Evidence on covid restrictions now conclusive

well warm welcome to today's talk Tuesday the 6th of June now today I want to report on the most impressive piece of scholarship that's so far been released on the effect of lockdowns this is it here the whole thing is available and in the public domain and I'm just going to give you a headline to see if you uh want to watch this video or not the talk is called lockdowns were a costly failure and covid-19 lockdowns were a global policy failure of gigantic proportions according to this report and this report actually looks at empirical data real numbers in the real world not modeling as was done per IOD always in the past so that's what this is about now this is the report here just released on uh just released in June as I say very thorough report all available in the public domain published by The london-based Institute of economic uh economic Affairs and uh it goes on to well over 200 pages so um check it out for yourself completely free to download which is very magnanimous of course of the authors and The Institute of economic Affairs to do that um but comprehensive and completely readable so let's get straight down to what it's talking about now lockdowns are a costly failure a global policy effect so this is everywhere um pretty well wherever you are we've been let down by our government so we'll be looking at the way reports were written but not adequately scrutinized by government this is primarily a governmental failure and I personally feel let down and and I know a lot of you do as well um now this is the update we're just looking at here that was the previous version there so as I say all available check it out for yourself so systematic review and meta-analysis so it takes the combination of useful papers which is a excellent way to do research published in London Institute of economic Affairs did lock down covered restrictions social distancing non-pharmaceutical interventions whatever you want to call it effect covered uh mortality based on the empirical evidence this is not someone sitting in a back room with a sophisticated uh calculator or a sophisticated computer this is actually real world data what actually happened and of course that is what science is all about science is all about empiricism or it's about nothing at all science is not theoretical it is a practical discipline um systematic search and screening procedure so they looked at pretty well 20 000 studies 32 qualified but only 22 converted for meta-analysis and that is because only 22 contain the real world data that was required in other words the numbers the numbers in the real world and this is why this study is so refreshing we're getting back to reality I think we've been in a bit of a bit of a flight of fantasy for the past few years ably led by government and mainstream media but now we're back to Scientific reality which Delights me um so 22 studies actually measured mortality data not derived from modeling now they used a stringency index as one of the uh one of the things they looked at that's how strict the lockdowns were so they were comparing to less strict areas such as Sweden average lockdown in Europe in the United States in the spring of 2020 which is as far as this day to go so this is the essentially the first wave isn't it the spring of 2020. only reduce mortality uh covid-19 by 3.2 percent this translates to approximately six thousand avoidable possess in Europe 4 000 avoidable deaths in the United States and uh when we come to look at the cost benefit analysis analysis of this and how this compares to other diseases these really are small amounts given these people primarily with significant comorbidities not all but primarily shelter in place orders the sort of guarding sort of thing that we talked about people that were Sheltering from the virus um relatively ineffective in the spring of 2020 the report says uh reducing covered mortality by two percent four thousand avoidable deaths in Europe three thousand in the United States so again pretty small effects and then specific npis these non-farmaceutical interventions spring of 2020 again the Jews covid-19 mortality by 10.7 percent of course there's an improvement significantly less than estimates produced by the epidemiological modelers but that's 22 23 000 avoidable deaths in Europe 16 000 in the United States but again when we compare these to other diseases and we're talking about whole countries here remember it will be put into context now Imperial College London this is the Neil Ferguson estimates March 2020 predicted lockdowns would say 400 000 lives in the United Kingdom now I remember well as I'm sure you do it's a pretty ingrained in my memory that the UK government in the early press conferences certainly the first press conference was going to go for a herd immunity type approach just protect those that need protected and let things let things follow their natural course then we had this the government got this information from the Neil Ferguson Department in um Imperial College London and they changed overnight because they thought 400 000 people were going to die why didn't the government scrutinize that information properly why did they take the advice of one academic group in one University and base whole policies on that and then the British decision of course influenced other decisions I I I obviously I I would think it affected decision making in the United States oh well that's what the Brits have done we better do the same sort of mentality but we hadn't analyzed it adequately clearly patently we now see that clearly and it's unacceptable this is a failure of government I perceive this as a failure of government academic groups can get it wrong of course but it's governments why did governments just take this on Lock Stock and Barrel hook line and sinker that it would have saved over 2 million lives in the United States according to this modeling problem is the modeling was inaccurate unfortunately now in comparison just start putting this in some sort of context on an average flu season 72 000 flu deaths in Europe uh 38 000 fluid deaths in the United States England and Wales it's 18 and a half thousand to twenty four thousand eight hundred this is in an average typical flu season these sort of deaths would be expected and we'd never had any of these measures for flu in the past although we've had this with us for centuries why was covert so different based on flawed modeling is the primarily the primary reason followed up by incompetent government acceptance of that Lord modeling um so direct quotes when checked for potential bias our results are robust the study says I was also also supported by the natural experiments we've been able to identify taking countries like Sweden in the real world the results of our meta-analysis support the conclusion that lockdowns in the spring of 2020 had a negligible effect on covid-19 mortality negligible effect this result is consistent with the view that voluntary changes in Behavior such as social distancing digplay and important role in mitigating the pandemic so the statutory government enforced heavy-handed bits didn't work the self-discipline did work giving people the um or basically treating your population as an adult that can uh that can make its own decisions that wasn't done primarily in European and American