Lockdowns
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Returning to COVID19
With the resignation of Jacinda Ardern, my thoughts were dragged back to Covid once more. Jacinda, as Prime Minster of New Zealand was the ultimate lockdown enforcer. She was feted round the world for her iron will, but I was not a fan, to put it mildly. Whenever I heard her speak, it brought to… Continue reading
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The journalist-run, intelligence-linked operation that warped British pandemic policy
Presented as an independent voice for “unbiased” scientific advice, iSAGE provided a channel for media spinmeisters, spies and psy-op specialists to influence Britain’s pandemic policy without accountability. Leaked internal emails show members fretting over its unethical methods. Continue reading
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The Folly of Following ‘The’ Science: an Exercise in Grammar
Rishi Sunak’s revelations in The Spectator on 1 September reveal his disquiet at the influence SAGE advisers wielded during the pandemic, the perils of applying lockdowns, the inappropriate fear messaging targeted at the public based on exaggerated modelling of data and, importantly, the censorship of dissenting views within ministerial meetings. Continue reading
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Lockdowns: the evidence revisited
In March 2021, we wrote two sections in ‘Covid-19 the evidence’, namely ‘Economic impacts – the true cost of lockdown’ and ‘Lockdowns – do they work?’. Over a year later, we have revisited not only the financial costs of lockdowns but also the societal costs, the impact on healthcare and the lack of evidence for… Continue reading
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From Wuhan to Ottawa
A recent preprint meta-analysis by researchers from Denmark (Center for Political Studies), Sweden (Lund University) and the US (Johns Hopkins University) found that lockdowns in the spring of 2020 had no significant impact on mortality. Moreover, the authors highlight that the many “simulation studies” that claimed otherwise essentially presupposed that the entire decline in infections had been due to… Continue reading
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The Pandemic Endgame
2 January 2022 — Swiss Policy Research Coronavirus infections in Australia (IMCS) Continue reading
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Judgment day: Sweden vindicated
Austria, one of the most repressive European countries during the coronavirus pandemic, has recently overtaken Sweden in terms of total covid mortality, showing that almost all government interventions have been ineffective and unjustified. Continue reading
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The Telegraph – Austria’s precedent-setting lockdown is an assault on human rights
Europe is in the midst not only of a public health crisis, but also of a dangerous shift towards authoritarianism. The Austrian government’s introduction of a lockdown only for unvaccinated people this week was a precedent-setting assault on human rights: liberty, privacy, freedom of movement, freedom of association and freedom from discrimination. And yet, if… Continue reading
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The new Collateral Global website is live!
The underlying mission of Collateral Global is to openly evaluate COVID-19 related public health measures, including their second- and third-order effects. Continue reading
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Lockdowns: Fewer Suicides in 2020?
Overall, ‘lockdowns’ have had no discernible impact on covid mortality. This is true in the US (compare Florida to other states) and in Europe (compare Sweden to the EU), but also in Latin America (compare Peru and Argentina to Brazil), Africa (low impact of covid anyway), and even in Asia (see India, Bangladesh, Indonesia and… Continue reading
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Believing in impossible things – and COVID19
Since COVID19 first hurtled over the horizon, before landing upon us all with great force, I find that I have been asked to believe in many impossible things. First, I was told that attempting to create herd immunity was not achievable. It would also be extremely dangerous and would inevitably result in many hundreds of… Continue reading
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Zoom Privilege: COVID-19 restrictions are making the rich richer & everyone else poorer
Wall Street, Washington, D.C., and Silicon Valley are swimming in cash and prosperity. 2020 could not have gone better for the country’s elites. The vast majority of Americans, on the other hand, have been forced into financial, physical, and emotional ruin. 2020 served as the year that government dictates — purposed with fighting a disease… Continue reading
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Stanford Study Questions Benefits of Lockdowns and Stay-At-Home Orders
A group of researchers at Stanford published a peer-reviewed study earlier this month assessing the impact of lockdowns and stay-at-home orders — what they refer to as non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) in early 2020. The study did not find evidence to support that NPIs were effective in preventing the spread. Continue reading
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COVID-19: Rethinking the Lockdown Groupthink
The Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) has caused the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) worldwide pandemic in 2020. In response, most countries in the world implemented lockdowns, restricting their population’s movements, work, education, gatherings, and general activities in attempt to ‘flatten the curve’ of COVID-19 cases. The public health goal of lockdowns was to… Continue reading
The New Dark Age 