Please be aware when reading this that the "Institute of Economic Affairs" is absolutely notorious in the UK for it's partisan and extreme libertarian views(at least in a British context), whether it be on tax cuts, climate change denial, promotion of gambling or the benefits of Brexit.<p>It is extremely secretive about who it is funded by, to the point of deliberately losing court cases to avoid having to disclose anything.<p>Even it's address, 55 Tufton Street is notorious as the home of multiple organisations which promote the same viewpoints, but it is by far the best known.<p>A brief attempt by Prime Minister Liz Truss to embrace it's economic wisdom by implementing massive tax cuts primarily for the wealthy without any decrease in spending almost crashed the UK economy and ended her term in office after a few weeks.<p>This doesn't mean everything they write is nonsense, but they most definitely will have started with a predefined conclusion and worked backwards to find a way to justify it.
“ COVID-19 lockdowns were “a global policy failure of gigantic proportions,” according to this peer-reviewed new academic study. The draconian policy failed to significantly reduce deaths while imposing substantial social, cultural, and economic costs.”<p>Wow. I distinctly remember how toxic this place became when anyone even hinted at questioning the lockdowns. …or even just asking for more information.<p>I hope many are spending some time reflecting on their horrible behavior and rash to judgement but I doubt it.
I don’t get it. How can social distancing NOT help during a pandemic?<p>Quote from the book 1491:<p>“One reason is that Indians were fresh territory for many plagues, not just one. Smallpox, typhoid, bubonic plague, influenza, mumps, measles, whooping cough—all rained down on the Americas in the century after Columbus. (Cholera, malaria, and scarlet fever came later.) Having little experience with epidemic diseases, Indians had no knowledge of how to combat them. In contrast, Europeans were well versed in the brutal logic of quarantine. They boarded up houses in which plague appeared and fled to the countryside.”<p>And here’s 3Blue1Brown running a simulation:<p><a href="https://youtu.be/gxAaO2rsdIs" rel="nofollow">https://youtu.be/gxAaO2rsdIs</a>
I'm curious how this differentiates between voluntary and involuntary lockdowns. Locally, we had compulsory lockdown for quite a while, but it was not even close to as effective as the early self-imposed social isolation that people did entirely of their own choice.
Lockdowns would've 'worked' if everyone did it, hard and fast, at the same time. They obviously become less effective if the initial spread is not suppressed, then it becomes whack-a-mole. A lot of possible pandemics have been stopped this way, we just don't know about them because they <i>were</i> stopped.<p>The concept is no different putting in fire breaks to stop a forest fire - isolate the infected, infection burns itself out, end of pandemic without need for global vaccination campaign.<p>Lockdowns are a good idea at the beginning, bad idea in the middle, inconsequential idea at the end
Direct PDF link:<p><a href="https://iea.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/Perspectives-_1_Did-lockdowns-work__June_web.pdf" rel="nofollow">https://iea.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/Perspectives-_...</a>
Good. "In hindsight, we have 20/20 vision." The next pandemic will be different, with a different virus, acting differently. And dear god, I hope that we again chose the side of caution and go into lockdown. Even if it turns out to be a nett loss for the economy in the end.
<a href="https://iea.org.uk/noble-prizing-winning-economists/" rel="nofollow">https://iea.org.uk/noble-prizing-winning-economists/</a><p>> The IEA is an educational charity and free market think tank.<p>> Our mission is to improve understanding of the fundamental institutions of a free society by analysing and expounding the role of the markets in solving economic and social problems. Given the current economic challenges facing Britain and the wider global environment, it is more vital than ever that we promote the intellectual case for a free economy, low taxes, freedom in education, health and welfare and lower levels of regulation.<p>Which explains why they appear to be using weasel words and strained comparisons to downplay the benefits of regulation.<p>> Mask mandates, which most countries avoided in Spring 2020, reduced mortality by 18.7 per cent, particularly mandates in workplaces; and<p>20% less deaths in exchange for mandating wearing a paper mask seems like a good deal? Esepecially as they're not comparing to not wearing masks, but just not requiring masks to be worn.