As the US FDA is preparing to approve the Pfizer Covid vaccine for emergency use, the UK health authority has issued a warning that individuals with severe allergies should avoid the vaccine due to potential for serious reactions. In the UK, the health authority has also recommended that the vaccine “should only be carried out in facilities where resuscitation measures are available.” With Americans divided on whether they want to get the vaccine, will this news push more to refuse? Also today, the US faces a lockdown-induced mental health crisis according to a recent Gallup survey. LA County sees outdoor dining ban overturned by superior court judge. Watch today’s Liberty Report:

Concerns are mounting about the competing Covid vaccinations, as the UK reports it may inject a cocktail of two different vaccines and the FDA warns of “severe adverse reactions’ after dose two of the Pfizer vaccine. Polls suggest that Americans are not all eager to stand in line for the shot. Will they be forced? Also today: Are the hospitals really filling up? Respected Coronavirus Task Force Member warns against lockdowns. Heroes and villains in Chicago and Virginia. Texas Attorney General sues battleground states over last minute election changes. Watch today’s Liberty Report:

The cruel illogic of this latest round of Covid lockdowns has infuriated more and more Americans and exposed the corruption and hypocrisy of the “leaders.” While outdoor dining is being forcibly shut down in places like California – with no “science” to back the move up – indoor shopping at big-box stores continues unabated. Small restaurants are going under by the thousands while the powerful and well-connected are reaping record profits. America is being pushed to the breaking point by hypocrite “do as I say not as I do” governors like California’s Gavin Newsom and many more. This and more in today’s Liberty Report:

Like so many other “crises” that preceded it, the Covid-19 “pandemic” has provided fertile territory for the authoritarians who seize any opportunity to destroy freedom and liberty under the false claim of “keeping us safe.” The PATRIOT Act passed after 9/11 was supposed to do the same thing: keep us safe by targeting the terrorists who wanted to kill us. But as we learned from Ed Snowden shortly afterward, it was a lie. The PATRIOT Act was designed to view us as the enemy, to be spied on, tracked, and harassed. The Covid “crisis” and coming vaccine will be the same. Will Americans resist? Also today, more Covid Hypocrites – from Austin to California. And an LA County mayor claims anyone without a mask is a “domestic terrorist.” Watch today’s Liberty Report:

The marriage between government & crony big business was on full display this year. The generation of big fear by the former was met with big profits for the latter. The widespread belief that government needs to “regulate” our social and economic lives provides the foundation for this poisonous marriage to thrive. Individual Liberty and free markets (without government interference) can perform the annulment, but they need to be desired first. Today on the Liberty Report:

Governors, mayors, and other officials across the country and across the world are laying out restriction upon restriction for their subjects in the name of fighting a virus. But when it comes to obeying the edicts they demand others to follow, more often than not they are exposed as hypocrites…or worse. Also today, insanity in Washington state, violence in France, kids and quarantine, and a heroic gym owner. Don’t miss today’s Liberty Report:

If Joe Biden is successful in his fight for the White House, he will be bringing with him a foreign policy team that is responsible for some of the biggest and deadliest fiascos in the past quarter century. From the idiotic attack on Yugoslavia, to arming jihadists in Syria, to the murder of Libya and the Ukraine coup, the team of rabid interventionists readying themselves to return to power have left a scorched earth behind them. Now they are ready to get back in the ring. Watch today’s Liberty Report:

After being caught dining with a large group in an exclusive restaurant – against his own orders – California governor Gavin Newsom is facing a bit of a rebellion among the citizens. First, virtually every southern California sheriff and many northern California sheriffs made it clear that they would NOT enforce the governor’s absurd Thanksgiving guidelines. Then, large groups have gathered in places like Huntington Beach to defy and protest the governor’s new 10:00 PM curfew. Also a recall campaign is picking up steam. Also today, science versus “science” on Covid-19 – why all the testing and lockdowns? Does it still make sense? Watch today’s Liberty Report:

Lockdowns are back on in Europe and are making a quick comeback in the US as well. Spain, the UK, Belgium, and France are back in full lockdown mode, although a multitude of restrictions on movement within each country remained in place even when full lockdowns were ended over the summer. 

