We’ve listened intently as mainstream media outlets, both
print and broadcast, have lectured us and the rest of America on the lifesaving
virtues of the Wuhan virus lockdown. While it may well be true that it saved
lives from the virus, what about the lives lost to the lockdown?
The economic devastation from the lockdown has had brutal
consequences, in particular for small businesses, their owners and their often
low-wage employees. With 38.6 million suddenly unemployed and applying for
benefits, jobless rates shooting toward 20%, and bankruptcies crushing major
industries, such as retailing, the near-term outlook is grim if the lockdowns
continue.
Contrary to the now-trite progressive chant of “we’re all
in this together,” those at the struggling bottom rungs of our once-thriving
economy bear the brunt of the lockdown — not the privileged minority with
secure government jobs or stable stay-at-home telecommuting gigs impervious to
such things as shutdowns.
No, we’re not “all in this together.” And doctors,
economists and others are concluding that the costs in lives lost may
actually exceed the benefits, a classic case of the cure being worse than the
disease.
A group of 600 doctors recently signed a letter sent to the president seeking an end to the
lockdown. These doctors braved the opprobrium and possible political
harassment from some of their fellow citizens to warn us all that the number of
suicides from the lockdown’s crushing economic and psychological effects
appears to be soaring.
“We are alarmed at what appears to be the lack of
consideration for the future health of our patients. The downstream health
effects of deteriorating a level are being massively under-estimated and
under-reported. This is an order of magnitude error,” the letter said.
“The millions of casualties of a continued shutdown will
be hiding in plain sight, but they will be called alcoholism, homelessness,
suicide, heart attack, stroke, or kidney failure,” the letter continues. “In
youths it will be called financial instability, unemployment, despair, drug addiction,
unplanned pregnancies, poverty, and abuse.”
As Dr. Mike deBoisblanc, head of trauma at John Muir
Medical Center in the San Francisco Bay Area, recently told a local ABC
affiliate: “We’ve never seen numbers like this, in such a short period of
time. I mean, we’ve seen a year’s worth of suicide attempts in the last four
weeks.”
Worse, badly needed medical procedures have
been put off due to shutdowns.
A recent news story predicted “thousands” of cancer deaths due to postponed cancer
surgeries in England. Expect nothing different here. Many Americas with life-threatening ailments also
have had treatments “postponed” so that we could flatten the curve.
Those arguing loudest for a continued shutdown of our
cities and towns and the enormous economy they represent are among the first to
scream “science!” when anyone questions their bad ideas, including the
lockdown.
Well, doctors are on the cutting edge of health science.
So why don’t lockdown supporters heed their words?
In fact, we may be on the verge of a far more serious
long-term plague than COVID-19: a wave of what social scientists and doctors
now call “deaths of despair.“
How serious is it?
An early May study by the Well-Being Trust and the Robert Graham Center for
Policy Studies in Family Medicine and Primary Care predicted 75,000
added deaths from COVID-19 lockdown-related stress and depression. But, if the
economic recovery is slow and unemployment remains high, the number of deaths,
the study warned, could shoot as high as 154,037.
For the record, that latter death toll is well more than
the Wuhan virus is likely to kill.
“The collective impact of COVID-19 could be devastating,”
according to the report, which blames lockdown-related factors such as
“economic failure with massive unemployment, mandated social isolation for
months and possible residual isolation for years, and uncertainty caused by the
sudden emergence of a novel, previously unknown microbe.
“The economics of COVID-19 have already caused a massive
jump in unemployment: job loss leading to personal and professional economic
loss across all business sectors. Hourly workers as well as salaried
professionals have been laid off and furloughed indefinitely.”
As we’ve said before, the predictions of
disaster in states reopening have been wrong. Georgia, Florida
and Texas so far are doing fine, and their economies are starting to
perk up. Las Vegas, taking their lead, plans to reopen casinos in early
June.
New data from the Centers for Disease Control show that coronavirus
infection fatality rates (IFR) are basically only slightly worse than for a bad
flu season. The current IFR rate of 0.26%, based on CDC data, is way
below the 3.4% (and higher) rates that the World Health Organization and others
used to scare us and shut down much of the global economy.
The lockdown may turn out to be one of the worst policy
mistakes in American economic history. If so, it prompts the question: Did
we really need to shutter our powerful economic machine to control the virus?
It sure doesn’t look that way. Not only will we be
saddled with lower incomes, lost revenues and trillion-dollar deficits for
years to come as a result of the lockdown and uncontrolled government spending,
but working Americans who had made such nice economic gains in recent years
will start slipping down the income ladder.
That will lead to a tragic, but sadly predictable, uptick
in depression, drug use, alcohol abuse and suicide, among other outcomes, as we recently wrote. It may well be
those, and not COVID-19 deaths, will be the lasting, tragic legacy of the Wuhan
virus.
To repeat: It’s time we ended this insane national
lockdown, if only to restore some sense of normalcy to America. And maybe save
tens of thousands of lives while we’re at it.
