Lockdowns and Quarantine During the COVID-19 Pandemic

During the COVID-19 pandemic, lockdowns and quarantines have been extremely controversial, causing immense amounts of economic disruption and likely tens of millions of premature deaths or more both presently and in the future.

Lockdowns were sold to the general public as a way to “flatten the curve” in order to avoid triage of medical resources.

Chart showing U.S. Hospital discharges from 2004–2021 https://www.campfire.wiki/lib/exe/detail.php?id=covid-19_public_health_policy%3Alockdowns&media=covid-19_public_health_policy:hospital_usage_chart.jpeg

On Mar 19, 2020, Tomas Pueyo, an engineer and consultant, wrote a Medium article entitled “The Hammer and the Dance.” (https://tomaspueyo.medium.com/coronavirus-the-hammer-and-the-dance-be9337092b56) The article went viral (https://www.gsb.stanford.edu/experience/news-history/tomas-pueyo-mba-10-his-viral-post-coronavirus-why-you-must-act-now) and helped inform the popularity of the phrase 'flatten the curve', and the use of lockdowns as a strategy.

The Hammer and the Dance argued that doing nothing in the face of the pandemic would wreak havoc, by infecting and killing a large swathe of the population. Pueyo argued that the need for hospital beds would overwhelm ICU capacity. He presented two alternative strategies: Mitigation, and Suppression. The mitigation strategy he described as slightly better than doing nothing - “flatten the curve a bit”, doing just enough to lower the burden on the healthcare system, and otherwise relying on herd immunity (something similar to the strategy later espoused by the Great Barrington Declaration). He posited that the emergence of variants could render the idea of natural immunity moot. For Pueyo, the suppression strategy was the only option - to lockdown quickly. “Go hard right now, get this thing under control, then release the measures, so that people can gradually get back their freedoms,” he wrote. The hammer would 'flatten the curve' through a lockdown, followed by the dance that would allow some ongoing freedoms, just enough to keep the pandemic under control.

Neil Ferguson – dope

https://lockdownsceptics.org/code-review-of-fergusons-model/?fbclid=IwAR2RjJyD5KohcbKRz03xSp_a1br_FLhue7c9uiH-34H3URpOsXPfRcWxbJo

https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/uk-lockdown-architect-quits-after-breaking-own-covid-rules-during-secret-affair-aide

• Michael Burgwin | Dec 17, 2021 | Forget China, was it CEPI’s bio-spooks who locked down the West? Suggests that the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) was responsible for pushing for lockdowns during the pandemic.

Former head of Emergency Management Alberta David Redman published a criticism of Canada's public health response on March 31, 2021, pointing out that quarantine, border controls and similar measures were explicitly not recommended by the World Health Organization as recently as 2019.¹⁾

On December 15, 2021, the Toronto Sun published an opinion piece calling on Canadians to ignore any further public health guidance that would result in the “micromanagement” of their lives, including business and school closures, stating “that ship has sailed. Life must go on.”²⁾

Some leaders were called hypocrites when caught breaking restrictions or lockdown rules for which they had previously lobbied or required the public to adhere (see related Covid-19 Hypocrites).

“While small benefits cannot be excluded, we do not find significant benefits on case growth of more restrictive NPIs. Similar reductions in case growth may be achievable with less-restrictive interventions.” https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33400268/

Good overview of policy flaw from several countries: https://www.internationalaffairs.org.au/australianoutlook/lockdowns-could-kill-more-people-than-covid-19/

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33477522/

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/aug/17/new-zealand-to-go-into-national-lockdown-over-one-covid-case?CMP=fb_gu&utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Facebook&fbclid=IwAR3VX3f5YYCcQlMhHEkzlVTK_zbtDBMZLdblJy53qjEyDPgvPHJffbOTp1A#Echobox=1629193744

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/professor-lockdown-modeler-resigns-in-disgrace/?fbclid=IwAR1-DKizwSIbpeOYAcfbhzHneRyzn7MN0pU_9dmu3Xy7uK_nyGuoFRbb134

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/turkey-takes-a-different-coronavirus-approach-with-weekend-lockdowns-and-age-specific-restrictions/ar-BB12L4gA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=289NWm85eas

https://theprint.in/world/why-singapore-isnt-in-a-coronavirus-lockdown-as-told-by-a-doctor-of-the-country/384784/?amp&__twitter_impression=true&fbclid=IwAR3229pMTuXenvX7T8m1YR4TAumcBuHvGCi-5L899CbAcKg4SGFu1klp6pA

https://www.thedailybeast.com/this-coronavirus-lockdown-may-just-be-the-first-of-several

https://rsqarnet.files.wordpress.com/2021/12/canadas-deadly-response-to-covid-19-july-1_2021.pdf