COVID-19
COVID Is Over — But Did We Learn Anything From It?
From the Daily Caller News Foundation
By PETER ROFF
The lockdowns instituted during the COVID pandemic were only supposed to last a few days. Remember “14 days to flatten the curve” was all that was needed to keep hospitals from being overwhelmed by patients infected with the rapidly spreading novel coronavirus.
Two weeks turned into three, then months. Schools were closed. Businesses were shut down. Commercial activity in the world’s most powerful nation ground almost to a halt, but the virus kept killing, mutating and spreading.
States like California and Kentucky enforced the lockdowns with ruthless efficiency. The free exercise of worship and assembly was crushed on the altar of public health and safety.
Was it worth it? The Committee to Unleash Prosperity’s report, “COVID Lessons Learned: A Retrospective After Four Years,” says no. Its authors, who include the Hoover Institution’s Dr. Scott Atlas (who served as an adviser to the White House Coronavirus Task Force), Johns Hopkins University economist Steve Hanke and the University of Chicago’s Casey Mulligan conclude, by using publicly available data and peer-reviewed studies, that the lockdowns cost more lives than they saved.
Atlas, Hanke, Mulligan and Phil Kerpen, president of the Committee to Unleash Prosperity (CTUP) and the fourth and final co-author, conclude: “The ordered shutdown of our schools, churches, and businesses brought little health benefits while imposing multi-trillions of dollars of long-term societal costs.”
“We did not focus on theories or models. We looked at cold, hard facts,” Kerpen says. “The evidence is overwhelming. Lockdowns, school closures, and societal panic/disruption resulted in a staggering number of excess non-COVID deaths in the United States versus zero in non-lockdown Sweden.”
Kerpen estimates that the policies implemented during the lockdowns saved approximately 16,000 lives while causing about 400,000 extra deaths and imposing staggering economic costs, including the loss of 49 million jobs.
Other adverse consequences stemming from the lockdowns cited in the report include a $6 trillion increase in government debt, hundreds of thousands of business bankruptcies and hundreds of thousands of excess deaths from loneliness, depression, alcoholism, drug abuse and delayed hospital care in part due to the forced social isolation.
In the U.S., catastrophes like COVID are usually followed by the appointment of bi-partisan, blue-ribbon commissions to study everything and issue recommendations we’re told will prevent something similar from happening again.
That hasn’t been done this time, which reinforces the suspicion in some minds that COVID-era policymakers who are still in a position to influence the conversation are hiding something. Having made a hash of things, they just as soon allow it all to slide down the memory hole.
Even in China, where popular opinion doesn’t matter, the investigation into the origins of the virus hit a stonewall thanks to what news reports have called “bureaucratic infighting.”
Too many people think the lockdowns worked. They’re ignoring the data. The CTUP report shows them to be wrong. It’s a call for a further probe that searches for the truth, no matter how uncomfortable it might be. Without it, how can we be sure the public’s health and safety will be protected the next time, not to mention our civil liberties?
The CTUP report offers a few “lessons learned” that should inform policymakers’ decision-making in the next crisis. One is that “Leaders should calm public fears, not stoke them.”
“Conventional wisdom pre-COVID was that communities respond best to pandemics when the normal social functioning of the community is least disrupted,” the authors conclude. During the pandemic, responsible officials in the public eye “intentionally stoked and amplified fear, which overlaid enormous economic, social, educational, and health harms on top of the harms of the virus itself.”
As hard as it is to argue against that, it’s easy to suggest the crisis was used as a political club. What of it? Suppose public health officials, the media, and other policymakers deliberately ignored sound science and proven pandemic countermeasures to inflict political damage on a president they wished to see booted from office. Does that matter? The answer is yes, it does.
There’s more to be learned because there’s more to be studied. None of the nations that used lockdowns to prevent COVID from spreading can report that they worked as intended.
