Lockdown Harms Exaggerated

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Herainestold
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Lockdown Harms Exaggerated

Post by Herainestold » Wed Jul 21, 2021 3:14 am

Study in BMJ finds harms of lockdown much exaggerated
Summary box

Restrictive non-pharmaceutical interventions against COVID-19 (known as ‘lockdowns’) are associated with health harms

However, it is challenging to determine whether lockdowns have caused the harms or whether these harms are a direct consequence of the underlying health disaster of the pandemic

Careful analysis of excess mortality suggests that lockdowns are not associated with large numbers of deaths in places that avoided large COVID-19 epidemics (eg, Australia, New Zealand)

This evidence must be weighed against the very severe harms caused by COVID-19 itself, as seen for example in Brazil and India

It is unlikely that government interventions have been worse than the pandemic itself in most situations using data collected to date
I think we all knew that, but good to see it confirmed.
Since lockdowns work better than vaccination to stop transmission of covid, this study might help governments to justify this measure to control Delta.
Not here obviously, but sensible places.

https://gh.bmj.com/content/6/8/e006653
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wilsontown
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Re: Lockdown Harms Exaggerated

Post by wilsontown » Wed Jul 21, 2021 4:51 pm

But the harms of lockdown are not just medical harms, they are also social and economic.
"All models are wrong but some are useful" - George Box

monkey
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Re: Lockdown Harms Exaggerated

Post by monkey » Wed Jul 21, 2021 6:39 pm

wilsontown wrote:
Wed Jul 21, 2021 4:51 pm
But the harms of lockdown are not just medical harms, they are also social and economic.
Yes, but mortality is a reasonable thing to look into. I can remember several lockdown skeptics nobends last year claiming that the lockdowns were killing more people than the virus.

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lpm
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Re: Lockdown Harms Exaggerated

Post by lpm » Wed Jul 21, 2021 7:07 pm

monkey wrote:
Wed Jul 21, 2021 6:39 pm
wilsontown wrote:
Wed Jul 21, 2021 4:51 pm
But the harms of lockdown are not just medical harms, they are also social and economic.
Yes, but mortality is a reasonable thing to look into. I can remember several lockdown skeptics nobends last year claiming that the lockdowns were killing more people than the virus.
Yes but yes but, we know very well that long term bad health and mortality is linked to poverty, poor education etc. So it depends on the exact question - the BMJ study looks at the very short term, a different study would consider knock-on effects.
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monkey
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Re: Lockdown Harms Exaggerated

Post by monkey » Wed Jul 21, 2021 7:32 pm

lpm wrote:
Wed Jul 21, 2021 7:07 pm
monkey wrote:
Wed Jul 21, 2021 6:39 pm
wilsontown wrote:
Wed Jul 21, 2021 4:51 pm
But the harms of lockdown are not just medical harms, they are also social and economic.
Yes, but mortality is a reasonable thing to look into. I can remember several lockdown skeptics nobends last year claiming that the lockdowns were killing more people than the virus.
Yes but yes but, we know very well that long term bad health and mortality is linked to poverty, poor education etc. So it depends on the exact question - the BMJ study looks at the very short term, a different study would consider knock-on effects.
And those are important questions to try and answer, I'm not claiming they aren't. If you say Herainestold's thread title and description was too broad I'd agree with you too. It implied too much.

This paper gives part of the story, and I expect more bits to be filled in with time. I just don't think it should be dismissed because it is only part of the story.

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wilsontown
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Re: Lockdown Harms Exaggerated

Post by wilsontown » Wed Jul 21, 2021 9:13 pm

I think that's all fair, it's inevitably going to be a complex picture. For me, lockdowns are terrible in myriad ways and the only justification for them is that you are out of other options.
"All models are wrong but some are useful" - George Box

Herainestold
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Re: Lockdown Harms Exaggerated

Post by Herainestold » Wed Jul 21, 2021 10:41 pm

wilsontown wrote:
Wed Jul 21, 2021 9:13 pm
I think that's all fair, it's inevitably going to be a complex picture. For me, lockdowns are terrible in myriad ways and the only justification for them is that you are out of other options.
Lockdowns have one thing going for them: They work.
We thought that with vaccines, lockdowns would be a thing of the past. Then came Delta.
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Herainestold
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Re: Lockdown Harms Exaggerated

Post by Herainestold » Sun Aug 01, 2021 7:08 pm

GidM-K writes an explanatory piece about the BMJ study.
However, when you consider the impact of lockdowns in context, as a choice between bad and worse, the evidence is quite strong that they usually aren’t worse than the disease they are designed to combat. There are caveats to this, of course, and it’s likely that some restrictive measures have not been beneficial on the whole in some places in the world. Nevertheless, because Covid-19 is so bad — and it is truly shocking, not just the death toll from the disease, but the impact on society when large proportions of the population get sick at the same time — that lockdowns are in most circumstances much less damaging than letting Covid-19 run wild.
https://gidmk.medium.com/lockdowns-are- ... edb1668033

We need to keep lockdowns in our pandemic covid tool box, as it works very well to stop transmission, much better than vaccines.
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