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by Morley Evans
Hi Morley,
The "lockdown" measures that persist in various forms today were sold to the public as a strictly temporary measure to "flatten the curve" and give hospitals enough time to secure supplies and increase bed capacity so that they wouldn't be overwhelmed with COVID-19 patients.
The influential model from Imperial College London projected that without extreme measures amounting to the indiscriminate quarantine of the entire population, hospitals would be flooded and the death toll would be massive.
After the UK, the US, and other countries implemented measures appropriately given the prison-inspired label of "lockdown", the lockdown advocates in the scientific community, academia, government, and the media bewailed Sweden's choice not to follow the pack.
The consequence, the doomsdayers warned, would be total hospital overwhelm and a massive death toll. Time magazine said it would be "a historical massacre".
What actually happened was that Sweden successfully flattened the curve without resorting to authoritarian measures.
So what did the lockdown advocates do? Did they acknowledge that they had been wrong and concede that perhaps, just maybe, such extreme measures were not necessary after all?
Nope. Just as the justification for lockdown shifted away from "flattening the curve" to eliminating "cases", so did the criteria for judging Sweden's approach shift. Rather than acknowledging the success of Sweden's policy in its stated goal, they pointed to Sweden's rate of deaths per capita, decrying how it exceeded that of its Scandinavian neighbours, Norway, Finland, and Denmark, and attributing this to the absence of authoritarian measures.
Yet, Sweden's death rate still remained lower than other lockdown countries, including the UK. As of last month, the population-adjusted death rate in the US also surpassed that of Sweden.
Also, the single greatest factor in Sweden's higher death toll compared to its neighbours was the number of deaths among long-term care facility residents. Its government has acknowledged this failure -- which is something the governors of lockdown states in the US have refused to do.
The fact that Sweden's decision to not implement lockdown had nothing to do with the tragic number of deaths among nursing homes residents is easily demonstrated by the fact that 40% or more of deaths in the US have also been linked to nursing homes, a proportion that rises to 50% or more in dozens of lockdown states.
Having shifted the justification, lockdown advocates also remain narrowly focused on "cases" while ignoring the immense harms caused by the policies they favour. Neil Ferguson and his co-authors on the Imperial College paper stated explicitly that, while advocating lockdown, they were not considering the economic harms that would result.
Moreover, "cases" are a practically meaningless metric, especially in light of how their numbers are determined by counting "positive" results from RT-PCR tests that do not distinguish between the viable virus and non-infectious viral RNA. Even the lockdown-loving New York Times has admitted that 90% of so-called "cases" in the US have been individuals who were probably not contagious.
The harms of lockdown measures surely warrant consideration, as does their sustainability. Sweden's approach was based on the assumption that any policy measures must be sustainable over the long-term.
Sweden has been accused of recklessly pursuing a "herd immunity" strategy, but the lockdown advocates are recklessly placing faith in vaccine technology to save us.
Natural herd immunity is basic epidemiology, and it is precisely what will enable those at highest risk to eventually come out of isolation, too, and enjoy their lives. The lockdown advocates say it's impossible to achieve without resulting in massive deaths.
Yet the number of daily deaths attributed to COVID-19 in Sweden has been in the single digits since July. How is that possible if not because a substantial enough level of population immunity has been reached wherein the transmission is reduced such that those at highest risk can be kept protected?
To achieve herd immunity, the lockdowners argue, 60% or more of the population would have to become infected, and serological studies looking at antibodies as evidence of infection have indicated that no more than around 10% of Sweden's population has been exposed.
But that argument ignores numerous studies explaining why the herd immunity threshold could be much lower. There is heterogeneity in transmission dynamics, so not everyone is equally likely to spread the virus to others if infected, and scientific evidence strongly indicates that there is already background immunity to SARS-CoV-2 due to cross-protective T-cell immunity gained from common coronaviruses that cause the common cold.
The lockdowners argue that natural immunity may wane quickly because antibodies wane over time. Still, they again ignore the fact that antibodies are neither always sufficient nor even necessary for immunity. Cellular immunity appears to play an equally if not more important role than antibodies. Plus, even if antibodies wane, memory B-cells can quickly produce them again as needed upon reexposure.
The cognitive dissonance and hypocrisy of the lockdowners are most glaring when it comes to their faith in vaccine technology. Natural herd immunity is unachievable, they argue, so we must continue lockdown measures until there is a vaccine that can confer herd immunity artificially.
Let's be clear: that is not a policy based on science but on faith. The arguments against natural herd immunity, such as the unknown duration of immunity, are all the more true and relevant for their goal of vaccine-conferred immunity.
This is not an academic debate. Both our health and our liberty are at stake.
The idea that humans were created without a properly functioning immune system such that we all require pharmaceutical intervention to achieve good health is arrogant, narcissistic, and scientifically ludicrous.
Likewise, the idea that we all require politicians to dictate our behaviour, as though politicians were a special breed of benevolent homo sapiens blessed with omniscience, is dangerously and preposterously naïve.
Among the lockdown advocates, of course, are mainstream media corporations like the New York Times. In my latest fully referenced article, I demonstrate how the Times gets it wrong on Sweden and how it otherwise lies to the public by claiming that science supports the lockdown measures it advocates.
Learn how the New York Times gets it wrong on Sweden
With politicians having responded to the pandemic by deliberately shutting down the economy and driving millions of people toward financial ruin, there's no better time to get an education in how to become more independent financially.
And given how severe COVID-19 is associated with having one or more underlying chronic illnesses, there's no better time to focus on bettering or maintaining good health.
Unfortunately, to stay healthy these days isn't exactly cheap. It's no coincidence that poverty is associated with worse health outcomes. Tragically, toxin-laden processed foods are less expensive than organic raw foods, for example (not to mention the difficulty many people have in being able to afford to dedicate the time required to prepare healthy homemade meals every day).
In the upcoming docu-series Money Revealed, numerous successful entrepreneurs and investors will explain the methods that have enabled them to create and preserve wealth -- the kind of wealth that would eliminate financial obstacles to better health outcomes.
If you ever saw the docu-series Vaccines Revealed, this is from the same filmmaking team. Money Revealed will be available to watch for free online starting October 27:
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