Lockdown is Useless and has Almost No Effect on Curbing Spread, Scientists Find

Keeping people locked up has a negligible effect on the spread, meaning that most people lost their jobs, savings, and went into debt for literally no reason.

We already knew that coronavirus is as dangerous as the flu, and now we know that people not meeting with their friends and loved ones is not even doing anything to stop the spread.

Daily Mail:

Draconian stay-at-home orders and shutting all non-essential businesses had little effect on fighting coronavirus in Europe, according to a study.

But the same scientists discovered closing schools and banning all mass gatherings did work in slowing outbreaks across the continent.

University of East Anglia researchers now say relaxing the stay-at-home policy and letting some businesses reopen could be the UK’s first step to easing lockdown.

The findings throw into question whether Britain’s total lockdown – announced on March 23 – was ever necessary amid claims social distancing policies announced on March 16 curbed the crisis on their own.

Other leading scientists have claimed Britain’s COVID-19 outbreak peaked and started to decline before the official lockdown began, arguing that Number 10’s drastic policy to shut the UK down was wrong.

Transport use plummeted and fewer people were visiting GPs with tell-tale coronavirus symptoms the week before lockdown, suggesting the government’s call for the public to work from home where possible and to only take essential travel was effective enough.

UEA researchers looked at a range of social distancing measures adopted across 30 European countries.

They cautioned that the study, which was funded by the National Institute for Health Research Health Protection Research Unit in Emergency Preparedness and Response at King’s College London and Public Health England, is experimental.

Banning mass gatherings, along with closing schools and some non-essential businesses, particularly in the hospitality sector, were the most effective ways at stopping the spread of the disease, the researchers found.

They said that more investigation is needed on the use of face coverings in public, as the current results, which do not support using them in public, were ‘too preliminary’.

One of the scientists involved in the research, Dr Julii Brainard, said they found clear distinctions between which measures were more effective.

We found that three of the control measures were especially effective and the other two were not,’ she told BBC Radio 4 this morning.

It pains me to say this because I have kids that I’d like to get back into education, but closing schools was the most effective single measure, followed by mass gatherings.

‘[This was] followed by what were defined… as the initial business closures. So that was the point when, in the UK for instance, they closed gyms and clubs.

‘Adding very little additional effect was the stay-at-home measure, surprisingly, and the additional business closures.’

The research adds to claims from Dr Johan Giesecke, of Stockholm’s Karolinska Institutet, that total lockdowns are unnecessary because the virus is unstoppable. Although he admits the benefit of preventing hospitals from becoming overwhelmed which, the UK Government says, has been its aim all along.

Writing in an article in The Lancet, Dr Giesecke said: ‘Many countries (and members of their press media) have marvelled at Sweden’s relaxed strategy in the face of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic: schools and most workplaces have remained open, and police officers were not checking one’s errands in the street.

It has become clear that a hard lockdown does not protect old and frail people living in care homes—a population the lockdown was designed to protect.

‘Neither does it decrease mortality from COVID-19, which is evident when comparing the UK’s experience with that of other European countries.’

Everyone should share news about this study and let people know that governments have no excuse anymore.

The lockdown is not doing anything to the virus.

It’s just destroying people’s lives.