Johns Hopkins Meta-Analysis Concludes Covid Lockdowns Harmed FAR More Than Helped

Johns Hopkins Institute for Applied Economics, Global Health, and the Study of Business Enterprise just published a Jan. 2022 review or “meta-analysis” providing evidence that the lockdowns and mandated Covid restrictions did almost nothing toward saving lives. On the other hand, the meta-analysis concludes that the lockdowns and mandated restrictions did a great deal of economic and social harm. In the long run, it wasn’t worth it.

More specifically, the co-authors of the report analyzed a significant number of other studies and data to come to their conclusion (see pages 6-8). Here is the abstract with the damning conclusion against all those institutions and governments who have and continue to impose tyrannical mandates with Covid-19 as their excuse:

“This systematic review and meta-analysis are designed to determine whether there is empirical evidence to support the belief that ‘lockdowns’ reduce COVID-19 mortality. Lockdowns are defined as the imposition of at least one compulsory, non-pharmaceutical intervention (NPI). NPIs are any government mandate that directly restrict peoples’ possibilities, such as policies that limit internal movement, close schools and businesses, and ban international travel. This study employed a systematic search and screening procedure in which 18,590 studies are identified that could potentially address the belief posed. After three levels of screening, 34 studies ultimately qualified. Of those 34 eligible studies, 24 qualified for inclusion in the meta-analysis. They were separated into three groups: lockdown stringency index studies, shelter-in-placeorder (SIPO) studies, and specific NPI studies. An analysis of each of these three groups support the conclusion that lockdowns have had little to no effect on COVID-19 mortality. More specifically, stringency index studies find that lockdowns in Europe and the United States only reduced COVID-19 mortality by 0.2% on average. SIPOs were also ineffective, only reducing COVID-19 mortality by 2.9% on average. Specific NPI studies also find no broad-based evidence of noticeable effects on COVID-19 mortality.

While this meta-analysis concludes that lockdowns have had little to no public health effects, they have imposed enormous economic and social costs where they have been adopted. In consequence, lockdown policies are ill-founded and should be rejected as a pandemic policy instrument. [emphasis added]”

There are other studies or testimony from scientists and doctors to support this conclusion—and even to show similar impacts in areas not necessarily specifically covered in the meta-analysis.

Evidence from doctors suggests, for instance, that speech delays among kids are up 364% since masking policies were instituted. Government data obtained by attorney Thomas Renz reveals that issues such as cancer, miscarriages, and neurological problems have spiked at shocking rates in the US military since the roll-out of the Covid vaccines, which many companies and some cities in the US are mandating (note: the Johns Hopkins study did not seem to have analyzed vaccines’ effects). Nine independent researchers came to the conclusion that there have been around 150,000 deaths from the Covid vaccines in the US. Data from the UK government recently showed that vaccinated children are far more likely to die than unvaccinated children. The US CDC acknowledged that teen suicide attempts had spiked during the Covid lockdowns. Similarly, “Germany Lockdown Saw up to Three-Fold Increase in Child Suicide Attempts.”

The John Hopkins-published “meta-analysis” does clarify, “Our definition does not include governmental recommendations, governmental information campaigns, access to mass testing, voluntary social distancing, etc., but do include mandated interventions such as closing schools or businesses, mandated face masks etc.” A Danish study way back in 2020 had already found masking did not really protect from Covid-19. A study posted on the NIH website finds significant health harms resulting from masking, however, and even the American CDC admitted recently that cloth masks don’t protect well against Covid-19. Add to that the total failure of the Covid “vaccines” to guard against Covid, and you have a pretty comprehensive institutional failure.

So all the measures to prevent or contain Covid-19 were essentially total failures. They caused far more harm than good. A few people’s lives were saved, but how many more were permanently altered or even ruined? What I find particularly fascinating about this review is that it was published by The Johns Hopkins Institute for Applied Economics, Global Health, and the Study of Business Enterprise. The Institute’s founder and co-director Steve Hanke is one of the co-authors of the study. Yet Johns Hopkins was one of the co-hosts of Event 201 in October 2019. The event discussed “surge” vaccine manufacture and controlling “misinformation.” A Johns Hopkins project team also recommended in April 2019 the speeding up of vaccine manufacture and the use of mRNA (gene therapy) technology. In 2017, John Hopkins Center for Health Security authored a study imagining a coronavirus pandemic with eerie parallels to the real Covid-19 plandemic.

All this to say, that if individuals under Johns Hopkins’ aegis (the new study does contain at the very beginning the sentence, “The views expressed in each working paper are those of the authors and not necessarily those of the institutions that the authors are affiliated with”) are saying that Covid lockdowns caused far more harm than good, they’re likely not doing it from any motive other than a desire to present accurate, scientific data. Johns Hopkins was invested in the Covid-19 pandemic, in the responses to it and results from it, since before the pandemic even started. Steve Hanke and his fellow authors are doing a brave thing by publishing their meta-analysis. There’s no material incentives for economists to contradict the mainstream narrative on Covid-19 right now, I would argue. In fact, there’s every material incentive not to do so—if the heavy persecution of individuals from all walks of life who presented evidence against the institutional narrative is any guide. People like Dr. Peter McCullough have lost jobs, money, and reputations by standing up. If economists like those who authored the Johns Hopkins study on lockdowns say something unpopular, and bring solid data along with them, you can probably trust that they are telling the truth.