The numbers are in, the results are definitive. The lockdowns the governments of the world have mandated in response to the Covid-19 pandemic are officially worse than the illness itself. This has been obvious to anyone paying attention to the world’s poorer countries where people living not just paycheck to paycheck but day to day have had their means of providing for themselves cut off and have faced starvation and death on an unprecedented scale. We have long known that the lockdowns are starving the poor. Likewise, many have heard about the devastating effects of the lockdowns on people in richer countries, how tens of millions of people have lost their jobs as a result of the intentional economic collapse caused by the lockdowns and the devastating effects this has had worldwide. In the United States this has meant at least 8 million people have been forced back into poverty by the government because of the lockdowns, with that number only growing. So, has it been worth it?
Social Devastation At Every Level
Now, for the first time, numbers are starting to emerge about the deaths in richer countries caused by lockdowns but excluding Covid-19 deaths. The picture isn’t pretty. The mental health damage alone is horrifying. This is unsurprising because as early as April 2020 mental health professionals have been warning about the effects that lockdowns would have on people’s mental health:
It is within this context that coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) struck the US. Concerning disease models have led to historic and unprecedented public health actions to curb the spread of the virus. Remarkable social distancing interventions have been implemented to fundamentally reduce human contact. While these steps are expected to reduce the rate of new infections, the potential for adverse outcomes on suicide risk is high. Actions could be taken to mitigate potential unintended consequences on suicide prevention efforts, which also represent a national public health priority.
And right they were. In 2019, Japan was reporting its lowest suicide rate since 1978. Compare that to Japan now:
While Japan has managed its coronavirus epidemic far better than many nations, keeping deaths below 2,000 nationwide, provisional statistics from the National Police Agency show suicides surged to 2,153 in October alone, marking the fourth straight month of increase.
To date, more than 17,000 people have taken their own lives this year in Japan. October self-inflicted deaths were up 600 year on year, with female suicides, about a third of the total, surging over 80%.
In a single month, Japan saw more deaths from lockdown caused suicide than the entirety of all deaths caused by Covid-19 for the entire year. It went from having its lowest suicide rate in over 40 years to one of its worst ever. And Japan never engaged in the kinds of mass lockdowns that America and Europe did.
So you have to be asking, fearing, what those numbers will look like in Europe and North America once they start getting reported. We can already see the trend as cities and counties report their own suicide numbers. Dane County, Washington can provide us with such an example:
The county had 57 suicides this year as of last week, more than the total of 54 for all of last year, according to preliminary data collected by Journey Mental Health Center, said Hannah Flanagan, its director of emergency services .
Among people age 24 and younger, 15 suicides were reported as of mid-September, up from eight for all of last year. Suicides are also up for ages 25 to 38, according to this year’s unofficial data, Flanagan said.
“When people are lonely, it’s really hard to cope,” she said. “The specificity about COVID social distancing and isolation that we’ve come across as contributing factors to the suicides are really new to us this year.”
…COVID-19 seems to be affecting children of all ages, including early elementary school students, whose parents report more sadness among the children and crying at night, [pediatrician Dr. Katy] Cahill said.
“I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve heard parents say that they feel like their children have wilted,” she said. “We definitely have seen an uptick in mental health concerns across all ages, which is really sad and concerning to us.”
Then there is this from Walnut Creek, California:
Doctors at John Muir Medical Center in Walnut Creek say they have seen more deaths by suicide during this quarantine period than deaths from the COVID-19 virus.
The head of the trauma in the department believes mental health is suffering so much, it is time to end the shelter-in-place order.
“Personally I think it’s time,” said Dr. Mike deBoisblanc. “I think, originally, this (the shelter-in-place order) was put in place to flatten the curve and to make sure hospitals have the resources to take care of COVID patients. We have the current resources to do that and our other community health is suffering.”
The numbers are unprecedented, he said.
“We’ve never seen numbers like this, in such a short period of time,” he said. “I mean we’ve seen a year’s worth of suicide attempts in the last four weeks.”
Kacey Hansen has worked as a trauma nurse at John Muir Medical Center in Walnut Creek for almost 33 years. She is worried because not only are they seeing more suicide attempts, she says they are not able to save as many patients as usual.
More deaths from suicide linked to the lockdowns than Covid-19 itself. A year’s worth of suicides taking place within a month. Adult suicides higher than ever before. Teen suicides which will increase over 100% by the end of the year. Even little children at great risk. These are only two examples from two different states but, as the numbers start coming out across the nation, this will swell into a chorus of despair that will sound across the nation, across the world. And this doesn’t even include the deaths caused by the rising rates of legal and illegal drug usage as people attempt to escape the crushing depression and terror caused in their lives by the lockdowns or the rising rates of domestic abuse driven by the tensions and terrors caused by the lockdowns. It is no wonder over 12,000 (and rising) medical professionals have signed The Great Barrington Declaration calling for the ends of the lockdowns and a change in the way we handle the pandemic entirely.
As Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, a Professor of Medicine at Stanford University and one of the original signers of the Declaration, explains in part:
In the last 20 years we’ve lifted one billion people worldwide out of poverty. This year we are reversing that progress to the extent—it bears repeating—that an estimated 130 million more people will starve.
Another result of the lockdowns is that people stopped bringing their children in for immunizations against diseases like diphtheria, pertussis (whooping cough), and polio, because they had been led to fear COVID more than they feared these more deadly diseases. This wasn’t only true in the U.S. Eighty million children worldwide are now at risk of these diseases. We had made substantial progress in slowing them down, but now they are going to come back.
Large numbers of Americans, even though they had cancer and needed chemotherapy, didn’t come in for treatment because they were more afraid of COVID than cancer. Others have skipped recommended cancer screenings. We’re going to see a rise in cancer and cancer death rates as a consequence. Indeed, this is already starting to show up in the data. We’re also going to see a higher number of deaths from diabetes due to people missing their diabetic monitoring.
Mental health problems are in a way the most shocking thing. In June of this year, a CDC survey found that one in four young adults between 18 and 24 had seriously considered suicide. Human beings are not, after all, designed to live alone. We’re meant to be in company with one another. It is unsurprising that the lockdowns have had the psychological effects that they’ve had, especially among young adults and children, who have been denied much-needed socialization.
Then there is the way that the isolation caused by the lockdowns is devastating the elderly. That is correct. The very people the lockdowns are supposed to save are being murdered by the lockdowns. Take, for example, the case of Chester Peske, by all accounts a vibrant 98 year old man living in a care facility in Robbinsdale, Minnesota. Before the Covid-19 restrictions he had been talkative, social, engaging and, importantly for his age, a very good eater. Though suffering from Alzheimer’s, he was seemingly a happy, vivacious person. Then the lockdowns went into effect:
The first sign of a problem came in mid-May when her father tested positive for Covid-19. Roberg prayed for his health, but was relieved when his case appeared to be asymptomatic. Then in late May, Roberg got another alarming call from the facility. It wasn’t the virus, they said — something else was wrong. “His head was down into his chest, and he was sitting slumped in his wheelchair,” her father’s aide said, according to Roberg. “He was not his perky, chatty self.”
…Even more isolated in quarantine after his Covid-19 diagnosis, he was becoming quiet and disengaged, even with the staff members who tended to him, a nurse later told her. …But four days later, on June 2, she got another call: She should come right away. Her father was dying.
That morning, Roberg flew in from Wisconsin and met her brother in the parking lot of Copperfield Hill. Together they walked into the entryway of the facility, where they were temperature-checked, and then put on gowns, gloves and face shields. A nurse finally brought them up to her father’s floor and opened the door. “Oh wait a minute—” she said, stopping short. “I think he’s gone.” Roberg gasped when she saw her father’s gaunt body lying on the bed. After three months of separation, she missed her only chance to see her father by minutes.
His death certificate listed the cause of death as the progression of Alzheimer’s disease and “social isolation / failure to thrive related to COVID-19 restrictions.” Social isolation was listed as a contributing cause of death for at least nine other Minnesotans — almost all long-term care residents — from June to September, according to state death records; no deaths in the previous two years cited social isolation as a cause.
Chester Peske could survive Covid-19. He couldn’t survive the destruction of his life and the deprivation of what gave it meaning by being cut off from his loved ones caused by the state mandated lockdowns. And he isn’t the only elderly person facing such misery. Others are and they’re fighting back. In Greely, Colorado elderly men and women in nursing homes have held very public anti-lockdown protests. Holding signs that say such things as, ““I’d rather die of COVID than loneliness,” “We are prisoners in our home,” “Prisoners in our own home,” and “Enough is Enough,” they chanted “Freedom! Freedom! Freedom!” As County Commissioner Scott James put it, ““They are members of the greatest generation. The very generation who fought to overturn tyranny and protect our freedoms. Now these members of that generation have had their freedom taken away via a tyrannous act by unelected bureaucrats.” He might have added illegal acts as well.