In France, for instance, one now “need[s] a certificate to move around,” yet in spite of long maintaining some of the continent’s most stringent lockdown and social distancing measures, total deaths per million are rapidly accelerating, to the point that France is likely to soon join other countries with harsh lockdowns in having among the worst rates of deaths per million in the world. Moreover, eastern Europe, which was once lauded for locking down strictly and early, is quickly finding that lockdowns aren’t likely to suppress total deaths there, either. The Czech Republic is seeing some of the worst growth in covid deaths worldwide, while the rest of the region is seeing similar growth, albeit to a less dramatic extent (so far).

This is not what was sold to the public. Rather, politicians and their allies in the “public health” bureaucracies insisted that lockdowns would substantially reduce total deaths in countries that imposed them. Countries that failed to lock down would, on the other hand, experience runaway contagion with total Covid deaths per million orders of magnitude higher than those seen in countries that didn’t lock down.

That’s not what happened.

Cumulative deaths per million on the fifteenth of each month. Source: Worldometer.

Sweden, for instance, has long been denounced by politicians and media pundits for failing to embrace the methods of the French and the Spaniards. Many of these nations (i.e., Spain and the UK) have long had total Covid death per million well in excess of the Swedes. And now, other nations are surging (i.e., France and Czechia and the Netherlands) and will all likely soon be much higher than Swedish levels. (It might also be noted that Spain, the UK, France, Czechia, and Italy are now all seeing growth in Covid deaths at rates above that reported by the United States.)

Lockdowns Save Lives? 

Of course, some supporters of lockdowns are likely to continue insisting that lockdowns clearly work to suppress total deaths because a handful of small countries near Sweden (i.e., Norway, Denmark, and Finland) have reported relatively few covid deaths. While this certainly may indicate there are factors at work in these countries that help keep covid mortality numbers lower, the fact remains that experience shows countries like Norway, Denmark, and Finland are outliers when compared to most of western Europe.

This isn’t exactly shocking. As early as July, studies were already beginning to show that lockdowns didn’t actually suppress total mortality. This one in The Lancet, for example, concludes,

government actions such as border closures, full lockdowns, and a high rate of COVID-19 testing were not associated with statistically significant reductions in the number of critical cases or overall mortality.

And in 2006, an extensive study in Biosecurity and Bioterrorism reported: “There are no historical observations or scientific studies that support the confinement by quarantine of groups of possibly infected people for extended periods” to slow the spread of influenza. No evidence has been offered for why this might be true of flu, but not true of Covid. Moreover, in a recent report from JPMorgan, Marko Kolanovic concluded that “re-opening did not change the course of the pandemic” and that “While we often hear that lockdowns are driven by scientific models, and that there is an exact relationship between the level of economic activity and the spread of [the] virus—this is not supported by the data.” Overall, evidence backing the lockdown theory has simply failed to materialize. 

Where’s the Evidence?

Indeed, as Swedish authorities have long claimed, the experience points toward an outcome in which most countries will end up with similar total deaths per million regardless of lockdown policy.1 This looks more likely by the day. As noted by Dr. Gilbert Berdine here at mises.org, “The data suggest that lockdowns have not prevented any deaths from covid-19. At best, lockdowns have deferred death for a short time, but they cannot possibly be continued for the long term.” This, of course, is why even the WHO does not recommend lockdowns except as a very short term and ad hoc measure. The side effects of the lockdowns themselves are too dangerous.

We already know that isolation, unemployment, and other social ills caused by lockdowns affect both physical and mental health. But we also know that lockdowns lead to deaths from untreated medical conditions. Moreover, government health experts in many cases have callously cut off the elderly from all their social and family support. The Associated Press estimates that for “every two COVID-19 victims in long-term care, there is another who died prematurely of other causes.” Many of these deaths are brought on by neglect and isolation caused by state-mandated lockdown policies.

