Tag Archives: Covid-19 lockdowns

Children’s Hospitals Grapple With Wave of Mental Illness, by Carmen Heredia Rodriguez

Lockdowns have been a disaster for vulnerable children. From

(Archv/Getty Images)

Krissy Williams, 15, had attempted suicide before, but never with pills.

The teen was diagnosed with schizophrenia when she was 9. People with this chronic mental health condition perceive reality differently and often experience hallucinations and delusions. She learned to manage these symptoms with a variety of services offered at home and at school.

But the pandemic upended those lifelines. She lost much of the support offered at school. She also lost regular contact with her peers. Her mother lost access to respite care — which allowed her to take a break.

On a Thursday in October, the isolation and sadness came to a head. As Krissy’s mother, Patricia Williams, called a mental crisis hotline for help, she said, Krissy stood on the deck of their Maryland home with a bottle of pain medication in one hand and water in the other.

Before Patricia could react, Krissy placed the pills in her mouth and swallowed.

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Mutated COVID Virus Marketed to Justify New Lockdowns, by Joseph Mercola

Surely you’re not surprised? From Joseph Mercola at mercola.com:

Mounting mortality data show COVID-19 is hardly the deadly pandemic it’s been made out to be. But just as people were starting to wake up to this fact, the British technocracy came up with a new narrative to keep the fearmongering going.

Mere days before Christmas, U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced there’s a new, mutated, and far more infectious, strain of SARS-CoV-2 on the loose.1,2 The answer? Another round of even stricter stay-at-home orders, business shutdowns and travel bans, just in time for the holidays.

According to The New York Times, the U.K. restrictions may remain in effect for months. Considering these unscientific strategies didn’t work the first or second time around, it strains believability to think they’ll work now.

Indeed, anyone who knows anything about the Great Reset agenda can now see that the lockdowns, which destroy local economies and small businesses, have nothing to do with public health. They are mere smokescreens for the greatest transfer (if not theft) of wealth the world has ever seen.

The biggest losers are low- and middle-income earners, especially private business owners, who have been absolutely decimated while large box stores and multinational companies report record-breaking profits.

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Why Lockdowns Don’t Work and Hurt the Most Vulnerable, by Joseph Mercola

We now have mounds of evidence that lockdowns don’t work…if their goal is the promotion of health and safety. They work just dandy if their goal is to get people used to the complete elimination of their rights and living in a totalitarian state. From Joseph Mercola at mercola.com:

In a December 9, 2020, Twitter thread,1 Michael P. Senger, an attorney and author of the September 2020 article,2 “China’s Global Lockdown Propaganda Campaign,” reviewed the largely hidden impacts of global lockdowns. Ivor Cummins’ video above also reviews data showing just how “hugely ineffective” lockdowns have been.

As one would expect, shutting down businesses for extended periods of time leads to businesses going under for impaired cash flow from lack of revenue. Back in August 2020, Bloomberg reported3 that more than half of all small business owners feared their businesses wouldn’t survive. They were right.

According to a September 2020 economic impact report4 by Yelp, 163,735 U.S. businesses had closed their doors as of August 31, 2020, and of those, 60% — a total of 97,966 businesses — were permanent closures.5 As noted by Senger:6

“That ’leaders’ across the world transformed into tyrants, believing they had a right to bankrupt their subjects, is the core evil of lockdown.”

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Lockdowns Do Not Control the Coronavirus: The Evidence, by the AIER Staff

It’s out of fashion today, but here’s a compendium of articles based on real-life studies and evidence that lockdowns are ineffectual and, given the economic damage they inflict, counterproductive. From the AIER Staff at aier.org:

The use of universal lockdowns in the event of the appearance of a new pathogen has no precedent. It has been a science experiment in real time, with most of the human population used as lab rats. The costs are legion.

The question is whether lockdowns worked to control the virus in a way that is scientifically verifiable. Based on the following studies, the answer is no and for a variety of reasons: bad data, no correlations, no causal demonstration, anomalous exceptions, and so on. There is no relationship between lockdowns (or whatever else people want to call them to mask their true nature) and virus control.

