Do Lockdowns Work?
A tale of more inconclusive COVID-19 research
Almost a month into 2021, and despite the promise of a fabulous new year the reality has already set in that the next 12 months probably won’t be as much of a breeze as we’d hoped. Vaccine programs are slowly rolling out, but given the scope of them it’s unlikely that we’ll be back to anything resembling normal any time soon. Facing rising case counts, and overwhelmed hospitals, many places around the world have decided to go into a second or even third lockdown to try and quash their truly out of control epidemics before the situation gets even more dire.
It’s been a bit of a depressing start to the year, to be sure.
In this wild maelstrom of clashing information, a story went viral last week claiming that all of this was unnecessary. you see, according to Newsweek and some other publications, a study had shown that there was no benefit to lockdowns over other voluntary measures that could be taken by governments.
Unfortunately for all of us, this research doesn’t really show very much. The reality is that it is much harder to tell if lockdowns — or any other measures against COVID-19 — work…
