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- source: https://www.jeremyrhammond.com/2022/06/15/no-lockdowns-didnt-protect-older-people-from-covid-19/
- people: [[Jeremy R. Hammond]]
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# No, Lockdowns Didn’t Protect Older People from COVID-19!
> ## Excerpt
> A New York Times article claims without evidence that “Lockdowns Protected Older People”. The data show the opposite.
---
A New York Times article claims without evidence that “Lockdowns Protected Older People”. The data show the opposite.
The headline of a recent opinion piece in the _New York Times_ declares that “[Lockdowns Protected Older People. But at What Cost to the Health of Young Adults?](https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/10/opinion/covid-death-young-old.html)” The question is certainly warranted, but the premise that lockdowns were effective at preventing COVID-19 deaths among the elderly is ludicrously untrue.
Tellingly, the author of the piece, Peter Coy, presents no evidence to support his contention that lockdowns protected older people. He appears to accept this as a matter of faith. The lockdowns were “meant to protect older people”, he writes. But that is not true, either.
The fact that the authoritarian “lockdown” policy responses to the COVID-19 pandemic were _not_ designed to protect the elderly was famously observed in the [Great Barrington Declaration](https://gbdeclaration.org/), which proposed the _alternative_ strategy of “focused protection” of the elderly.
“Adopting measures to protect the vulnerable should be the central aim of public health responses to COVID-19”, the authors remarked, in response to the reality that indiscriminate lockdown measures were patently _not_ focused on doing so.
It was the development of population immunity among those at lower risk, the authors correctly reasoned, that would best serve to protect those at high risk. By placing younger, healthy people under lockdown measures, the authors of the Declaration understood, policymakers would be inhibiting the development of population immunity and thereby _prolonging_ the pandemic and _increasing_ the risk to the elderly over the long-term.
The lockdowns were always primarily about power and control. The aim was to spread fear among the public and condition people to accept living under authoritarian governance. The [endgame of the lockdown regime](https://www.jeremyrhammond.com/2020/04/17/sars-cov-2-response-imperial-college-model-and-lockdown-endgame/) from the start was always to keep the population living in fear and under government repression until a vaccine could be developed and forced upon everyone.
This explains why, for example, “public health” officials for so long either [completely ignored natural immunity](https://www.jeremyrhammond.com/2021/09/07/the-official-ignorance-of-natural-immunity-to-sars-cov-2/), as though it did not exist, or [lied that the immunity acquired from infection](https://www.jeremyrhammond.com/2021/09/13/the-lie-that-natural-immunity-to-sars-cov-2-is-weak-and-short-lived/) with SARS-CoV-2, the coronavirus that causes COVID-19, is weak and short-lived.
The fact that their ultimate aim was [to utilize coercion and deception](https://www.jeremyrhammond.com/natural-immunity-to-sars-cov-2/) to achieve a high vaccination rate is rendered transparent by [their lie that natural immunity is inferior](https://www.jeremyrhammond.com/2022/02/10/the-cdc-finally-admits-that-natural-immunity-to-sars-cov-2-is-superior-to-the-immunity-induced-by-covid-19-vaccines/) to the immunity induced by COVID-19 vaccines.
The true purpose of the lockdowns as a tool for population control _as the end in itself_ is evident in how the government has [attempted to coerce](https://www.jeremyrhammond.com/2021/09/13/the-lie-that-natural-immunity-to-sars-cov-2-is-weak-and-short-lived/) _even people who are already naturally immune_ into getting vaccinated. As observed in [this written statement](https://www.jeremyrhammond.com/2022/03/02/un-document-covid-19-vaccine-mandates-are-not-about-public-health/) to the United Nations Human Rights Council that I authored, _COVID-19 vaccine mandates logically cannot be about public health_.
Never forget how the vaccines were sold to the public [based on the lies](https://www.jeremyrhammond.com/natural-immunity-to-sars-cov-2/) that natural immunity is weak and short-lived and that COVID-19 vaccines would confer superior protection. Remember that they were sold to the public based on the lie that they would induce durable sterilizing immunity, preventing infection and transmission and thereby conferring herd immunity that would bring the pandemic to an end. Never forget how advocates of mass vaccination argued for lockdown measures to be used as a tool [to coerce the population into getting vaccinated](https://www.jeremyrhammond.com/2021/09/07/the-official-ignorance-of-natural-immunity-to-sars-cov-2/) as the ostensible means to regain their freedom from the government oppression.
[](https://www.jeremyrhammond.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/war-on-informed-consent-amazon-1.jpg)
The War on Informed Consent
_“extraordinary and riveting”_ — Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.
[](https://www.jeremyrhammond.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/war-on-informed-consent-amazon-1.jpg)
The War on Informed Consent
_“extraordinary and riveting”_ — Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.
