Dr. Anthony Fauci, the chief medical adviser to President Biden, said this week that we never know whether the lockdowns imposed on Americans in the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic were “worth it.”
“You know, I don’t think we’re ever going to be able to determine what the right balance is,” Fauci said on BBC when asked if the lockdowns were “worth it” or “too severe.”
“I think the restrictions – if you want to use that word, which I tend to shy away from, lockdown – they certainly prevented a lot of infections, prevented a lot of hospitalizations, and prevented a lot of deaths. There’s no doubt about that,” he claimed.
He did, however, acknowledge that with the lockdowns came many “unintended negative consequences,” particularly among children who were unable to attend school.
Fauci’s come after numerous studies have shown that lockdowns didn’t stop the spread of the virus and, in at least some cases, caused more harm than good.
A study from Johns Hopkins University earlier this year found that lockdowns reduced mortality in the U.S. and Europe by just 0.2% – a figure just about anyone would agree would not make the lockdowns “worth it.”
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17 Responses
Conspiracy theorists are usually right these days on many issues,
But it takes years till it comes out and even then there is never an apology for the absolute harassment of these “crazies”
Not taking any position here, but I don’t think you can objectively say that the 0.2% reduction in mortality rates were not “worth it”. If you or your children would have been part of that 0.2%, I think that you might have different opinion on the matter.
I feel so priveleged to have headline writers more knowledgable about the subject featured in the article than the experts quoted therein!
Eagerly awaiting the day he makes his claims in a criminal court rather than to the BBC.
This is what R Meir Twersky was warning about – non-Jews valuing business costs on par with human lives. Jews don’t do that. Luckily, Dr Fauci is doing it post-factum. Trump somehow combined being cheerful and encouraging people while doing the right thing on pandemic at the time.
The quoted article is pretty complicated and not conclusive. They are reviewing hundreds of papers, trying to separate effects of different policies COMPARING with others. I just scanned it quickly. 2.4% is one number when they compare COMPULSARY policies with volunteer policies at the time – and only for “weighted high quality papers”, which down-selects only a small number of them.
In other results from the article: (table 7 in the paper)
face masks 13% and 34% (high quality) reduction (2 papers).
business closure 20-30% reduction
school closures: 3 papers +-1%, 1 ow quality 50% reduction
here is their explanation at the end: actual personal behavior is important, not what government says:
voluntary behavioral changes are 10 times as important as mandatory behavioral changes in combating COVID-19. If people voluntarily adjust their behavior to the risk of the pandemic, closing down non-essential businesses may simply reallocate consumer visits away from “nonessential” to “essential” businesses… with limited impact on the total number of contacts.
yankelle – and do u know how people were affected by the lockdowns? if you knew people that have suffered real, real trauma from it, you wouldn’t be so quick to okay it. also hope i’m not coming off strong, just a point to consider
Congratulations on being late to the party. Anyone who thinks the lockdowns/restrictions were effective is a shoteh
Headlines written by apikorsim. Since everything is in Hashems hands except Yiras Shamayim, I find it difficult to believe that a Jew would say its ok to have some deaths as long as we can continue our lifestyle. Children were deprived of attending school but enriched by being home with loving parents who teach them far more than a classroom can and a lockdown isnt forever. Yes, businesses suffered as they adjusted to online formats. Money is secondary to health. I know people who are now poor as their breadwinners died or became handicapped due to Covid. This is a new reality in our lives, it takes time to learn and adjust and test what we can do and what we cant. While we are smarter today, at the time lockdowns were just common sense. Being reckless at the expense of human lives is against the Torah and simply irresponsible governing. I am proud of the quick chessed response of the Jewish community but embarrassed by this article. Just as businesses, schools, have to adjust to changes in technology, communities, needs and wants, competitions, wars, political changes, availability to supplies etc. we all have to adjust. I understand hating lockdowns and blaming Faucci is fun but honestly, he did exactly as the Torah commands us, Bachartem BaChaim – Choose Life.
Yankelle, how many more people killed themselves or will kill themselves because of the lockdowns?
During those periods, domestic violence, child abuse, suicide, overdoses dramatically increased. We have still not seen the full fallout from the children , especially teens, impacted. Many future deaths may still be attributed (but not accredited) to the bad policy lockdowns which shut down hundreds of thousands of businesses permanently and ruined countless lives . Not to mention medical appointments and treatments which were postponed.
Had we locked down just the very vulnerable, we could have been over and done with covid from two years ago. We would have gotten REAL herd immunity and been done. Instead, we all got covid anyway, just over a longer time period.
I think there were many other bad decisions that increased the death levels including severe negligence in hospitals, ignoring available drugs and treatments- when in your life did you ever hear of an illness where the RECOMMENDED treatment is “stay home until you are very sick and need the hospital” There are so many drugs that reduced covid deaths but were brushed under the rug in favor of developing new (and more dangerous) treatments. Another thing I don’t understand is why the hospitals had such stupid PPE policies
If half their patients have the same disease, why did the nurses have to change their entire outfit between those patients? At great personal cost and time, which resulted in reduced patient care. They could have designated nurses and doctors for those patients, and just changed the usual gloves etc in between. Zero common sense
Today is April fools which is appropriate because only a woketard fool would buy what Dr. Falsi is peddling now. This is attempted spin and damage control for the pandemic he caused and the subsequent misdirections he has done via public policy to assert control over the sheeple and cover his tracks.
Next order of business is to make sure all the sheeple get their 4th “vaccine” which doesn’t vaccinate but does enrich Pfizer. Anyone foolish enough to get onboard with the first 3, it’s time to wake up: if the first 3 “vaccinations” didn’t work why would a 4th?!
Fauci isn’t sure if the lives saved where worth the inconvenience
“lockdown – they certainly … prevented a lot of deaths. There’s no doubt about that,”
Its a bit jarring that a “Frum” website isn’t sure if saving lives was “worth it”
We can compare jurisdictions that jumped at every CDC suggest on closing down businesses, cancelling the education of children, fanatic masking, etc., with those jurisdictions that took everything CDC said with the proverbial “grain of salt” and did the minimum required by law, if that much. If the CDC was justified, the skeptics should have had massive “die-offs” and their economies should be in shambles, and those who thought that CDC was a divine revelation should have had minimal deaths and illness and should be prospering. The goyim has a phrase “the proof of the pudding is in the tasting”, and based on outcomes, Fauci and the CDC have left a bad taste in many people’s mouths.
This is all sheker. It is abundantly clear that this was all evil, including the lock-downs.
BLM protests were perfectly fine (no spread there, of course) while the authorities closed our shuls and schools.
Etc. etc. etc. etc.
More than that this guy killed many of our brothers and sisters by denying proper health treatments in hospitals and then acting like he cares for our health on TV. The worst are yidden who r’l think that we should follow him and his decrees rather than rabbonim and daas torah and then claim that US Torah Yidden are making a “Chilul Hashem” when we are following REAL mainstream Daas Torah, not murderers who want us locked up and masked instead of making simchas and going to shul and yeshiva which is a REAL KIDDUSH HASHEM!!!
lets also remember for all you corona clowns that COVID-19 has a 99.99% survival rate, probobly higher survival rate than any other activity you do, ie. cars, airplanes …… just something to think about ….