Perhaps this is a shocking revelation, given that universal social and economic controls are becoming the new orthodoxy. In a saner world, the burden of proof really should belong to the lockdowners, since it is they who overthrew 100 years of public-health wisdom and replaced it with an untested, top-down imposition on freedom and human rights. They never accepted that burden. They took it as axiomatic that a virus could be intimidated and frightened by credentials, edicts, speeches, and masked gendarmes.

The pro-lockdown evidence is shockingly thin, and based largely on comparing real-world outcomes against dire computer-generated forecasts derived from empirically untested models, and then merely positing that stringencies and “nonpharmaceutical interventions” account for the difference between the fictionalized vs. the real outcome. The anti-lockdown studies, on the other hand, are evidence-based, robust, and thorough, grappling with the data we have (with all its flaws) and looking at the results in light of controls on the population.

Much of the following list has been put together by data engineer Ivor Cummins, who has waged a year-long educational effort to upend intellectual support for lockdowns. AIER has added its own and the summaries. The upshot is that the virus is going to do as viruses do, same as always in the history of infectious disease. We have extremely limited control over them, and that which we do have is bound up with time and place. Fear, panic, and coercion are not ideal strategies for managing viruses. Intelligence and medical therapeutics fare much better.

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California Reports Record COVID Cases and Deaths—Despite Strict Lockdown, by Jon Miltimore

Obviously California isn’t locking down hard enough, or the state’s poobahs refuse to notice there’s no correlation between severity of lockdowns and case or death numbers. From Jon Miltimore at fee.org:

Sadly, but perhaps predictably, government regulations do not appear to be slowing down the coronavirus.

n December 4, a bipartisan group of California legislators sent Gov. Gavin Newsom a letter urging him to reconsider his order closing outdoor playgrounds as part of his regional stay-at-home order.

“While we must appropriately consider best practices to reduce the risk of COVID-19 transmission, we also must ensure the children across the state are not unfairly deprived of their opportunities for outdoor access and play,” the legislators wrote.

Newsom’s order closing outdoor playgrounds—a response many see as senseless and ineffective, which prompted the governor to rescind it—is just one example of the hardline approach California public officials have taken in their attempt to mitigate the spread of the coronavirus.

Other restrictions include a 10 p.m. curfew, bans on outdoor dining and religious gatherings, as well as school closures. Surveys in recent months have shown California’s restrictions are some of the strictest in the US.

Sadly, but perhaps predictably, the regulations do not appear to be working. State data show California is smashing its previous highs in both COVID-19 cases and deaths.

Lockdowns Do Not Slow COVID Spread, Three Studies Show, by Jon Miltimore

Not only do lockdowns not slow Covid-19 but keeping people indoors, jobless, without sunshine or fresh air, undoubtedly makes them more susceptible to infection. From Jon Miltimore at intellectualtakeout.org:

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Across America and Europe, many government officials are resuming lockdowns and tightening restrictions in the face of rising COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations, and deaths.

The collateral damage of lockdowns, which has been well documented, includes widespread poverty, depression, bankruptcy, and unemployment. Meanwhile, the benefits of lockdowns remain murky.

Several studies show there is little correlation between government restrictions and lower COVID mortality rates. Here are three of them.

1. The Lancet, July

A study published on July 21 in The Lancet, a weekly peer-reviewed general medical journal founded in 1823, indicated that government lockdowns were ineffective.

Researchers collected data from the 50 countries with the most cases and found lockdowns were not associated with mortality reductions in critical COVID-19 cases, although factors such as obesity, smoking, and life expectancy were.

“…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,” the study concluded.

Restaurant Industry Warns Of “Economic Free Fall” As 110,000 Eateries And Counting Are Permanently Shuttered, by Tyler Durden

Covid-19 lockdowns have devastated the restaurant industry. From Tyler Durden at zerohedge.com:

The National Restaurant Association (NRA) sent a damning letter to Congress today (Dec. 7) addressing the collapse of more than one hundred thousand restaurants across the country this year because of the virus pandemic. In just the last three months, the letter said more than 10,000 eateries have closed, and thousands of others are in “economic freefall.”

The letter goes into detail about the association’s most recent nationwide survey, which determines that most restaurants are still experiencing a plunge in sales revenue. Many operators believe more furloughs or layoffs are imminent. As we noted last week, the layoffs have already begun.

