Lockdown states suffer more COVID deaths on average

By Art Moore

The 11 U.S. states that did not impose lockdowns over the fall and winter in response to the coronavirus have fared better than states that did, an analysis of public data shows.

The U.K.-based website Lockdown Sceptics noted that the models one year ago predicting that nations, regions and states that didn’t impose lockdowns would face overrun hospitals and massive death tolls compared to those that did lock down turned out to be wrong.

It was a model published by Neil Ferguson of Imperial College of London forecasting 2.2 million American deaths from COVID-19 that prompted President Trump to initiate the “15 days to slow the spread.” White House coronavirus advisers Anthony Fauci and Deborah Birx presented the study to Trump, urging drastic action.

But the website presented a chart that shows the COVID death toll per million people by state, with the no-lockdown states in red.

“If the doomsday models are correct, why don’t the bars for those states clearly stand out from the bars of the lockdown states in blue?” the website asks. “Furthermore, why are the top five states for Covid deaths lockdown states?

The analysis found the lockdown states on average had 5.6% more deaths than the no-lockdown states.

“If anything this suggests lockdown made things worse,” the site said. “At any rate, there’s no sign it helped.

(Worldometers)

“Isn’t it time the lockdown proponents put their models to the test in the real world?” the website asks. “Time to put up or shut up. Either their models can reproduce the outcomes of real states which don’t lock down, or they can’t and need to be fundamentally revised. No more hiding behind counterfactuals of “it would have happened but for lockdown”. The facts are here and waiting to be explained.

Lockdown Sceptics noted the London Telegraph’s Alexander Fiske-Harrison reports the European countries “with the strictest lockdowns have come out no better.”

More harm than good

Earlier this month, WND reported, a Canadian infectious-disease specialist who initially supported the lockdowns in response to the coronavirus has changed his mind, concluding in his peer-reviewed study that the harm is 10 times worse than the benefits.

In contrast, a top coronavirus adviser for Joe Biden was against lockdowns before he was for them. Michael T. Osterholm, a professor and director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, formerly advocated the “focused protection” strategy now promoted by epidemiologists at Stanford and Oxford advising Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis: With a 99% survival rate for most, according to the Centers for Disease Control, let the healthy go about their business while protecting the vulnerable, the people over 70 with multiple life-threatening diseases.

Osterholm warned in a March 21 op-ed for the Washington Post of the high economic and social costs of “the near-draconian lockdowns” in effect at the time in China and Italy, which ultimately don’t reduce the number of cases. In November, however, he advocated a national lockdown of four to six weeks.

The CDC estimates a 99.997% survival rate for those from birth to age 19 who contract COVID-19. It’s 99.98% for ages 20-49, 99.5% for 50-69 and 94.6% for those over 70. Significantly, those who died of coronavirus, according to the CDC, had an average of 2.6 comorbidities, meaning more than two chronic diseases along with COVID-19. Overall, the CDC says, just 6% of the people counted as COVID-19 deaths died of COVID-19 alone.

DeSantis: ‘We’ve got your back’

Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis was criticized last September for lifting the coronavirus lockdowns in his state after consulting with renowned epidemiologists, but on Sunday he was touting the success of the policy, assuring workers and parents of schoolchildren “we’ve got your back.”

“Every Floridian has the right to earn a living. Florida is open, and we’ve got your back,” he said.

DeSantis said that while “so many other states kept locking people down, Florida lifted people up” and is “better” for it.

“If you work in a restaurant, we have your back. If you’re a hairstylist, we protect your right to earn a living,” he said. “And if you are a parent, we ensure your kids have the right to attend school in person. Lockdowns do not work. School closures have been disastrous yet even today we see across our country businesses shuttered, lives ruined, and schools closed.”

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Art Moore

Art Moore, co-author of the best-selling book "See Something, Say Nothing," entered the media world as a PR assistant for the Seattle Mariners and a correspondent covering pro and college sports for Associated Press Radio. He reported for a Chicago-area daily newspaper and was senior news writer for Christianity Today magazine and an editor for Worldwide Newsroom before joining WND shortly after 9/11. He earned a master's degree in communications from Wheaton College. Read more of Art Moore's articles here.


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