Examining Excess Mortality 

But where would we find evidence of these deaths in the aggregate? Unfortunately, regimes spend very little time counting them. Rather, regimes often only record events in ways that help the regime. While they are careful to count as many covid cases and deaths as possible in big bright numbers reported daily by government officials, deaths caused by lockdowns are generally ignored.

Eventually, the only way to guess the impact of these other deaths will be through the “excess mortality” data. Excess mortality—using a definition now generally used in the media and by government officials—occurs when total mortality during a time period exceeds the average mortality experienced over the past five years.

Some initial reports have suggested that covid deaths comprise only around 70 percent of excess deaths (see here and here). Naturally, lockdown advocates claim that this shows covid deaths are being undercounted, and that covid deaths should be assumed to account for virtually all excess deaths. This is only conjecture.

In any case, we find, not surprisingly, that excess mortality in Sweden has been lower this year compared to many other western European countries with harsh lockdowns. For example, through October the average number of deaths for 2015–19 in Sweden was 72,972. In 2020, the total deaths for the same period was 76,375. That’s an increase of 4.6 percent.

Likewise, in France, 2020’s total excess mortality is up 6.4 percent. It’s up 12.7 percent in England and Wales, up 16 percent in Italy, and up 17 percent in Spain.

How much of this excess mortality in lockdown countries is attributable to the lockdowns themselves? For now that’s still unknown. But, as Dr. Berdine writes:

It seems likely that one will not have to even compare economic deprivation with loss of life, as the final death toll following authoritarian lockdowns will most likely exceed the deaths from letting people choose how to manage their own risk. After taking the unprecedented economic depression into account, history will likely judge these lockdowns to be the greatest policy error of this generation.

—–
1.In making comparative analysis, we should not expect exactly the same outcomes across national lines, of course. The number of covid deaths will be affected by the overall age of the population, obesity rates, and the relative health levels in each country. The impact of some factors, however, has been greatly exagerrated. For example, data has been inconclusive in regard to the effects of population density. Some have claimed that voluntary social distancing has been greater in Sweden than in mandatory-lockdown countries, thus explaining the difference in covid deaths. This contention is not supported by what measures we have of social distancing.

Reprinted with permission from Mises.org.

Lockdowns are back on in Europe and are making a quick comeback in the US as well. Spain, the UK, Belgium, and France are back in full lockdown mode, although a multitude of restrictions on movement within each country remained in place even when full lockdowns were ended over the summer. 

In France, for instance, one now “need[s] a certificate to move around,” yet in spite of long maintaining some of the continent’s most stringent lockdown and social distancing measures, total deaths per million are rapidly accelerating, to the point that France is likely to soon join other countries with harsh lockdowns in having among the worst rates of deaths per million in the world. Moreover, eastern Europe, which was once lauded for locking down strictly and early, is quickly finding that lockdowns aren’t likely to suppress total deaths there, either. The Czech Republic is seeing some of the worst growth in covid deaths worldwide, while the rest of the region is seeing similar growth, albeit to a less dramatic extent (so far).

This is not what was sold to the public. Rather, politicians and their allies in the “public health” bureaucracies insisted that lockdowns would substantially reduce total deaths in countries that imposed them. Countries that failed to lock down would, on the other hand, experience runaway contagion with total Covid deaths per million orders of magnitude higher than those seen in countries that didn’t lock down.

That’s not what happened.

Cumulative deaths per million on the fifteenth of each month. Source: Worldometer.

Sweden, for instance, has long been denounced by politicians and media pundits for failing to embrace the methods of the French and the Spaniards. Many of these nations (i.e., Spain and the UK) have long had total Covid death per million well in excess of the Swedes. And now, other nations are surging (i.e., France and Czechia and the Netherlands) and will all likely soon be much higher than Swedish levels. (It might also be noted that Spain, the UK, France, Czechia, and Italy are now all seeing growth in Covid deaths at rates above that reported by the United States.)

Lockdowns Save Lives? 