For their part, the explanation the elderly protestors gave for their protest is simple, ““We did this because one thing we have to look forward to is a simple hug. It gives us meaning.” As one administrator explained and another concurred, ““The isolation is what kills these people. It’s just incredibly sad that they can’t live out the last part of their lives with their family surrounding them.” The pro-lockdown crowd has often accused those who questioned them of wanting to kill their grandparents, or not caring about the deaths of others. At this point it is clear that the opposite is true. If you love your grandparents, if you respect and honor the elderly, you must oppose the lockdowns – to do anything else is to doom those you claim to love and respect to a life without meaning and ultimately a slow, miserable death.
In some ways, the mass protests that have wracked many countries this year, including the protests and riots that followed the heinous police murder of George Floyd, can be attributed to, at least in part, the long term mental and emotional effects caused by lockdowns on society. As Dr. Nicole F. Roberts explains:
But what happens to the human brain – and subsequent behavioral responses – when placed on lockdown, much like imprisonment, is very predictable. Adrenaline and stress hormones like cortisol kick into an acute stress response (hyperarousal). This is what leads to the fight or flight response we often refer to. What that means is that your sympathetic nervous system (the involuntary regulation of things like blood pressure, heart rate, pupil dilation) kicks in so rapidly many people don’t realize it’s happening – and it tells you you’re now in survival mode. At this point you’ll have an almost uncontrollable response that either tells you to stand your ground and fight, or turn and run from the danger.
Given that we no longer are facing down lions on a day-to-day basis, our survival triggers can be activated by things like being locked down. And they can be exacerbated by many of the factors that are present during a pandemic such as lack of trust in government or authority, geographic proximity to others in a similar situation, and a shared purpose and intensity. That is to say, riots are not a mindless mob as often depicted. And when we know that forced confinement triggers all kinds of sensory responses that result in stress systems firing on all cylinders, lockdowns should be a last resort.
…The lessons learned from history should not be forgotten today. Human beings do not do well in prison – and in the face of real or perceived inequality, are quick to enter into a fight or flight response. Many will predictably view lockdowns and quarantines as punishment and imprisonment. And without the comfort of knowing if they will be able to provide for themselves, provide for their families, be able to pay their bills, and have access to plenty of food and water, you can expect that 2020 human beings will behave no differently than their ancestors.
Violence is what happens when a fearful and powerless people who see themselves as being trapped and imprisoned lash out against that powerlessness and the fear in causes within them. Violence at home in the form of domestic abuse. Violence against themselves in the forms of self-harm, drug abuse, and even suicide as their only escape. Violence against society in the form of mass riots.
Well, you say to yourself, at least we have been able to manage the virus and reduce deaths from it through lockdowns, right?
Wrong.
The Absolute Failure of the Lockdowns
On November 19, 2020 a group of French scientists published a peer-reviewed study in Frontiers in Public Health, an online academic journal that is “at the forefront of disseminating and communicating scientific knowledge and impactful discoveries to researchers, academics, clinicians, policy makers and the public worldwide.” The study, titled Covid-19 Mortality: A Matter of Vulnerability Among Nations Facing Limited Margins of Adaptation, was designed to assess and attempt to explain why Covid-19 spread at different rates in different nations, especially a sit related to “non-viral parameters,” i.e. the policies and programs the countries enacted in order to try and suppress the spread of the virus. Their results and conclusions are devastating for anyone supporting lockdowns. Here I quote their results and conclusions, emphasis my own:
Results: Higher Covid death rates are observed in the [25/65°] latitude and in the [−35/−125°] longitude ranges. The national criteria most associated with death rate are life expectancy and its slowdown, public health context (metabolic and non-communicable diseases (NCD) burden vs. infectious diseases prevalence), economy (growth national product, financial support), and environment (temperature, ultra-violet index). Stringency of the measures settled to fight pandemia, including lockdown, did not appear to be linked with death rate.
Conclusion: Countries that already experienced a stagnation or regression of life expectancy, with high income and NCD rates, had the highest price to pay. This burden was not alleviated by more stringent public decisions. Inherent factors have predetermined the Covid-19 mortality: understanding them may improve prevention strategies by increasing population resilience through better physical fitness and immunity.
The strictness or laxity of lockdown procedures have no link to the death rate, either in increasing it or decreasing it. Strict policy decisions by government officials did not help people. You are not killing your grandmother or putting others at risk by opposing the lockdowns. The lockdowns are not saving anyone’s life by destroying the lives of millions. The lockdowns have done nothing to help anyone. They have only hurt people. The lockdowns are an absolutely a failure in every way. And that is a scientific fact. Real scientists have acknowledged this for a while now and laid out far better paths to follow that would protect lives without society wrecking lockdowns.
