MESSAGE
| DATE | 2021-01-21 |
| FROM | Ruben Safir
|
| SUBJECT | Subject: [Hangout - NYLXS] Lockdown? What lockdown?
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https://www.aier.org/article/new-study-indicates-lockdowns-didnt-slow-the-spread-of-covid-19/
aier.org
New Study Indicates Lockdowns Didn’t Slow the Spread of Covid-19
Ethan Yang
10-13 minutes
A team of Stanford University researchers recently published a study in
the European Journal of Clinical Investigation concluding that harsh
lockdown policies have had minimal impact on preventing the spread of
Covid-19 compared to lighter policies.
I’m willing to admit I supported lockdowns in the beginning because they
seemed to be good in theory. Sacrifice some freedom now to preserve
long-term aggregate freedom and prosperity. Eventually, every
intellectually honest and reasonable person needs to ask, where’s the
real evidence? After two weeks to flatten the curve turned into ten
months and counting with a world undone, people are understandably
skeptical of whether harsh lockdown policies had any benefit. Some
studies such as this one published in Nature by a large team of
epidemiologists state that lockdowns have drastically reduced the
potential damage of Covid-19. However, such studies are unreliable as
they rely on assumptions about what they think could have happened. They
take the cases and deaths today and then make up a potential outcome for
what would have happened without lockdowns, then claim that lockdowns
worked.
Others simply point to the success of countries like New Zealand, which
implemented harsh lockdowns. Of course, New Zealand has had its issues
with recurring lockdowns, but with only 25 Covid deaths at the time of
this writing, it is still a strong performance so let’s call it a
success for the purpose of this argument. The problem is that to justify
a policy like lockdowns, you need to prove that it works consistently
everywhere. This doesn’t just apply to lockdowns; it applies to
everything in life. Imagine if someone wanted you to buy a fat burning
pill that worked on exactly one person out of a sample size of hundreds
and that one person was a professional athlete (New Zealand is a small
island that reacted very quickly). On top of that, most of the people
who took the pill either stayed the same or got fatter. Just like how
many of the countries with the strictest lockdowns ended up with the
most deaths per capita alongside massive economic and social damage. You
should be very skeptical about taking that pill.
The Study
Of course, this is just a general observation and there could be many
confounding variables as well as different policy combinations across
different countries. We also need to be precise when we measure the
impact of various policies on transmission rates of the virus and to the
best extent possible, have a counterfactual comparison. That’s exactly
what the study titled “Assessing Mandatory Stay-At-Home and Business
Closure Effects on the Spread of Covid-19” intends to do.
The study compares the impact of lockdown policies of eight countries in
the Northern Hemisphere: England, France, Germany, Iran, Italy,
Netherlands, Spain, and the US. All countries that have seen harsh
lockdowns. It uses two counterfactuals: South Korea and Sweden, to serve
as an example of how Covid spreads under relatively light public health
interventions. Harsh lockdown policies would be defined primarily by
business closures and stay at home orders. The light touch policies of
Sweden and South Korea would be policies such as contact tracing, large
gathering restrictions, targeted quarantines, and the use of general
guidance. Essentially the study is comparing policies that completely
shut down society to those that simply make life a little more
inconvenient. If the former doesn’t provide a clear benefit then we
should all prefer the latter.
The study explains its methodology
“The data we use builds on an analysis of NPI (Non-Pharmaceutical
Intervention) effects and consists of daily case numbers in subnational
administrative regions of each country (e.g. regions in France,
provinces in Iran, states in the US, and counties in Sweden), merged
with the type and timing of policies in each administrative region. We
use data from a COVID-19 policy databank and previous analyses of policy
impacts to determine the timing and location of each NPI. Each
observation in the data, then, is identified by the subnational
administrative region and the date, with data on the number of cases on
that date and indicators characterizing the presence of each policy.”
The researchers construct data models using the Covid data from the 10
countries to note the effects that various policies had on the
transmission rates over time while controlling for various factors. They
then conduct 16 tests comparing the eight lockdown countries to the two
counterfactual countries and note the differences in performance. The
end result was that
“In the framework of this analysis, there is no evidence that more
restrictive non-pharmaceutical interventions (“lockdowns”) contributed
substantially to bending the curve of new cases in England, France,
Germany, Iran, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, or the United States in
early 2020. By comparing the effectiveness of NPIs on case growth rates
in countries that implemented more restrictive measures with those that
implemented less restrictive measures, the evidence points away from
indicating that mrNPIs (major interventions) provided additional
meaningful benefit above and beyond lrNPIs (light interventions).”