Lockdown advocates may have truly _believed_ that the policies they favored would reduce the death toll among the elderly, but that does not mean that this was the _aim_ of the policies, and there was never any sound rationale for such a belief.
Regardless of intent, the fact that the lockdowns were utterly _failing_ to protect those at highest risk was always right there in the data.
As I [wrote](https://www.jeremyrhammond.com/2020/06/02/facebook-fact-check-lies-about-covid-19-fatality-rate/) on June 2, 2020 (prior to the publication of the Great Barrington Declaration, which was on October 4):
> **Furthermore, _lockdown measures have utterly failed to prevent deaths among those at highest risk: elderly people living in nursing care homes_.**
>
> According to a _New York Times_ report on May 11, [one-third of all COVID-19 deaths in the US have occurred in care home residents or workers](https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/05/09/us/coronavirus-cases-nursing-homes-us.html).
>
> According to [data from the Kaiser Family Foundation](https://www.kff.org/health-costs/issue-brief/state-data-and-policy-actions-to-address-coronavirus/) (KFF) current as of May 28, **_at least_ 43 percent of all deaths in the US have occurred in long-term care facilities**. There are thirty-nine states that have reported such deaths. Among those states, there are twenty-six in which at least _half_ of all deaths have occurred in care homes. The Foundation also features a map showing what mitigation policies were implemented in each state. Among the twenty-six states, only two—Nebraska and Utah—never issued executive “stay-at-home” orders. **The other twenty-four states where 50 percent or more of all deaths occurred in elderly care homes were lockdown states.**
>
> A huge proportion of deaths in the US have occurred in New York City, where the [count](https://www1.nyc.gov/site/doh/covid/covid-19-data.page) of confirmed and probable deaths is 21,602 as of June 1. _That’s_ [_over 20 percent_](https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/) _of all reported deaths in the US._ It didn’t help that on March 25, the New York state government issued an order [mandating](https://www.wsj.com/articles/new-york-sent-recovering-coronavirus-patients-to-nursing-homes-it-was-a-fatal-error-11589470773) nursing homes to take in patients discharged from hospitals who were confirmed or presumed to have COVID-19. The order wasn’t reversed until May 10, more than a month later and after the epidemic and death rate had already peaked in April.
>
> . . . **_Sensible_ mitigation policies would have focused on protecting those at highest risk while allowing the rest of the population to continue making a living and go on with their lives in a socially responsible manner, which would have the consequence of also enabling the development of the population immunity required to reduce transmission, thereby ultimately reducing risk to frail elderly people so that they, too, could finally come out of isolation and _enjoy_ the remaining time they have left with us.**
>
> **The extreme and authoritarian lockdown measures implemented instead have essentially achieved the _opposite_.**
As John Ioannidis observed in a [study](https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.05.13.20101253) published on the preprint server _medRxiv_ on June 8, 2020, “The high \[infection fatality rate\] values in New York are also not surprising, given the vast death toll witnessed. A very unfortunate decision of the governors in New York and New Jersey was to have COVID-19 patients sent to nursing homes.”
That is a stark illustration of how these policies were patently _not_ aimed at protecting the elderly, and how they certainly failed to do so. As I [reported](https://www.jeremyrhammond.com/2020/06/26/how-cnn-deceives-about-asymptomatic-transmission-of-sars-cov-2/) again on June 26, 2020:
> According to [data](https://www.kff.org/health-costs/issue-brief/state-data-and-policy-actions-to-address-coronavirus/) from the Kaiser Family Foundation updated on June 18, 6,387 COVID-19-related deaths in New York have been among residents or staff of long-term care facilities, amounting to 21 percent of all deaths in the state. New York alone also represents more than a quarter of all deaths in the US.
>
> Tragically, the proportion of deaths in nursing homes in many other states that are reporting such data is even higher, including twenty-seven states in which the proportion is 50 percent or more. This includes New Jersey. Indicating just how ineffective extreme lockdown measures have been at protecting those at highest risk, in 89 percent of these states, governors had issued executive “stay-at-home” orders. Lockdown states in which at least half of deaths occurred in nursing home deaths also comprise 51 percent of the forty-seven states reporting data.
And on October 20, 2020, I [reminded](https://www.jeremyrhammond.com/2020/10/20/new-york-times-lies-about-science-to-push-school-closures/):
> In fact, according to the _Times_’ own compiled data, [about 40 percent of COVID-19 deaths in the US](https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/us/coronavirus-nursing-homes.html) are linked to nursing homes.
>
> In some states, such as New York and New Jersey, policymakers were [so narrowly focused](https://www.jeremyrhammond.com/2020/06/02/facebook-fact-check-lies-about-covid-19-fatality-rate/) on opening up beds so that hospitals wouldn’t be overwhelmed that they ordered nursing homes [to accept COVID-19 patients discharged from hospitals](https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.05.13.20101253).
