There Is No Evidence Lockdowns Saved Lives. It Is Indisputable They Caused Great Harm - Comparison of numbers and measures in various countries Interesting breakdown on the numbers and measures taken in various nations... https://wmbriggs.com/post/30833/ Teaser: "What should we conclude? Strike that. What can we conclude. Only one thing: we cannot conclude that lockdowns worked. The only evidence for lockdowns is the desire that lockdowns worked. That, and the embarrassment (and worse) in admitting to error. What politician anywhere will cop to ruining their economy and the lives of millions of their citizens? Who can say “Ah, it was only a few trillion”? This will not happen. It just won’t. All politicians will and much go on repeating that their lockdowns “saved lives”. They have to. It’s suicide not to. They are all talking out their nether regions. What’s the answer, the realpolitik? Let those leaders say “My plan worked” get away with it. And dispose of those who revealed themselves a petty martinets, dictators in training, and assholes. You can read into “dispose” whatever you like. Whatever happens to politicians should happen harder and longer to journalists. In any case, a global purge of braggarts will not happen. This virus, as viruses will, found its way to all corners of the world, and it affected different areas differently. End of story. There is a distinct tendency, at least in the Western media, to ascribe merit and blame for every event to people. What egos we all have! In the US it went like this. The virus was caused or exacerbated by the political party I disfavor. If persons in the party I favored were listened to, this would not have been as big a crisis. The virus spread so rapidly because of the actions of the party I disfavor. The party I favor helped stem the tide and saved lives. The crisis would have ended sooner, and more lives would have been saved, if the people in the party I hate were ignored. Science saved us! Nature gets no credit. Not for the creation of the virus, not for its highly variable spread, not for its highly variable infection rate, and certainly not for its hugely variable deaths caused. All those things were believed to be the responsibility of people. Nature has no real power, we think. It can be controlled to any degree of precision desired, if only we can muster sufficient political will and suppress our enemies. We can credit, as we’ve already seen, the lockdowns for causing any number of difficulties, such as massive job loss, grief, disharmony, terror, and even death. It cause hubris to rise to the bursting point. But the pandemic numbers suggest that this was yet another in an endless string of viruses that came, did its damage, and is fading into the background. It was not nearly as deadly as others, not even in the last 100 years, and it was worse than some. Chances are we can do little to prevent pandemics like this. It’s the expectation that we can that inspired the panic. If we don’t remove that expectation, we’re going to have to go through this again." https://wmbriggs.com/post/30833/