Doctor Proves Lockdowns 10x Deadlier Than COVID

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From humansarefree.com

As Ivor Cummins demonstrates in the video below, available data reveal lockdowns have been completely ineffective at lowering positive test rates, while extracting a huge cost in terms of human suffering and societal health.

All of the reports and studies reviewed in his video are also available on his website, TheFatEmperor.com.1

To that long list of evidences, we can add yet another report from Canadian pediatric infectious disease specialist Dr. Ari Joffe, which shows lockdown harms are about 10 times greater than the benefits.2

In his 51-page paper,3 “COVID-19: Rethinking the Lockdown Groupthink,” Joffe reviews how and why initial modeling predictions failed to match reality, what the collateral damage of lockdown policies have been, and what cost-benefit analyses tell us about the efficacy of the lockdown strategy.

Mortality Predictions Were Staggeringly Wrong

While initial models predicted 510,000 Britons, 2.2 million Americans and 40 million people worldwide would end up dead from COVID-19 unless suppression tactics such as lockdowns were implemented at least two-thirds of the time for the next two years,4 such prognostications have turned out to be complete hogwash.

As noted by Joffe, the lethality of SARS-CoV-2 was quickly shown to be nowhere near as high as the 2% to 3% initially predicted. He writes:5

“The WHO recently estimated that about 10% of the global population may have been already infected, which, with a world population of 7.8 billion, and 1.16 million deaths, would make a rough approximation of IFR [infection fatality rate] as 0.15% …

A serology-informed estimate of the IFR in Geneva, Switzerland put the IFR at: age 5-9 years 0.0016%, 10-19 years 0.00032%, 20-49 years 0.0092%, 50-64 years 0.14%, and age 65+ outside of assisted care facilities 2.7%, for an overall population IFR 0.32%.

Similarly, a large study from France found an inflection point in IFR around the age of 70 years … By far the most important risk factor is older age. There is a ~1000-fold difference in death risk for people >80 years old versus children.”

Herd Immunity Threshold Vastly Overestimated

Modelers were also incorrect when they predicted that 70% to 80% would get infected before herd immunity would naturally allow the spread of infection to taper off.

In reality, the herd immunity threshold has turned out to be far lower, which removes the justification for social distancing and lockdowns. More than a dozen scientists now claim the herd immunity threshold is likely below 50%,6 perhaps even as low as 10%.7,8

Data from Stockholm County, Sweden, show a herd immunity threshold of 17%.9 In an essay, Brown University professor Dr. Andrew Bostom noted:10

“Lead investigator Dr. Gomes, from the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, and her colleagues concluded: ‘naturally acquired immunity to SARS-CoV-2 may place populations over the herd immunity threshold once as few as 10-20% of its individuals are immune.’11

Separate HIT [herd immunity threshold] calculations of 9%,12 10-20%,13 17%,14 and 43%15,16 — each substantially below the dogmatically asserted value of ~70%17 — have been reported by investigators from Tel-Aviv University, Oxford University, University College of London, and Stockholm University, respectively.”

How could they get this so wrong? Herd immunity is calculated using reproductive number, or R-naught (R0), which is the estimated number of new infections that may occur from one infected person.18

R0 of below 1 (with R1 meaning that one person who’s infected is expected to infect one other person) indicates that cases are declining while R0 above 1 suggests cases are on the rise.

It’s far from an exact science, however, as a person’s susceptibility to infection varies depending on many factors, including their health, age and contacts within a community.

Herd Immunity Threshold Vastly Overestimated

Modelers were also incorrect when they predicted that 70% to 80% would get infected before herd immunity would naturally allow the spread of infection to taper off.

In reality, the herd immunity threshold has turned out to be far lower, which removes the justification for social distancing and lockdowns. More than a dozen scientists now claim the herd immunity threshold is likely below 50%,6 perhaps even as low as 10%.7,8

Data from Stockholm County, Sweden, show a herd immunity threshold of 17%.9 In an essay, Brown University professor Dr. Andrew Bostom noted:10

“Lead investigator Dr. Gomes, from the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, and her colleagues concluded: ‘naturally acquired immunity to SARS-CoV-2 may place populations over the herd immunity threshold once as few as 10-20% of its individuals are immune.’11

Separate HIT [herd immunity threshold] calculations of 9%,12 10-20%,13 17%,14 and 43%15,16 — each substantially below the dogmatically asserted value of ~70%17 — have been reported by investigators from Tel-Aviv University, Oxford University, University College of London, and Stockholm University, respectively.”

How could they get this so wrong? Herd immunity is calculated using reproductive number, or R-naught (R0), which is the estimated number of new infections that may occur from one infected person.18

R0 of below 1 (with R1 meaning that one person who’s infected is expected to infect one other person) indicates that cases are declining while R0 above 1 suggests cases are on the rise.

It’s far from an exact science, however, as a person’s susceptibility to infection varies depending on many factors, including their health, age and contacts within a community.

Collateral Damage Graphic

Cost-Benefit Analysis Of Lockdowns

Essentially, Joffe’s paper is the cost-benefit analysis of lockdowns that should have at least been attempted before being implemented worldwide and then kept in place for months on end. In his interview with Furey, Joffe explains his approach:23

“In the cost-benefit analysis I consider the benefits of lockdowns in preventing deaths from COVID-19, and the costs of lockdowns in terms of the effects of the recession, loneliness, and unemployment on population wellbeing and mortality.

I did not consider all of the other so-called ‘collateral damage’ of lockdowns mentioned above. It turned out that the costs of lockdowns [in Canada] are at least 10 times higher than the benefits. That is, lockdowns cause far more harm to population wellbeing than COVID-19 can.”

A primary benefit of the lockdowns was supposed to be the prevention of COVID-19 deaths. As detailed in Joffe’s report,24 “Using the age distribution of deaths and comorbidities, in the U.K. the average person who died due to COVID-19 had 3 to 5 healthy years left to live.”

That’s a Quality Adjusted Life Years (QALY) score of 3 to 5, which equates to a Wellbeing Years (WELLBY) score of 18 to 30.

Joffe presents data showing that lockdowns “saved” 58.5 QALY or 360 million WELLBY, at most, seeing how herd immunity threshold and infection fatality rates are far lower than predicted. Joffe suspects the total number of deaths actually prevented by lockdowns is fewer than 5.2 million.

Meanwhile, the cost of the lockdowns in the U.K., in terms of WELLBY, is five times greater than might optimistically be saved, and may in reality be anywhere from 50 times to 87 times greater.

As mentioned by Joffe in the interview quote above, the cost for lockdowns in Canada is at least 10 times greater than the benefit. In his report, he cites data showing that in Australia, the minimum cost is 6.6 times higher, and in the U.S., the cost is estimated to be at least 5.2 times higher than the benefit of lockdowns.

A cost-benefit analysis performed for New Zealand, which looked at the cost of adding just five extra days of “COVID-19 alert level 4” found the cost in QALY was 94.9 times higher than the benefit…