Ed Stringham looks back on one year of lockdowns. A slice:
This is the new line of the lockdowners. They can’t cite broad-based evidence of any correlation much less causation between lockdowns and virus control. There simply isn’t any, and meanwhile AIER has assembled 31 serious papers showing no apparent connection between lockdowns and better disease outcomes.
Let’s imagine an alternative scenario in which lockdowns actually did work on one pathogen. Would they be worth it? Public health, as Martin Kulldorff continues to explain, must consider not just one ailment but the whole well-being of the community, not just in the short run but the long run. Even if Covid-19 was controlled via coercion, was it worth it to wreck so many businesses, force missed cancer screenings, keep kids out of school for a year, shatter so many communities that depend on houses of worship, lock people in their homes, and hobble the ability to travel?
These are egregious actions, and contrary to all the policy practices we associate with free societies that respect human rights. So in one sense, the argument about whether lockdowns “work” – they do not – is beside the point. For the sake of social and economic functioning as well as human rights, disease mitigation must not be managed by political actors but rather medical professions, as AIER has been saying for a full year.
Christine Padgham pushes back against the dangerous insanity of the quest for Zero Covid. A slice:
You have very likely been infected with Russian Flu, especially if it was indeed coronavirus OC43, which is still in circulation.
You probably caught this virus as a child and experienced very normal cold symptoms – your mummy and daddy would have wiped your snotty nose and sent you to school or took you to the playground with unsanitised hands. You would have sneezed on your playmates, coughed over your siblings, hugged your grandparents with your runny nose and sore throat, and yet probably still not made many or any of your beloveds around you ill. You might have passed on your Coronavirus to a couple of unfortunate friends or family members and they would have tutted and rolled their eyes and said something like: “I must have caught it from the baby”. What a nuisance! But no hand-wringing seemed necessary and no quarantine was required.
Do you remember when we used to live like that? Free to be ill. When personal minor malaise was not a matter of public concern or record.
We have lived this way in an environment of ‘Not-Zero Russian Flu’ for around the last 130 years. And have you ever wondered where Spanish Flu has gone? The answer is: nowhere. If we tested the population for Spanish Flu and Russian Flu, we might well find them.
TANSTAFPFC. Parvez Dara points our attention to yet another reason why There Ain’t No Such Thing As Free Protection From Covid. Here’s his conclusion:
There will be a rash of deaths that could have been prevented in the recent past and more so in the coming future, from not-screening, not diagnosing and not being able to care for. We might all rue the day when the public health policy experts did not consider the ramifications of their singular tunnel-vision focus.
Jordan Schachtel presents some unsurprising data.
Will Jones laments the latest instance of misleading reporting on Covid-19.
Let’s end today’s links with a bit of optimism from Jeffrey Tucker.