“The best-performing major country in the world was Sweden,” Kerpen says, “which did not employ mandatory lockdowns. Yet, to the extent that official and unofficial commissions in many countries have issued reports, they say the principal lesson to be learned from the pandemic is to lockdown harder and faster. The evidence doesn’t support that. It tells us that the lockdown policies must never be imposed again.”
If Kerpen is correct, and the evidence suggests he is, then policymakers are drawing the wrong conclusions. Lockdowns were a failure, not a success.
Other ways must be found to prevent a future outbreak from turning into a pandemic, hopefully, before the next crisis presents itself.
A former U.S. News & World Report columnist and United Press International senior political writer, Peter Roff is an acknowledged expert on U.S. politics and the policy process. His take on politics and policy appears frequently in print and on U.S. and international broadcasting outlets. Email him at RoffColumns AT gmail.com. Follow him on social media AT TheRoffDraft.
From LifeSiteNews
When the convoy first came to Ottawa, allegations were floated that the memorial had been desecrated. After learning of this, Evely quickly organized a group of veterans to stand guard around the clock to protect the area.
A Canadian veteran appealed to the Ontario courts after he was convicted for organizing a guard around the National War Memorial during the Freedom Convoy.
In an October press release, the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms (JCCF) announced that an appeal has been filed in the Ontario Court of Appeals on behalf of Master Warrant Officer (Ret’d) Jeffrey Evely over his conviction for mischief and obstructing police while on his way to guard the Ottawa War Memorial during the 2022 Freedom Convoy.
“By locking down large sections of downtown Ottawa, the police were effectively preventing all civilians from accessing public areas and greatly exceeded their powers under the common law,” constitutional lawyer Chris Fleury explained.
“This case raises issues that have implications for protests across the province and the country. We are hopeful that the Ontario Court of Appeal will agree and grant leave to appeal,” he added.
The appeal argues that police overstepped their authority in their response to the 2022 protest of COVID mandates. Police actions at the time included locking down the Ottawa core, establishing checkpoints, and arresting protesters.
In September 2024, Everly was convicted of mischief and obstruction after his involvement in the 2022 Freedom Convoy, which protested COVID mandates by gathering Canadians in front of Parliament in Ottawa.
As LifeSiteNews previously reported, when the convoy first came to Ottawa, allegations were floated that the memorial had been desecrated. After learning of this, Evely quickly organized a group of veterans to stand guard around the clock to protect the area.
However, under former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s use of the Emergencies Act, many parts of downtown Ottawa were blocked to the public, and a vigilant police force roamed the streets.
It was during this time that Evely was arrested for entering a closed off section of downtown Ottawa during the early hours of February 19, 2022. He had been on his way to take the 4:25 a.m. shift protecting the Ottawa War Memorial.
As Evely walked to the memorial, he was allegedly told to stop by police. According to the police, Evely “ran for a short distance before being confronted by two additional police officers.”
He was forcibly pushed to the ground, landing face first. The veteran was then arrested and charged with mischief and obstructing police.
At the time, the use of the EA was justified by claims that the protest was “violent,” a claim that has still gone unsubstantiated.
In fact, videos of the protest against COVID regulations and shot mandates show Canadians from across the country gathering outside Parliament engaged in dancing, street hockey, and other family-friendly activities.
Indeed, the only acts of violence caught on video were carried out against the protesters after the Trudeau government directed police to end the protest. One such video showed an elderly women being trampled by a police horse.
While the officers’ actions were originally sanctioned under the EA, Federal Court Justice Richard Mosley ruled that Trudeau was “not justified” in invoking the EA, forcing Crown prosecutors to adopt a different strategy.
Now, Crown prosecutors allege that the common law granted police the authority to stop and detain Evely, regardless of the EA.
However, Evely and his lawyers have challenged this argument under section 9 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, insisting that his “arrest and detention were arbitrary.”
Earlier this month, Freedom Convoy organizers Tamara Lich and Chris Barber were sentenced to 18-month house arrest after a harrowing 25-month trial process. Many have condemned the sentence, warning it amounts to “political persecution” of those who stand up to the Liberal government.