The Covid-19 Mortality study did determine what factors most correlate with higher rates of deaths due to Covid-19. The answers will not shock anyone with even a basic grasp on physical health:
Main Findings
This analysis shows that higher Covid-19 mortality rates are mostly found in countries experiencing higher life expectancies and showing a recent slowdown of this progression. Most of these developed and aging societies are latitudinally located over the 25° parallel. They also have higher GDP and chronic diseases levels (e.g., CVD and cancer) associated with major metabolic risk factors (e.g., inactive lifestyle, sedentarity, and obesity). High temperature and UV levels are associated with low death rates such that northern and western countries pay the most severe toll to Covid-19.
In other words, the countries that have suffered the most are countries of cooler climate where a large percentage of people are old, fat, and lazy. Does it shock anyone who has graduated secondary/high school science that old fat people who by their very age and physical conditions already posses compromised immune systems and weakened bodies are the ones suffering and dying most from this illness? Or that societies which have a high percentage of people who fit this description, such as the USA where 15-25% of the population is older (depending on if you include people before they reach retirement age or not) and over 70% of the population is overweight or obese, would see higher death rates? Of course no one is surprised by these findings. You want to increase your chances of surviving Covid-19? Eat healthy, exercise, lose weight, and get enough sleep. Nothing the governments will do or can do, including society wrecking lockdowns, will save you. They can’t even slow the spread of the virus down.
And I’ve only touched on the tip of the iceberg of data here. I highly suggest you look at Cost of Lockdowns: A Preliminary Report as it looks at the effects of the lockdowns on a wide and comprehensive selection of the different elements of civilization, including the effects of the lockdowns on mental health, hunger and poverty, national and world economies, unemployment, healthcare, crime, food and hospitality, and education. There are approximately 58 articles, with each category named above having multiple articles demonstrating the many ways that category has been damaged by the lockdowns. If ever there was a single resource that demonstrated the absolute failures of the state mandated lockdowns and the brutal effect they’re having on societies across the planet, Cost of Lockdowns: A Preliminary Report is it.
What Comes Next
What comes next is simple. Resist. These state mandated stay-at-home orders and lockdowns are not laws. They’re undemocratic and illegal executive dictates in gross violation of the constitutional separation of powers. This is being recognized already in multiple places across the United States. Governors in both Ohio and Pennsylvania have seen recent actions taken by legislators (in Ohio) and judges (in Pennsylvania) to strip the governors of their so-called emergency powers. In the latter case, U.S. District Judge William Stickman IV said that the state ordered lockdown mandates were “such a dramatic inversion of the concept of liberty in a free society as to be nearly presumptively unconstitutional.” In Utah, Governor Gary Herbert was forced to rescind lockdown orders he had given after public outcry had led legislators to demand he change them. His statement of why he felt like he had to change his order is revealing in the extreme:
In recent consultations with members of the Legislature, we have come to the shared conclusion that seeking to regulate private conduct within the walls of a private residence is problematic, not easily enforced, and likely more subject to legal challenges. To that end, we are not renewing the order that individuals not gather with anyone outside their household.
Of course trying to criminalize people meeting with one another and turn everyone into a prisoner under house arrest is “problematic.” But the key here is that it is “not easily enforced.” In other words, they knew the people would refuse to obey at such a large enough level that enforcement of such a rule would be impossible. Faced with such an existential threat to his position he announced that he would stop doing what the people hated.
Even the elderly protest I talked about before was successful. The day after the public elderly protest Minnesota Governor Jared Polis made this announcement:
We absolutely understand how difficult it has been for residents of residential care facilities and their families. Social interaction is essential to physical and mental health, and so we have provided guidance to residential care facilities that allows for that interaction while also keeping residents safe from COVID-19. Restrictions have been in place previously, but residents are now able to visit loved ones both indoors and outdoors. In addition, we are doing everything possible to help long-term care facilities mitigate and prevent the spread of COVID-19 by working directly with facilities on proper infection control practices that have been proven to slow the spread of COVID-19.
(Emphasis Mine.)
The government will take as much power as you let them and will stop when you no longer obey them. The question is simply one of how much the public will bear before it will resist. Note that these results were obtained without massive protests, burning buildings, or even a lot of active effort on behalf of the masses. Civil disobedience is simply that powerful. Mass resistance is that effective. As Dr. Ericka Chenoweth has proven in her study comparing the effectiveness and impacts of violent revolution and nonviolent revolution, nonviolent resistance is far more effective and successful, and with good reason. It can be undertaken by the very young or the very old, the very healthy or the very ill, by women as well as men, by people of every race and ethnicity. It will work now. The brutal, dehumanizing, life destroying, human sacrificing, misery inducing lockdowns end the moment enough of us decides they do, no matter what pontificating politicians in their ivory mansions say or do.