Of course, some supporters of lockdowns are likely to continue insisting that lockdowns clearly work to suppress total deaths because a handful of small countries near Sweden (i.e., Norway, Denmark, and Finland) have reported relatively few covid deaths. While this certainly may indicate there are factors at work in these countries that help keep covid mortality numbers lower, the fact remains that experience shows countries like Norway, Denmark, and Finland are outliers when compared to most of western Europe.

This isn’t exactly shocking. As early as July, studies were already beginning to show that lockdowns didn’t actually suppress total mortality. This one in The Lancet, for example, concludes,

government actions such as border closures, full lockdowns, and a high rate of COVID-19 testing were not associated with statistically significant reductions in the number of critical cases or overall mortality.

And in 2006, an extensive study in Biosecurity and Bioterrorism reported: “There are no historical observations or scientific studies that support the confinement by quarantine of groups of possibly infected people for extended periods” to slow the spread of influenza. No evidence has been offered for why this might be true of flu, but not true of Covid. Moreover, in a recent report from JPMorgan, Marko Kolanovic concluded that “re-opening did not change the course of the pandemic” and that “While we often hear that lockdowns are driven by scientific models, and that there is an exact relationship between the level of economic activity and the spread of [the] virus—this is not supported by the data.” Overall, evidence backing the lockdown theory has simply failed to materialize. 

Where’s the Evidence?

Indeed, as Swedish authorities have long claimed, the experience points toward an outcome in which most countries will end up with similar total deaths per million regardless of lockdown policy.1 This looks more likely by the day. As noted by Dr. Gilbert Berdine here at mises.org, “The data suggest that lockdowns have not prevented any deaths from covid-19. At best, lockdowns have deferred death for a short time, but they cannot possibly be continued for the long term.” This, of course, is why even the WHO does not recommend lockdowns except as a very short term and ad hoc measure. The side effects of the lockdowns themselves are too dangerous.

We already know that isolation, unemployment, and other social ills caused by lockdowns affect both physical and mental health. But we also know that lockdowns lead to deaths from untreated medical conditions. Moreover, government health experts in many cases have callously cut off the elderly from all their social and family support. The Associated Press estimates that for “every two COVID-19 victims in long-term care, there is another who died prematurely of other causes.” Many of these deaths are brought on by neglect and isolation caused by state-mandated lockdown policies.

Examining Excess Mortality 

But where would we find evidence of these deaths in the aggregate? Unfortunately, regimes spend very little time counting them. Rather, regimes often only record events in ways that help the regime. While they are careful to count as many covid cases and deaths as possible in big bright numbers reported daily by government officials, deaths caused by lockdowns are generally ignored.

Eventually, the only way to guess the impact of these other deaths will be through the “excess mortality” data. Excess mortality—using a definition now generally used in the media and by government officials—occurs when total mortality during a time period exceeds the average mortality experienced over the past five years.

Some initial reports have suggested that covid deaths comprise only around 70 percent of excess deaths (see here and here). Naturally, lockdown advocates claim that this shows covid deaths are being undercounted, and that covid deaths should be assumed to account for virtually all excess deaths. This is only conjecture.

In any case, we find, not surprisingly, that excess mortality in Sweden has been lower this year compared to many other western European countries with harsh lockdowns. For example, through October the average number of deaths for 2015–19 in Sweden was 72,972. In 2020, the total deaths for the same period was 76,375. That’s an increase of 4.6 percent.

Likewise, in France, 2020’s total excess mortality is up 6.4 percent. It’s up 12.7 percent in England and Wales, up 16 percent in Italy, and up 17 percent in Spain.

How much of this excess mortality in lockdown countries is attributable to the lockdowns themselves? For now that’s still unknown. But, as Dr. Berdine writes:

It seems likely that one will not have to even compare economic deprivation with loss of life, as the final death toll following authoritarian lockdowns will most likely exceed the deaths from letting people choose how to manage their own risk. After taking the unprecedented economic depression into account, history will likely judge these lockdowns to be the greatest policy error of this generation.