COVID-19
Freedom Convoy leader Tamara Lich says ‘I am not to leave the house’ while serving sentence
From LifeSiteNews
‘I was hoping to be able to drop off and pick up my grandsons from school, but apparently that request will have to go to a judge’
Freedom Convoy leader Tamara Lich detailed her restrictive house arrest conditions, revealing she is “not” able to leave her house or even pick up her grandkids from school without permission from the state.
Lich wrote in a X post on Wednesday that this past Tuesday was her first meeting with her probation officer, whom she described as “fair and efficient,” adding that she was handed the conditions set out by the judge.
“I was hoping to be able to drop off and pick up my grandsons from school, but apparently that request will have to go to a judge under a variation application, so we’ll just leave everything as is for now,” she wrote.
Lich noted that she has another interview with her probation officer next week to “assess the level of risk I pose to re-offend.”
“It sounds like it’ll basically be a questionnaire to assess my mental state and any dangers I may pose to society,” she said.
While it is common for those on house arrest to have to ask for permission to leave their house, sometimes arrangements can be made otherwise.
On October 7, Ontario Court Justice Heather Perkins-McVey sentenced Lich and Chris Barber to 18 months’ house arrest after being convicted earlier in the year convicted of “mischief.”
Lich was given 18 months less time already spent in custody, amounting to 15 1/2 months.
As reported by LifeSiteNews, the Canadian government was hoping to put Lich in jail for no less than seven years and Barber for eight years for their roles in the 2022 protests against COVID mandates.
Interestingly, Perkins-McVey said about Lich and Barber during the sentencing, “They came with the noblest of intent and did not advocate for violence.”
Lich said that her probation officer “informed me of the consequences should I breach these conditions, and I am not to leave the house, even for the approved ‘necessities of life’ without contacting her to let her know where I’ll be and for how long,” she wrote.
“She will then provide a letter stating I have been granted permission to be out in society. I’m to have my papers on my person at all times and ready to produce should I be pulled over or seen by law enforcement out and about.”
Lich said that the probation officer did print a letter “before I left, so I could stop at the optometrist and dentist offices on my way home.”
She said that her official release date is January 21, 2027, which she said amounts to “1,799 days after my initial arrest.”
As reported by LifeSiteNews, Lich, reflecting on her recent house arrest verdict, said she has no “remorse” and will not “apologize” for leading a movement that demanded an end to all COVID mandates.
LifeSiteNews reported that Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre offered his thoughts on the sentencing, wishing them a “peaceful” life while stopping short of blasting the sentence as his fellow MPs did.
In early 2022, the Freedom Convoy saw thousands of Canadians from coast to coast come to Ottawa to demand an end to COVID mandates in all forms. Despite the peaceful nature of the protest, Trudeau’s government enacted the never-before-used Emergencies Act (EA) on February 14, 2022.
From Underdog to Top Broodmare
Trans Mountain executive says it’s time to fix the system, expand access, and think like a nation builder
Trump Admin Establishing Council To Make Buildings Beautiful Again
B.C. would benefit from new pipeline but bad policy stands in the way
Coutts border officers seize 77 KG of cocaine in commercial truck entering Canada – Street value of $7 Million
Carney government risks fiscal crisis of its own making
Top Scientists Deliberately Misrepresented Sea Level Rise For Years
-
Alberta6 hours ago
From Underdog to Top Broodmare
-
International17 hours agoPrince Andrew banished from the British monarchy
-
Alberta2 days agoNobel Prize nods to Alberta innovation in carbon capture
-
Business1 day agoCanada’s attack on religious charities makes no fiscal sense
-
Business17 hours ago“We have a deal”: Trump, Xi strike breakthrough on trade and fentanyl
-
Bruce Dowbiggin1 day agoGet Ready: Your House May Not Be Yours Much Longer
-
Crime17 hours agoCanada Seizes 4,300 Litres of Chinese Drug Precursors Amid Trump’s Tariff Pressure Over Fentanyl Flows
-
National2 days agoCanadian MPs order ethics investigation into Mark Carney’s corporate interests