Peer-Reviewed Study By Stanford Reveals Lockdowns Are Ineffective

More Evidence Proves Lockdowns Are Ineffective

Dr. Joseph Mercola

STORY AT-A-GLANCE 

• A recent analysis compared states with restrictive interventions (lockdowns) against those with less restrictive strategies and found lockdowns are not an effective way to reduce the spread of COVID-19
• Lockdowns have forced 60% of businesses to close; during the lockdown there has been an increase in the number of suicides, child abuse, rape and domestic abuse
• The drug overdose epidemic has grown more complicated and deadly during the lockdowns, yet there is no historical precedence for lockdowns during a pandemic
• More than 6,000 medical practitioners and medical and public health scientists signed a petition to halt the lockdowns citing "irreparable damage"

A peer-reviewed study by Stanford University showed lockdowns have not provided the expected benefits.3 The team set out to determine if the restrictive non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPI) enacted to control the spread of COVID-19 were potentially less effective than anticipated.

The Stanford team evaluated data from 10 countries4 that had used less restrictive nonpharmaceutical interventions (lrNPI) and compared those against other countries that implemented mandatory stay at home and business closures, or more restrictive NPIs (mrNPI).5

In nine out of the 10 countries studied, the research found data supported a reduction in the number of cases when any type of NPI was implemented. However, after analysis, they did not find a significant beneficial effect using more restrictive interventions over less restrictive strategies in any of the countries studied.

In other words, the countries that implemented lrNPI such as mask wearing and voluntary social distancing experienced little difference from those implementing mrNPI. They concluded:6

“While small benefits cannot be excluded, we do not find significant benefits on case growth of more restrictive NPIs.

By comparing the effectiveness of NPIs on case growth rates in countries that implemented more restrictive measures with those that implemented less restrictive measures, the evidence points away from indicating that mrNPIs provided additional meaningful benefit above and beyond lrNPIs.”

Political scientist and author Wilfred Reilly, Ph.D., evaluated the data in early 2020 and wrote there's no empirical evidence the lockdowns have had any effect in reducing the spread of the virus.7 He used publicly available data to compare seven states that had not adopted shelter-in-place orders against those that imposed restrictive interventions.

He found the numbers did not support lockdowns as a means of limiting the spread of the contagion. He also discovered that large, densely populated cities had a higher rate of COVID-19, without respect to the strategy they used. He wrote:8

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