The Case Against Lockdowns

The most perverse thing about lockdowns to me is that it seems additional suicides, the huge damage to youth and economic destruction isn't even a consideration in those decisions. It's not weighed up at all.

Which to me seems like we're saying as a society that the life of a 83 year old (median age of death) is more important than the life of a teenager or young adult who is more likely to commit suicide or experience depression.

That's opposite of society's usual policy, which would pull out all of the stops to provide an organ to a healthy child over a chain smoking 83 year old, for example.

I have always felt that lockdown would be a huge mistake for America. It does not take a genius to predict that US would fumble the whole thing. Too many decisions are made without considering the mindset of the population (sociology) and the overall historical factors. Lockdowns only work if they can be strictly enforced like in China, because of Dictatorship government. Or like in South Korea, where the population is more receptive to government demands and overall has a very homogeneous Sociological profile. America was always going to be a mess, and the lockdown only allowed for larger consolidation of wealth towards large businesses who were either too large to fail or could weather the storm. While most of the small business went under.

The rise in suicides is entirely mythological: https://slate.com/technology/2020/11/whats-actually-happenin.... It not being a factor in the decision-making process is, therefore, rather appropriate.

As to economic damage and the general impact on well-being, it seems blatantly untrue to state that they are not considered. The fact alone that these lockdowns were often lifted rather early indicates as much.

The term itself isn't very helpful because it can mean anything to anybody, and in almost no case has it meant what I would usually assume the meaning of the term to be: actual curfews. Instead, each jurisdiction has tried to find a set of restrictions that, ideally, would be low-impact but be strongly effective. It's well-documented by now that these measures tend to work well, in aggregate. Unfortunately, the data isn't quite as good for any individual measure. And the likely contenders for top efficacy are also the most hurtful. Closing schools is the undisputed leader here: it's mighty effective but makes life miserable for children and parents alike.

Economic decline is directly linked to suicidality and negative health outcomes in general, proven in multiple independent studies.

Disneyland fired 32,000 people as a direct result, representing probably 6 figures of people impacted directly and indirectly from a single company alone.

Your claim that suicidality spiking is "mythological" is itself totally false according to a much more recent source. [1]

[1] https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2021/02/02/9620601...

>"Across the country, we're hearing that there are increased numbers of serious suicidal attempts and suicidal deaths," says Dr. Susan Duffy, a professor of pediatrics and emergency medicine at Brown University.