The forced shutdown of the economy, accompanied by fines, arrests and revocation of business licenses, is not a natural consequence of the pandemic. It is the result of decisions by politicians who have suspended constitutional institutions and the legal recognition of fundamental human rights. These politicians have imposed a new form of central planning based on an unsubstantiated set of theoretical ideas about "social distancing" controlled by the police.
The suspension of civil rights and the rule of law will have major consequences in terms of human lives, such as suicide, drug overdose deaths and other serious health problems caused by unemployment, denial of “selective” health care and social exclusion.
However, these consequences are not taken into account, since today it is believed that governments should determine whether people can start their own businesses or leave their homes. So far, the strategy of dealing with economic collapse has been reduced to record deficit spending, followed by monetization of debt by printing money. In short, politicians, bureaucrats and their supporters believe that in order to achieve a single political goal - to stop the spread of the disease - they are allowed to destroy all other goals that people aspire to.
Did this approach work? There is growing evidence that no.
Swedish infectious disease physician (and World Health Organization (WHO) advisor Johan Gieseke writes for The Lancet
At best, lockdowns carry the disease forward; they do not reduce overall mortality. Giesek continues:
The lack of evidence that blockages work must somehow be correlated with what we are observing - economic disruption has serious consequences for life expectancy.
However, in the public debate, lockdown enthusiasts argue that any deviation from it will result in overall mortality far exceeding those where the lockdown occurs. However, so far there is no evidence of this.
In a new study, titled “Western European lockdown policies have no apparent impact on the COVID-19 epidemic,” author Thomas Munier writes: “The total number of deaths, taken into account pre-lockdown trends, does not suggest that this strategy has saved which -to life compared to the softer social distancing and hygiene policies in place prior to lockdown. " That is, "the policy of complete blocking of France, Italy, Spain and the UK did not give the expected results in the development of the COVID-19 epidemic." Additional analysis was published in Bloomberg on May 19. The author concludes: “The data show that the relative severity of containment measures in the country had little effect on its membership in any of the three groups listed above. Although Germany had softer restrictions than Italy,she was much more successful at containing the virus."
The issue here is not that voluntary “social distancing” has no effect. Rather, the question is whether “forced home retention by the police” works to limit the spread of disease. Munier concludes that this is not the case.
A study by political scientist Wilfred Reilly compared lockdown policies and the number of deaths from COVID-19 in US states. Reilly writes:
Another study on blocking - again, we're talking about forced closures and orders to stay at home - is a study by researcher Lyman Stone of the American Enterprise Institute. Stone notes that in areas where lockdowns were introduced, there was already a downward trend in mortality before the lockdown could show results. In other words, proponents of blocking point to trends that were already observed before restrictions were imposed on the population.
Stone writes:
Experience increasingly suggests that those who truly want to limit the spread of the disease to the most vulnerable should take a more targeted approach. The vast majority - almost 75 percent - of COVID-19 deaths occur in patients over sixty-five years of age. Of these, approximately 90 percent have chronic diseases. Thus, limiting the spread of COVID-19 is most important among older people who are already connected to the healthcare system. In the United States and Europe, more than half of COVID-19 deaths occur in nursing homes and similar settings.
This is why Matt Ridley of The Spectator rightly notes that testing, rather than blocking, appears to be a key factor in limiting COVID-19 deaths. In regions where testing is widespread, things are better:
We could contrast this with the policy of Governor Andrew Cuomo in New York, who mandated nursing homes to admit new patients without testing. This method almost guarantees that the disease will spread rapidly among those most likely to die from it.
The same Governor Cuomo saw fit to impose a forced lockdown on the entire population of New York, resulting in economic collapse and health problems for many non-COVID-19 patients who were deprived of vital treatment. Sadly, lockdown fetishists like Cuomo are considered wise statesmen who "act decisively" to prevent the spread of the disease.
This is what the regime we live in now looks like. Many believe that in the name of pursuing fashionable policies with unproven effectiveness, human rights can be abolished and millions are plunged into poverty. The lockdown party even turned the foundations of political debate upside down. As Stone points out:
With global output falling and unemployment rising to the level of the Great Depression, governments are already looking for a way out. We are already seeing governments move rapidly towards voluntary social distancing, non-blocking strategies. This is happening even though politicians and disease “experts” insist that lockdowns should be administered indefinitely until a vaccine is available.
The longer the destruction of the economy continues, the greater the threat of social unrest and a deep economic crisis. The political reality is that the current situation cannot be stable without a threat to the regimes in power. In a Foreign Policy article titled “Sweden's coronavirus strategy will soon be adopted globally,” authors Nils Carlson, Charlotte Stern, and Daniel B. Klein suggest that states will be forced to adopt the Swedish model:
Ryan McMacken, Mises Institute