countries um voluntary measures were effective in reducing covered more covid-19 mortality and so in so voluntary measures were effective so this is is this is not saying do nothing not by any means it's saying do the minimum and you get comparable results not saying do nothing it's not saying covert doesn't matter it did it does um it did much more then because it was making people ill in relatively large numbers consistent with evidence early in the pandemic that voluntary action had already begun to work so the irony here is that the voluntary action was already beginning to work the legislation uh made minimal negligible negligible is the term used by this study negligible difference the negative conclusion is Amplified by significant economic costs so stunted economic growth unfortunately uh public debts are now massive we're now paying the cost of that of course rising in the quality all bad damage to Children's Health and education bad um reduced Health Quality of Life bad increased crime bad threats to democracy and loss of Freedom yes covered disinformation unit that we looked at yesterday set up by the British government 77th Brigade a branch of the British military uh that may well have been used to spy on its own people not what we would prefer at least not what I would prefer and I suspect if you're watching not what you prefer either we don't want to be surveilled by the state for having independent academic or philosophical views um we want academic freedom to discuss to debate of course one that's close to my heart being a former mental health nurse damage to mental health was a big factor now this data is from NHS digital Graphics actually from The Daily Telegraph which has been covering this very well I'll put some links at the bottom so um Mid so this is mid-mid 2010 so about 2015. so here we have um here we have 11 to 16 year olds roundabout 2015 13.3 reporting mental health issues after the pandemic went up to 17.7 -24 it went up from 10.1 to 17.4 of the population 16 to 39 year olds it is hard work being a later young person and young adult um but it was 3.5 of people reporting mental health illnesses in this group shot up to 23 percent showing the economic impact of the restrictions partly um other things as well but that was a main factor huge so getting on for a quarter getting on for a quarter now of 16 to 39 year olds in the United Kingdom 23 reporting mental health issues this is a real indictment on many things but they're the current figures uh 40 to 69 year olds it went up from 3.7 to 15 percent of the population over 70s from 1.3 percent to nine percent huge increases in mental distress and you've all suffered mental distress to some degree some more than others it's just appalling mental distress is appalling and that's what mental health is the converse of uh mental health is not really mental ill health it is but it's mental distress and the appalling feelings and individual and family and societal consequences of that massive increase in in mental health problems more on that when we get time because it's a very very important matter and it's got implications for pretty well everything conclusion from these authors unless substantial alternative evidence emerges lockdowns should be rejected out of hand for future pandemics does depend slightly on the future pandemic I would have thought but um because bear in mind we don't know what the next um virus will be will it be a one that humans have tweaked whose function has been gained will it be a significant zoonotic virus or could there even be a bacterial pandemic of course not impossible with antibiotic resistance and other factors um right the the science of lockdown is clear the authors say the data are in so they're reaching firm conclusions the deaths saved were a drop in the book it compared to the Staggering collateral costs imposed and the deaths imposed for whatever reason now we still have excess deaths in the United Kingdom I think the figure the last figure I looked at was about 11 percent for the last week that data was available higher than we would expect this is ongoing multifactorial we've discussed some possible causes of excess death of course other possible causes of excess death we haven't discussed but they are there and this is a factor uh so let's just hear from one of the authors uh Professor Lars jungun Sweden Lund University this study is the first all-encompassing evaluation of the research of the effectiveness and of mandatory restrictions on mortality it demonstrates that lockdowns were a failed promise they are negligible health effects but disastrous very strong words negligible health effects and disastrous economic very strong words economic social political cost to society most likely lockdowns present the biggest policy mistake of modern times quite incredible really and um should we be a bin should I have been more critical of governments at the time obviously but that was the only data we were getting we don't this is why trust has been destroyed we trusted governments we trusted our chief scientific officers we trusted our chief medical officer and that trust I'm afraid has been destroyed and the implications of that are massive massive implications of that um Jonas Herbie Copenhagen numerous misleading studies he claims driven by subjective modeling so this modeling's been the big problem hasn't it this rubbish modeling and overlooking significant factors like voluntary Behavior changed the modeling should have taken an account significant factors so it's not just that the modeling is rubbish um it was a case of garbage and garbage out very often unfortunately heavily influenced by initial perceptions of lockdown as highly effective measures why did people perceive this as being the case without the evidence we need the evidence our Metro analysis suggests that when restrictions researchers accounted for additional variables such as voluntary Behavior the impact of lockdowns became negligible and then finally uh Professor Steve Hankey Johns Hopkins University another one of the authors uh when it comes to covert epidemiological modeling models have many things in common dubious assumptions hair racing predictions of disaster that miss the mark and few learned lessons so let's get rid of dubious assumptions we don't want any more of those let's get rid of hair raising predictions that miss the mark and let's get rid of not not get rid of let's enhance lessons let's learn lessons because that was a major failure the size of lockdowns is clear the data are in save lives of a drop in the bucket compared to the stagging Staggering collateral costs so there is the full paper there it's a book actually do check it out for yourself um and is uh eminently readable not in gobbledygook anyone who wants to spend a bit of time can read it and get this kind of material out from it so hopefully more details on that soon I wanted to give you that quick rundown on it so you know roughly what all this talking is about and personally I'm convinced by this scholarship thank you for watching

Channel: Dr. John Campbell

Views: 1,030,590

Keywords: physiology, nursing, NCLEX, health, disease, biology, medicine, nurse education, medical education, pathophysiology, campbell, human biology, human body

Id: qrIeYpCp0fc

Length: 17min 2sec (1022 seconds)

Published: Thu Jun 08 2023