>
> According to [data](https://www.kff.org/health-costs/issue-brief/state-data-and-policy-actions-to-address-coronavirus/) published by the Kaiser Family Foundation in mid-June, nursing home residents or staff represented [21 percent of COVID-19-related deaths](https://www.jeremyrhammond.com/2020/06/26/how-cnn-deceives-about-asymptomatic-transmission-of-sars-cov-2/). New York in turn represented [more than a quarter](https://web.archive.org/web/20200625112342/https:/www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/COVID19/) of all deaths in the US. In New Jersey, as well as 23 other lockdown states, [_more than half of COVID-19-related deaths_](https://www.jeremyrhammond.com/2020/06/26/how-cnn-deceives-about-asymptomatic-transmission-of-sars-cov-2/) _were among_ [_nursing home residents_](https://web.archive.org/web/20200619045737/https:/www.kff.org/health-costs/issue-brief/state-data-and-policy-actions-to-address-coronavirus/).
So, when you read mainstream media commentators declaring that lockdowns were effective at saving lives, such as the claim that “Lockdowns Protected Older People”, understand that these are statements of _faith_ belied by the data.
On the other hand, the fact that lockdowns had _disastrous_ consequences is indisputable—and the harms cannot be said to have been “unintended” since they were both foreseeable and _foreseen_ by those of us opposing these criminal policies. The truth is that policymakers _simply did not care_ that their policies would predictably result in massive societal harm. They inflicted this harm knowingly.
The authors of the [Great Barrington Declaration](https://gbdeclaration.org/) began by expressing their “grave concerns about the damaging physical and mental health impacts” of the lockdown measures, which were “producing devastating effects on short and long-term public health” and would lead to “greater excess mortality in years to come”.
“Keeping these measures in place until a vaccine is available”, they observed in response to the openly stated endgame of the lockdown measures, “will cause irreparable damage, with the underprivileged disproportionately harmed.”
Indeed, Peter Coy observes in his _New York Times_ article that “the rate of death from all causes for younger adults has risen by a bigger percentage than has the rate of death from all causes for old people.”
He describes “the increase in deaths among younger adults” as “shocking”, observing that “the number of people ages 25 through 44 who died from all causes in the United States in 2021 was 52 percent higher than the number who died in an average year from 2015 to 2019.” He rightly describes that as “an enormous increase”.
This excess mortality is _not_ due to COVID-19 but is instead attributable to “collateral damage” from the lockdown measures, according to a [study](https://www.nber.org/papers/w30104) Coy cites that was published this month on the website of the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER). The study estimates [the number of non-Covid excess deaths among young Americans](https://brownstone.org/articles/lockdown-deaths-in-the-us-170000/) in 2020 and 2021 to be over 170,000.
Coy quotes the study authors’ conclusion: “All of this suggests that large and sustained changes in living habits designed to avoid a single virus had not only ‘economic’ opportunity costs, but also cost a shockingly large number of young lives.”
Coy responds, “I’m not sure I agree with the authors’ seeming implication that the United States went overboard in trying to shut down Covid, but whether one agrees or not, it’s important to have the facts.” Notably, in making that statement, Coy does _not_ appear to be questioning the study authors’ conclusion that the increased rate of death among younger adults is primarily a consequence of the lockdowns; he rather appears to be suggesting that the lockdowns might have been worth it _despite_ the disastrous economic and health consequences for the young and the underprivileged.
His persistent faith in lockdowns as having a _positive_ net effect on the human condition is evidently grounded in his erroneous belief that they actually worked to save the lives of elderly people. Given that his belief is false, it is very difficult indeed to make the case that the lockdown measures were worth the cost, which could be considered in terms of quality years of life lost. After all, which is the greater tragedy? For an elderly person beyond the average age of life expectancy to die from COVID-19, or for a young person with their whole life in front of them to die as a result of governmental policy responses to the pandemic?
Unfortunately, despite the abysmal failure of lockdowns to save lives, and despite the extraordinarily harmful consequences, the authoritarian mentality remains strong.
The government and mainstream media remain the greatest purveyors of misinformation and disinformation, while censorship of truths that don’t align with government policies like lockdowns or the policy goal of mass vaccination continues unabated. (I was recently suspended from LinkedIn, for example, [for telling the truth that the CDC’s claim that natural immunity is inferior is a bald-faced lie contradicted by its own data](https://www.jeremyrhammond.com/2022/02/10/the-cdc-finally-admits-that-natural-immunity-to-sars-cov-2-is-superior-to-the-immunity-induced-by-covid-19-vaccines/).)
This dangerous authoritarian mentality must be confronted. We must do everything within our power to ensure that such disastrous policies can never be implemented again, for the sake of our prosperity, our health, and our freedom.