Essentially, lockdowns, which are an unprecedented policy in the history
of public health, provide little noticeable benefit over the more
traditional public health responses which are less intrusive. That is
because generally speaking people act rationally and it’s impossible to
coercively push society beyond its natural limits without major
drawbacks. For example, people generally understand that going out and
mingling with others spreads the virus but at the same time life must go
on. What the state can do to help is provide transparent information,
stronger medical infrastructure, and targeted interventions to help
manage the virus. However, there comes a point where nothing else will
help besides a vaccine, natural herd immunity, or some other medical
treatment. All lockdowns do is further disrupt society, causing
traumatic damage while the virus still continues to spread.
The study indicates that public health interventions in general help
slow the spread of the virus; there is no denying that. However it also
notes,
“In none of the 8 countries and in none out of the 16 comparisons
(against Sweden or South Korea) were the effects of mrNPIs significantly
negative (beneficial).”
There is no denying that something must be done to stop the virus and
that we have the tools to help slow the spread. However, as the cross
country comparisons demonstrate, lockdowns have not shown to have a
significant effect on stopping the virus. However, there is overwhelming
evidence that they cause tremendous damage to society. In fact, the
authors even note
“It is possible that stay-at-home orders may facilitate transmission
if they increase person-to-person contact where transmission is
efficient such as closed spaces.”
This idea is actually supported by data and research that I referenced
in a previous article regarding restaurant closures. Furthermore, the
study notes,
“The degree to which risk communications motivate personal behaviors
has been used to explain South Korea’s response to NPIs, where large
personal behavior changes were observed following less restrictive
NPIs…This may also explain the highly variable effect sizes of the same
NPI in different countries. For example the effects of international
travel bans were positive (unhelpful) in Germany and negative
(beneficial) in the Netherlands.”
Society tends to respond on its own and there is only so much it can do,
which is why light-touch policies seem to have just as much if not
better outcomes than harsh policies like business closures. People will
make adjustments based on the information they are given alongside their
own contexts. Eventually, there comes a point where people have done all
they can to slow the spread. Lockdowns not only fail to push that limit
forward, but they cause unnecessary damage that not only makes the
situation worse but reduces patience for compliance.
Key Takeaways
It’s important to note that this study is imperfect as all studies are
in some way. It compares hard data collected from various countries of a
similar demographic and economic makeup, which is very important.
However, testing and data collection are highly imperfect as well as
incomplete, especially in the Spring of 2020. Furthermore, there could
be minute cultural and contextual factors that cannot be captured with a
quantitative analysis. For example, having large concentrations of
vulnerable elderly people in nursing homes may cause spikes in
transmission and death rates that skew results. Although the study seems
convincing and supported by general observations regarding current
events, we must continue to be open to new information.
With that said, it seems to be the case that lockdown policies around
the world have failed to produce the results that we were told they
would. Countries that locked down the hardest like Belgium and the
United Kingdom also have some of the worst statistics per capita, even
worse than the United States, the punching bag for lockdown supporters.
Even if we count New Zealand as a success story of lockdowns working,
how about the rest of the world?
**** The study seems to indicate what we have known for decades. This is
that there are a number of things that the state can do to help slow the
spread of disease but closing down society is not one of them. Perhaps
there is a sort of heroic romanticism about flexing the muscles of the
state to stop a fearsome enemy that makes lockdowns so attractive. The
only problem with this is that we are dealing with reality, and society
is not a playset. ****
Ethan Yang
Ethan YangEthan Yang
Ethan joined AIER in 2020 as an Editorial Assistant and is a graduate of
Trinity College. He received a BA in Political Science alongside a minor
in Legal Studies and Formal Organizations.
--
So many immigrant groups have swept through our town
that Brooklyn, like Atlantis, reaches mythological
proportions in the mind of the world - RI Safir 1998
http://www.mrbrklyn.com
DRM is THEFT - We are the STAKEHOLDERS - RI Safir 2002
http://www.nylxs.com - Leadership Development in Free Software
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Being so tracked is for FARM ANIMALS and extermination camps,
but incompatible with living as a free human being. -RI Safir 2013
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