16 Views· 12 September 2022
Were lockdowns ineffective?
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Putting belief to the test, LITERATURE REVIEW AND META-ANALYSIS OF THE EFFECTS OF LOCKDOWNS ON COVID-19 MORTALITY, January 2022, Studies in Applied Economics.
Bio plausibility is not always correct when applied
Early epidemiological studies predicted large effects of NPIs.
Imperial College London, Ferguson et al. (2020) predicted that suppression strategy based on a lockdown would reduce COVID-19 mortality by up to 98%.
Ferguson, Neil M, Daniel Laydon, Gemma Nedjati-Gilani, Natsuko Imai, Kylie Ainslie, Marc Baguelin, Sangeeta Bhatia, et al. 2020. “Impact of Non-Pharmaceutical Interventions (NPIs) to Reduce COVID- 19 Mortality and Healthcare Demand,” March, 20.
https://sites.krieger.jhu.edu/....iae/files/2022/01/A-
Systematic review and meta-analysis
To determine whether there is empirical evidence to support the belief that “lockdowns” reduce COVID-19 mortality.
Lockdowns
The imposition of at least one compulsory, non-pharmaceutical intervention (NPI).
NPIs
Government mandates
Limit internal movement, close schools and businesses, ban international travel.
This study
Systematic search and screening procedure
18,590 studies identified
After three levels of screening,
34 studies ultimately qualified.
Of those 34 eligible studies,
24 qualified for inclusion in the meta-analysis.
Three groups of study
Lockdown stringency index studies
Shelter-in-place- order (SIPO) studies
Specific NPI studies
Oxford COVID-19 Government Response Tracker (OxCGRT)
The nine metrics used to calculate the Stringency Index are: school closures; workplace closures; cancellation of public events; restrictions on public gatherings; closures of public transport; stay-at-home requirements; public information campaigns; restrictions on internal movements; and international travel controls.
A higher score indicates a stricter response (i.e. 100 = strictest response).
186 countries covered
Countries with more than one million citizens are included, 153 countries in tota.
An analysis of each of these three groups support the conclusion that lockdowns have had little to no effect on COVID-19 mortality.
Stringency index studies
Find that lockdowns in Europe and the United States only reduced COVID-19 mortality by 0.2% on average.
Shelter-in-place- order (SIPO) studies
SIPOs were also ineffective,
only reducing COVID-19 mortality by 2.9% on average.
Specific NPI studies
also find no broad-based evidence of noticeable effects on COVID-19 mortality.
Conclusion
While this meta-analysis concludes that lockdowns have had little to no public health effects,
they have imposed enormous economic and social costs where they have been adopted.
In consequence, lockdown policies are ill-founded and should be rejected as a pandemic policy instrument.
Critique
We exclude papers which analyze the effect of early lockdowns in contrast to later lockdowns.
Retrospective study
Pick your own end points
Vast array of differing countries and circumstances
E.g. compliance in US, Germany, Italy, China
Inferences from past to the future
Pandemic fatigue
Herby (2021) illustrates, voluntary behavior changes are essential to a society’s response to an pandemic,
account for up to 90% of societies’ total response to the pandemic
Written by economists, principle, damage that lockdowns did to the economy
Were papers chosen to support the theme?
Most of the papers used were by economists, not scientists or medical people
Outcomes were solely deaths, did not include 'cases, hospitalizations or other measures’
Those who were going to die were going to die whether you locked down or not
The disease itself and the fitness of the patients was largely the determinant
Do not consider the wider factors that could also have affected the economy had there not been lockdowns
E.g. mayhem would have ensued for hospital capacity and routine medical care without lockdowns
Retrospectoscope
This debate may follow party lines
Growing anti-science feeling in the US
A future epidemic agent could have totally different characteristics
Bella
Omicron today keeps the Delta away
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