Americans Want to Move on From COVID

“We find no evidence that lockdowns, school closures, border closures, and limiting gatherings have had a noticeable effect on COVID-19 mortality,” researchers wrote in a new analysis for Johns Hopkins University. That doesn’t mean lockdowns had no effect. “They have contributed to reducing economic activity, raising unemployment, reducing schooling, causing political unrest, contributing to domestic violence, and undermining liberal democracy,” the report notes. Given these “enormous economic and social costs,” the researches conclude, “a standard benefit-cost calculation leads to a strong conclusion: lockdowns should be rejected out of hand as a pandemic policy instrument.”