REVOLVER
Dr. Ari Joffe, a specialist in pediatric infectious diseases at the Stollery Children’s Hospital in Edmonton, Canada, has authored a peer-reviewed paper that substantiates popular claims that lockdowns have consequences.
He is also a Clinical Professor in the Department of Pediatrics at University of Alberta in Canada.
Joffe has authored a peer-review academic paper titled COVID-19: Rethinking the Lockdown Groupthink that finds the repercussion harms caused by the COVID lockdowns are ten-times greater than any benefit that can be perceived.
“Initial data falsely suggested that the infection fatality rate was up to 2-3 percent, that over 80 percent of the population would be infected, and modelling suggested repeated lockdowns would be necessary,” Joffe said in an interview.
“But emerging data showed that the median infection fatality rate is 0.23%, that the median infection fatality rate in people under 70 years old is 0.05%, and that the high-risk group is older people especially those with severe co-morbidities,” Joffe continued. [National File]
You can read the underlying study here. The abstract states:
The Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) has caused the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) worldwide pandemic in 2020. In response, most countries in the world implemented lockdowns, restricting their population’s movements, work, education, gatherings, and general activities in attempt to ‘flatten the curve’ of COVID-19 cases. The public health goal of lockdowns was to save the population from COVID-19 cases and deaths, and to prevent overwhelming health care systems with COVID-19 patients. In this narrative review I explain why I changed my mind about supporting lockdowns. First, I explain how the initial modeling predictions induced fear and crowd-effects [i.e., groupthink]. Second, I summarize important information that has emerged relevant to the modeling, including about infection fatality rate, high-risk groups, herd immunity thresholds, and exit strategies. Third, I describe how reality started sinking in, with information on significant collateral damage due to the response to the pandemic, and information placing the number of deaths in context and perspective. Fourth, I present a cost-benefit analysis of the response to COVID-19 that finds lockdowns are far more harmful to public health than COVID-19 can be. Controversies and objections about the main points made are considered and addressed. I close with some suggestions for moving forward. [Preprints]
