""even if in hindsight we know lockdowns unequivocally fail cost-benefit analysis, we didn’t know that at the time...""
And
"While the exact degree of excess damage was not known at the time, anyone not malicious or at least extremely negligent could have predicted that lockdowns would do more damage than the virus itself."
Are people saying this? Has it been established? I don't doubt at all that lockdowns did more harm than good, but I haven't seen great evidence of it (nor against it), much less people accepting that lockdowns did more harm than good.
What has struck me in fact has been the lack of curiosity for a cost benefit analysis of lockdowns. A good government would have produced one by now, but I'm unaware of any CBAs on lockdowns funded by the USG.
'We' did know at the time that the CoV2 was mild in effect or harmless to most of the population. 'We' know 'we' knew because 'we' said so at the time - Dr Whitty Chief Medical Officer for UK Govt said it publicly, plus other evidence from Diamond Princess and data from China showed it to be that only a very small cohort in the population was at risk of severe consequences and being mostly elderly were not much mobile or engaged in economic activity, so poor spreaders and of little consequence to the economy.
But for the sake of argument let us accept the virus would be akin to a serious 'flu epidemic, the effect would have been mass absenteeism from work and schools, social interactions would fall. The result being wide-scale disruption of transportation, manufacturing, retail, distribution services, education and economic downturn. However many people would be immune or only slightly affected, most would recover within two weeks and so after a couple of months, life and the economy would be back to near normal, so overall disruption to the economy, education and society would have been relatively moderate and short-term.. The community immunity acquired would ensure the following Winter wave would be less disruptive.
The only case for any action would be to avoid what aseroous epidemic, if allowed to happen, would cause. Imposing restrictions that caused the very same things is idiotic, because there would be no benefit, and extended restrictions delayed return to normality which the actual epidemic would not. The most vulnerable would still end up in hospital and/or die either way. Bonus: lockdowns have no effect once a pathogen is active within a population.
However the virus without restrictions would not have produced the same effect as bad 'flu or lockdowns, and 'we' knew that in 2020 because the UK Government's own pandemic plan, put together and updated over the course of a century said so, and indicated that lockdowns would not work and would be counterproductive, causing more economic and social harm, and damage to health..
The same plan appeared on the WHO website and was the same as used by the Swedish Government.
You've said a number of times that lockdowns were "the worst experience in the lives of most people in my generation." I expect that the worst experience for the typical person is something more mundane, like the death of a loved one or break up.
This piece would benefit from explaining how leaders the world over *knew* that lockdowns would cause more harm than good. No doubt they did, but that's a benefit of hindsight.
""even if in hindsight we know lockdowns unequivocally fail cost-benefit analysis, we didn’t know that at the time...""
And
"While the exact degree of excess damage was not known at the time, anyone not malicious or at least extremely negligent could have predicted that lockdowns would do more damage than the virus itself."
Are people saying this? Has it been established? I don't doubt at all that lockdowns did more harm than good, but I haven't seen great evidence of it (nor against it), much less people accepting that lockdowns did more harm than good.
What has struck me in fact has been the lack of curiosity for a cost benefit analysis of lockdowns. A good government would have produced one by now, but I'm unaware of any CBAs on lockdowns funded by the USG.
'We' did know at the time that the CoV2 was mild in effect or harmless to most of the population. 'We' know 'we' knew because 'we' said so at the time - Dr Whitty Chief Medical Officer for UK Govt said it publicly, plus other evidence from Diamond Princess and data from China showed it to be that only a very small cohort in the population was at risk of severe consequences and being mostly elderly were not much mobile or engaged in economic activity, so poor spreaders and of little consequence to the economy.
But for the sake of argument let us accept the virus would be akin to a serious 'flu epidemic, the effect would have been mass absenteeism from work and schools, social interactions would fall. The result being wide-scale disruption of transportation, manufacturing, retail, distribution services, education and economic downturn. However many people would be immune or only slightly affected, most would recover within two weeks and so after a couple of months, life and the economy would be back to near normal, so overall disruption to the economy, education and society would have been relatively moderate and short-term.. The community immunity acquired would ensure the following Winter wave would be less disruptive.
The only case for any action would be to avoid what aseroous epidemic, if allowed to happen, would cause. Imposing restrictions that caused the very same things is idiotic, because there would be no benefit, and extended restrictions delayed return to normality which the actual epidemic would not. The most vulnerable would still end up in hospital and/or die either way. Bonus: lockdowns have no effect once a pathogen is active within a population.
However the virus without restrictions would not have produced the same effect as bad 'flu or lockdowns, and 'we' knew that in 2020 because the UK Government's own pandemic plan, put together and updated over the course of a century said so, and indicated that lockdowns would not work and would be counterproductive, causing more economic and social harm, and damage to health..
The same plan appeared on the WHO website and was the same as used by the Swedish Government.
So 'we' did know. There are no excuses.
Right on
You've said a number of times that lockdowns were "the worst experience in the lives of most people in my generation." I expect that the worst experience for the typical person is something more mundane, like the death of a loved one or break up.
This piece would benefit from explaining how leaders the world over *knew* that lockdowns would cause more harm than good. No doubt they did, but that's a benefit of hindsight.