(LifeSiteNews) — The “substantial and wide-ranging collateral damage” of COVID-19 lockdowns around the world exceeded any benefit they may have had, according to a new review of the existing literature out of the University of Washington.
The review, undertaken by applied medical anthropologist Dr. Kevin Bardosh and funded by the English charity Collateral Global, “synthesizes 600 publications with a focus on meta-analyses, systematic reviews, global reports and multi-country studies” for their findings in ten specific categories of harm: “health, economy, income, food security, education, lifestyle, intimate relationships, community, environment and governance.”
It found “substantial” and “wide-ranging” collateral damage that “will leave behind a legacy of harm for hundreds of millions of people in the years ahead,” including increased “non-Covid excess mortality, mental health deterioration, child abuse and domestic violence, widening global inequality, food insecurity, lost educational opportunities, unhealthy lifestyle behaviours, social polarization, soaring debt, democratic backsliding and declining human rights.”
Most significantly, the review finds it “likely that many Covid policies caused more harm than benefit, although further research is needed to address knowledge gaps and explore policy trade-offs, especially at a country-level,” with the main lesson being that future pandemics need to be met with a “wider range of expertise” than those which dominated the COVID response, which would allow for greater diversity of perspectives and more consideration of competing concerns.
Other effects include a rise in once respected academics and professionals throwing public health advocacy out the window and mutating into public commentators with all the heft and credibility of Drs with mail order degrees selling cures for arthritis on the shopping channel
— Craig Wallace (@CraigWtweets) May 24, 2023
A few high-level findings:
– 14-18 million excess deaths, of which 5-6 million are reported Covid deaths;
– Tens-of-millions of new mental health disorders, especially among young people
– Long-term economic & business damage, including soaring government & private debt
6/12— Kevin Bardosh (@KevinBardosh) May 23, 2023
– A 13% increase in the rate of global learning poverty between 2019 and 2022, erasing all gains in the education sector since 2000. Large dropout rates. An estimated $21 trillion may be lost in earnings for the current generation of students.
8/12— Kevin Bardosh (@KevinBardosh) May 23, 2023
– Declining trust, social cohesion, press freedom, respect for basic human rights, and support for democratic attitudes.
& MUCH MORE.
10/12— Kevin Bardosh (@KevinBardosh) May 23, 2023
The new paper adds to and summarizes a large preexisting body of evidence that the restrictions on personal and economic activity undertaken by many countries in 2020 and part of 2021 caused far more harm than good, in terms of personal freedom and economics as well as public health, and that lives could have been saved through far less burdensome methods, such as the promotion of established therapeutic drugs, narrower protections focused on those most at risk (such as the elderly and infirm), and increasing vitamin D intake.
In the United States, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch recently penned an opinion identifying America’s COVID response measures as “the greatest intrusions on civil liberties in the peacetime history of this country, against which Congress, state legislatures, and courts alike were largely negligent to protect constitutional rights, personal liberty, and the rule of law.”