“What these findings make clear is that more than 500,000 restaurants of every business type— franchise, chain, and independent—are in an unprecedented economic decline. And for every month that passes without a solution from Congress, thousands of more restaurants across the country will close their doors for good,” Sean Kennedy, executive vice president of public affairs at the association, said in a letter to Congress.

According to the association’s survey,

  • 87% of full-service restaurants (independent, chain, and franchise) report an average 36% drop in sales revenue. For an industry with an average profit margin of 5%-6%, this is simply unsustainable83% of full-service operators expect sales to be even worse over the next three months.
  • Although sales are significantly lower for most independent and franchise owners, their costs have not fallen by a proportional level. 59% of operators say their total labor costs (as a percentage of sales) are higher than they were pre-pandemic. 
  • The future remains bleak. 58% of chain and independent full-service operators expect continued furloughs and layoffs for at least the next three months.

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Rand Paul: No Scientific Evidence ‘Tyrannical’ Lockdowns Work, by Steve Watson

Rand Paul is one of the politicians out there who’s not a complete stranger to common sense. From Steve Watson at summit.news:

“You can take advice and you can give advice. But once you mandate it, it doesn’t become advice. It becomes a form of tyranny.”

Senator Rand Paul spoke out Monday against the policy of lockdowns and restrictions, declaring that there is no evidence they are having any impact on the spread of coronavirus, and that those who say they do are not paying attention.

“We ought to at least still use logic to try to figure out how we stop this …,” Paul said in an appearance on Fox News, adding “I don’t see any evidence that crowd control, hand washing, standing six feet apart, all of these things they tell you to do — closing down the restaurants, closing down the schools — there’s no real evidence that they are changing the trajectory of the disease.”

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NYC Pub Declares Itself “Autonomous Zone” After Government Tries To Shut It Down, by Tyler Durden

People, especially small business owners, are reaching the end of their ropes. From Tyler Durden at zerohedge.com:

In what is a hilarious bit of irony for Democrat politicians in New York, a pub that had its liquor license yanked due to Covid rules has now declared itself an “Autonomous Zone” and is continuing to do business.

The bar, called Mac’s Public House in Staten Island, said publicly: “We refuse to abide by any rules and regulations put forth by the Mayor of NYC and Governor of NY State.”

They also painted “AUTONOMOUS ZONE” on the sidewalk outside the bar and put signs in the windows claiming “As of November 20, 2020, we hereby declare this establishment an AUTONOMOUS ZONE”.

Source: NY Post

The pub had its liquor license revoked by the state and was slapped with thousands of dollars in fines after defying New York’s latest move to “orange zone status” (whatever that means) thanks to the very huge brain of “Emmy nominated” Governor Andrew Cuomo.

Co-owner Danny Presti told The Post: “At this point, we’re OK with it, because we’re not paying it. [The Sheriff’s Department] is issuing us $1,000 fines, so they keep coming back. We’re still here. We’re not letting them in.”

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Here Comes the New Recession, by James Rickard

The second round of lockdowns will kill the economy. From James Rickard at dailyreckoning.com:

Let’s start with the basics. There’s no evidence that lockdowns work to stop the spread of coronavirus. None. This is not guesswork.

After ten months of the pandemic, we have data from more than twenty major countries around the world that have tried lockdowns in various forms. The lockdowns range from extreme (as happened in Victoria in Australia) to moderate (Sweden) to non-existent (South Dakota).

The results are striking. There was no material difference in caseloads or fatality rates regardless of what kind of lockdown was used. In some cases, an extreme lockdown reduced the spread for a short period of time. But, sooner than later, the virus returned. Lockdowns may briefly shift the caseload from one time period to another, but they do not change the total caseload over time.

Meanwhile, lockdowns kill. The lack of socialization during a lockdown leads to drastically increased rates of suicide, drug abuse, alcohol abuse, domestic violence and other deadly behaviors. Families are being separated (at best) or torn apart (at worst) due to the separation and stress of lockdowns.

Many people with other diseases such as cancer and heart disease avoid treatment for fear of contagion in hospitals and end up dying as a result. There’s nothing wrong with simple precautions such as hand-washing, social distancing and mask-wearing, although there’s good evidence that masks don’t work either. But, those steps are low cost, and people easily adapt to them.

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