The Highwire with Del Bigtree - WHAT WAS THE REAL IMPACT OF COVID LOCKDOWNS?

Episode Date: October 6, 2023

Professor of Medicine & Medical Ethics, Alvin Moss, MD, discusses the mounting data revealing ethical problems with the COVID lockdowns, from “deaths of despair,” to the impacts on education, and the underprivileged.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-highwire-with-del-bigtree--3620606/support.

There is now a large body of evidence that says the lockdowns cost huge harms. It was a mental health crisis of alarming proportions. Girls 12 to 17 years old saw 50% increase in suicide attempts in 2021 compared to prior to the pandemic. Let me read this really quick. By early May 2020, ED visit counts for suspected suicide attempts began increasing among adolescents age 12 to 17 years, especially among girls. During July 26 through August 22, 2020, the mean weekly number of ED visits for suspected suicide attempts among girls age 12 to 17 years was 26.2% higher than during the same period a year earlier. During February 21st through March 20th, 21, mean weekly ED visit counts for suspected suicide attempts were 50.6% higher among girls aged 12 to 17 years compared with the same period in 2019. Those are staggering numbers. There's graphs that go along with this.

This is CDC numbers. Alcohol-related deaths went up significantly. Drug-over-dose deaths went up significantly. There's something called deaths of despair. And these are people who just are so depressed, and they don't see a way out of their situation. And again, these are younger people. These are not older people.

These are not the people who would be vulnerable necessarily to COVID. But these are people who are people who, low income, lower education level, and the deaths of despair went significantly up. So you would hope this mental health crisis of alarming proportions. In fact, Vivek Murthy, you know, the U.S. Surgeon General earlier this year had a white paper on the epidemic of depression and isolation and loneliness in this country. I mean, this country is in no shape to tolerate another lockdown and to usher in even worse mental health outcomes. So the mental health outcomes alone should be enough to prevent us from going back into

extended lockdowns. But then there are the educational outcomes. You alluded to them. The National Center for Educational Research and the Department of Education reported the worst outcomes in mathematics in decades and fourth graders and eighth graders. And reading was also below. But then the Office of Civil Rights of the Department of Education, reported how much more black American children were behind white American children in their

educational levels. So we can't afford to do this to our children. We can't afford to do this to our adolescents. We can't afford to do this to our people with mental health. And you know, with loneliness being 41 percent of the U.S. public now, I think, according to the latest poll, the American public cannot tolerate this. You have this meta-analysis from Johns Hopkins economists, that says we're having trouble looking at all the studies, concluding finding definitive evidence that the lockdowns save lives. Then you have insurance company data. I think you've covered some of the insurance company data on excess mortality.

Again, looking at maybe actually COVID lockdowns were associated with excess mortality. And then you have the National Bureau for Economic Research, also finding excess deaths during the COVID lockdowns over and above what you would have expected. So there's the real concern that they appeared to have caused more harm than good. And so next time around, if anybody says extended lockdowns, your first thought should be, we tried that already. It didn't work. What are your data to support it now?

And honestly, we have no data to support it because all we have are the data that we cited in the paper that show that extended lockdowns were extremely harmful. had devastating consequences, really, on many people in American society.