from WND:

History likely will judge as ‘greatest policy error of this generation’

A study comparing daily deaths attributed to COVID-19 in Sweden, New York, Illinois and Texas indicates the lockdowns had no impact on fatalities.

Dr. Gilbert Berdine, an associate professor of medicine at Texas Tech University’s Health Sciences Center, assembled the data and created a chart comparing deaths per million of population.

“The data suggest that lockdowns have not prevented any deaths from covid-19,” he wrote in an article for the Mises Institute.

“At best, lockdowns have deferred death for a short time, but they cannot possibly be continued for the long term,” he said. “It seems likely that one will not have to even compare economic deprivation with loss of life, as the final death toll following authoritarian lockdowns will most likely exceed the deaths from letting people choose how to manage their own risk.”

He concluded: “After taking the unprecedented economic depression into account, history will likely judge these lockdowns to be the greatest policy error of this generation.”

Meanwhile, the seven-day rolling average of new coronavirus infections in the United States dropped below 50,000 on Tuesday for the first time since July 6, according to data from the COVID Tracking Project and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Berdine said he used Sweden as a control group because of its limited restrictions in response to the pandemic. Schools, up to high school, were kept open, and aside from barring gatherings of more than 50 people, the decision to close businesses, use masks and social distancing was left to the people.

“For all practical purposes, the covid-19 epidemic is over in Sweden,” he wrote. “Almost certainly herd immunity has been achieved in Sweden irrespective of any antibody test results.”

Mortality in Sweden attributed to COVID-19 hit a high of 11.38 deaths per day per million population on April 8.

The professor noted Sweden “has been abused internationally, much as South Dakota has been abused in the U.S., but the outcome in Sweden has been good, and in South Dakota, excellent.”

In New York, where a full lockdown was implemented March 20, 2020, a daily mortality rate of 50 per million was reached by April 7.

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