—–
1.In making comparative analysis, we should not expect exactly the same outcomes across national lines, of course. The number of covid deaths will be affected by the overall age of the population, obesity rates, and the relative health levels in each country. The impact of some factors, however, has been greatly exagerrated. For example, data has been inconclusive in regard to the effects of population density. Some have claimed that voluntary social distancing has been greater in Sweden than in mandatory-lockdown countries, thus explaining the difference in covid deaths. This contention is not supported by what measures we have of social distancing.

Reprinted with permission from Mises.org.

In the first comprehensive, peer-reviewed study the efficacy of face masks to prevent the spread of Covid has been called into question. Within the margin of error there is virtually no difference between a masked group and an unmasked group, Danish scientists discovered. Yet this major discovery about the virus is being completely ignored by authoritarian governors who are demanding even MORE intrusive mask mandates. Are we really following “the science”? Or politics… Watch today’s Liberty Report:

There are public protests against lockdowns in Denmark, Italy, France, and all over Europe. They are growing in numbers and fury. Why not the US? Scott Atlas suggested in passing that Michigan residents “rise up” against new lockdowns in Michigan, and major media collectively fainted in shock. Preposterously, he was forced to clarify that he didn’t mean violently. 

I came across a Twitter account from one protestor who demanded to know where the Americans are in all of this. Why is this country that once inspired the world with its tenacious love of liberty and a strict Bill of Rights allowing its society and economy to be strangled by some of the tightest stringencies in the world? 

Just look at the chart on our restrictions, as compared with other countries. The US has been stuck since the third week of March at between 62-72% stringencies overall. Some states are open and functioning well but others (especially California and the Northeast) seem unable to loosen restrictions and are thus continuing to crush whole sectors of the economy, in addition to pursuing impositions on liberty without precedent. 

All this time, we’ve wondered how and why Americans are putting up with this. The polls thus far have shown support for lockdowns, as depressing as that sounds to those of us who have been writing against them since January. 

However, these polls have shifted in recent weeks. The shift is substantial. The direction and pace of change is also notable. 

The poll comes from Gallup. The first question concerns compliance with a possible new mandate to shelter in place. At the height of the pandemic, 67% of Americans said they would be compliant with a stay-home order. That is now down to 49%. Fully one third of Americans said they are very or somewhat unlikely to comply with such an order. Back in March, only 15% of Americans told pollsters that. This is some real progress. Another 18% report being “somewhat likely” to comply.

Back in March, at the height of fear, 87% of Americans thought it was better for healthy people to stay home rather than try to live a normal life. That has fallen to 64% – far too high given that living a normal life is precisely what needs to happen to save the country from lockdowns. Still, the shift is notable and promises to continue in that direction. It’s fair to conclude from these two charts that fully one third of Americans are in the fed-up camp. 

There has also been a sharp drop in the number of people reporting that they are doing extreme forms of isolation. 

Here again, given the actual risk factors of severe consequences from Covid – the median infection fatality rate for healthy people under 70 years of age could be as low as 0.05% – it is remarkable how compliant Americans have been with extreme restrictions that take no account of the risk differentials. It’s a feature of nearly all these lockdowns that they are top-down impositions on the whole population and take no account of the need for focused protection for the aged and sick. The models that drove governments around the world to lock down similarly presume homogeneous risk among all population groups – which is a feature of no virus in recorded history. 

The daily bombardment of Covid frenzy by media elites – who seem to be stuck in a single narrative that the lockdowns have to stay in place until everyone is vaccinated – surely has something to do with the amount of support. Given that, it is remarkable that a third of Americans seem to be solidly in the dissenting camp. 

This might also account for the intensification of authoritarianism coming from government, e.g. Anthony Fauci ordering Americans to “do what you are told.”

In 2020, Americans discovered that governments were capable of impositions on private and commercial life that are without precedent. The Constitution, the Bill of Rights, the legislatures, and the courts did not protect us. The fight for a restoration of normal life will come down to public opinion, and that in turn will happen once an alternative view of public health competes with media falsehoods. It is long past time to rise up.

Reprinted with permission from American Institute for Economic Research.