A review of fifty states conducted by the Emory University and Southern Methodist University in collaboration with the Georgia Center for Opportunity and the Texas Public Policy Foundation revealed that lockdowns have minimal benefit to public health.
LifeSite highlighted that the review showed that lockdowns only created unemployment, wrecked economies, and did not contribute to reduce COVID-19 hospitalizations or deaths. The four organizations' 510-page report concluded with "statistically significant evidence that the severity of governmental actions was negatively associated with employment 12 months and 15 months after the initiation of the pandemic."
The study, entitled "Assessing Each State's Response To The Pandemic: Understanding The Impact On Employment and Work," was led by Georgia Center For Opportunity Director of Research Erik Randolph. The researchers used "an abridged version of the Stringency Index from the Coronavirus Government Response Tracker of the Blavatnik School of Government, Oxford University, to measure the governmental responses of the states" alongside creating its own index for the period of March to June 2021.
The review's collaborators ran an analysis of 204 forecasts involving statistical tests and collected state data. The review also found that while lockdowns were generally associated with fewer COVID cases, they did not lower hospitalization or mortality rate.
"The economic benefits from more severe actions seem to be related only to reduced COVID cases and not hospitalizations or deaths," the Georgia center said in the report.
"The economic tradeoff of higher job loss due to more severe governmental actions were suppressed COVID cases. COVID hospitalizations and deaths failed the statistical tests for correlations, i.e., the relationships appear to be random," the researchers from the two universities said.
The researches also urged the government to make decisions based on evidence and to use a "targeted" approach in the future when it comes to restrictions. Doing so, they said, would lessen the impact on the consequences of the lockdowns. The loss of employment in the 50 states ranged from 0.5% to 1.3%.
"The evidence shows an associated harmful and measurable impact on non-farm employment more than a year after the initiation of the pandemic. However, the evidence suggests that the economic tradeoff was not for less COVID hospitalizations and deaths as many would have hoped. Only COVID cases have an association with the severity of governmental actions," the researchers said.
"(There is the) need to take this evidence into consideration when crafting policies and imposing economic restrictions during times of prolonged crises," they added. "(Be) mindful to reduce the impact on employment that can harm people's livelihoods and have long-term consequences."
A study published by WebMD in December 2020 similarly revealed that lockdowns were ineffective as a precautionary measure for the COVID-19 pandemic. The study was conducted solely in Florida whose Governor Ron DeSantis not only disregarded lockdowns but also mask mandates.
More recently, Florida reported the lowest number of COVID-19 cases in the country, despite not mandating masks.
"They should not be mandated. No government entity should force you to do that. That is your choice," the Republican Governor declared in August. "If that's something you believe provides you protection, no one is going to say anything to you. But that should not, absolutely not, be mandated."
Lockdowns are reported to only result in higher suicide rates among kids besides destroying the economy and increasing unemployment based on a Fair Health Study released first quarter of this year. This excludes the increased number of "missing" students from the school system according to the Bellweather Education study.
