John Hopkins expert’s fury at ‘ignored’ lockdown study

An expert says a new study showing that lockdowns were ineffective in preventing Covid deaths has been ignored.

A professor from John Hopkins university has said there should have been more communication on a study which suggested that lockdowns were an ineffective measure against reducing Covid-related deaths in the US.

Dr Marty Makary appeared on Fox News and slammed John Hopkins and the mainstream media for not publicising the study which was published in January 2022.

The literature review and meta-analysis was written by economists Jonas Herby, Lars Jonung, and Steve H. Hanke which found the lockdowns on average only reduced Covid-related deaths by 0.2 per cent in Europe and the US but came at “enormous economic and social costs”.

“In consequence, lockdown policies are ill-founded and should be rejected as a pandemic policy instrument,” wrote Herby, Hanke and Jonung.

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Dr Marty Makary appeared on Fox News and said the report was one of the ‘biggest stories in the world today’. Picture: Fox News.

Speaking to host Tucker Carlson, Dr Makary said that the “excess non-Covid” deaths dwarfed the number of lives saved through lockdowns. Some examples of this included patients who were unable to access health care due to delays in elective procedures (like cancer), or people whose deaths were linked to substance abuse, or self harm.

“Now compare that number, which turns out to be about 1800 individuals, to the number of non-Covid deaths, what we call the ‘excess non-Covid mortality’ in the United States,” Dr Makary said.

“It was 124,000 excess deaths in year one. So, over two years, it was about a quarter million people who died.”

Dr Makary said the amount of excess non-Covid deaths rapidly increased due to reasons related to lockdowns. Picture: Twitter.

The surgeon and public policy researcher also said that because the virus “profoundly skewed towards older people and people with comorbidities,” sweeping restrictions should not have been implemented country wide.

“Yet we continued to treat this as if everybody was at equal risk, and we continue to do that today,” he continued.

“In schools, where children bear the biggest burden of the restrictions in this country.

“So I think the public is hungry for honesty and basic humility from public health officials.”

Calling the report one of the “biggest stories in the world today,” he denounced the university for not sharing the information more widely.

“Johns Hopkins itself did not even put out a press release about this study, and if you look at the media coverage, it’s one of the biggest stories in the world today, and yet certain media outlets have not even covered it,” he said.

Dr Makary argued that wide spread lockdowns shouldn’t have been implemented as the virus mainly affects older Americans and those with comorbidities. Picture: Johannes Eisele/AFP.

What does the Johns Hopkins report say?

While the John Hopkins study has yet to be peer-reviewed and was written by economists and not epidemiologists or public health experts, the paper heavily criticised the “public health effects” of lockdowns.

“They have contributed to reducing economic activity, raising unemployment, reducing schooling, causing political unrest, contributing to domestic violence, and undermining liberal democracy,” the report said.

“Such a standard benefit-cost calculation leads to a strong conclusion: lockdowns should be rejected out of hand as a pandemic policy instrument.”

Despite this, the authors did suggest the closing of non-essential businesses may have led to a 10.6 per cent reduction in mortality which was “likely to be related to the closure of bars”.

On masks, the authors said they “may reduce” Covid-related mortality rates, however more studies were needed.

Lockdowns in Europe and the US decreased COVID-19 mortality by a measly 0.2% on average, while the economic costs of lockdowns were enormous. Lars Jonung, @JonasHerby, and I find ZERO evidence to support lockdowns. Take a look.https://t.co/8keJw5n7jGpic.twitter.com/CXj5h8CQ4m

— Steve Hanke (@steve_hanke) February 2, 2022

US lagging behind ‘other large, wealthy nations’

While the country’s seven-day case average has sharply decreased from 806,861 from January 17 to 387,931 from February 2, the US has recorded the most number of Covid cases (8,550,268) and Covid-related deaths (894,000) than any country in the world.

Compared to other developed, wealthy nations, analysis from The New York Times also reported that the US recorded a disproportionate amount of deaths.

In figures since December 1, 2021, after the introduction of Omicron, the publication states that “the share of Americans who have been killed by the coronavirus is at least 63 per cent higher than in any of these other large, wealthy nations”.

Previously, chief medical adviser to President Joe Biden, Dr Anthony Fauci said that while lockdown measures saved “millions of lives,” the “anti-science bias” has made it difficult to implement widespread compliance on public health measures.

“If you look at the data, now that papers have come out literally two days ago, the fact that we shut down when we did and the rest of the world did, has saved hundreds of millions of infections and millions of lives,” said Dr Fauci, speaking on the Learning Curve podcast.

“One of the problems we face in the United States is that unfortunately, there is a combination of an anti-science bias that people are – for reasons that sometimes are, you know, inconceivable and not understandable – they just don’t believe science and they don’t believe authority.

“So when they see someone up in the White House, which has an air of authority to it, who’s talking about science, that there are some people who just don’t believe that – and that’s unfortunate because, you know, science is truth.”