governments at all levels are using mandates to force people to curtail their employment and other activities.

            Two years have passed since the virus came to our shores, and added information is coming out. In January, Johns Hopkins University released a meta-analysis showing that mortality from COVID-19 in the United States and across Europe was reduced by 0.2%.

According to Laurel Duggan, the researchers analyzed several types of “lockdown measures,” including “school closures, business closures, bans on international travel and internal movement, and other non-pharmaceutical government mandates such as mask mandates.” She summarized the study as finding that “shelter-in-place orders were ineffective” because they reduced “mortality by only 2.9%.” The following quote comes from the study. 

While this meta-analysis concludes that lockdowns have had little to no public health effects, they have imposed enormous economic and social cost…. In consequence, lockdown policies are ill-founded and should be rejected as a pandemic policy instrument.

Lockdowns have limited peoples’ 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…. We do find some evidence that limiting gatherings was counterproductive and increased COVID-19 mortality.

            John Hopkins University is one of the schools that had fully remote classes for the fall 2020 semester. They urged their students to stay out of Baltimore before holding “partially in-person model in the spring 2021 semester.”

Duggan wrote, “The school still imposes a mask mandate, requiring two masks or a surgical-grade mask, despite nearly universal vaccination of students and staff, a booster shot, and a twice-weekly testing requirement.” She continued, “COVID-19-related school closures, government-imposed mask mandates, and restrictions on travel are still prevalent in the U.S. and internationally.”