So even if lockdowns slow the spread in the short run, it's not clear that they have saved lives from the coronavirus, even if it results in more death overall from deferred surgeries and diagnostics, suicides, drug overdoses, and depression.
One way we might discern whether and to what extent lockdowns have had any effect on infection and death is to examine the empirical case.
To normalize for an unambiguous comparison of deaths between states at the midpoint of an epidemic, we counted deaths per million population for a fixed 21-day period, measured from when the death rate first hit 1 per million-e.g.,‒three deaths in Iowa or 19 in New York state.
We ran a simple one-variable correlation of deaths per million and days to shutdown, which ranged from minus-10 days to 35 days for South Dakota, one of seven states with limited or no shutdown.
Our correlation coefficient for per-capita death rates vs. the population density was 44%. That suggests New York City might have benefited from its shutdown-but blindly copying New York's policies in places with low Covid-19 death rates, such as my native Wisconsin, doesn't make sense.
Even a casual look at the open societies of Sweden and Korea - despite going too far in interventions - demonstrate that they experienced lower rates of death than Europe and the U.K. Even the World Health Organization has praised Sweden's response.
On the basis of the available data, we find that a lockdown in Sweden would not have limited the number of infections or the number of COVID-19 deaths.
https://www.aier.org/article/did-the-lockdown-save-lives/
One way we might discern whether and to what extent lockdowns have had any effect on infection and death is to examine the empirical case.
To normalize for an unambiguous comparison of deaths between states at the midpoint of an epidemic, we counted deaths per million population for a fixed 21-day period, measured from when the death rate first hit 1 per million-e.g.,‒three deaths in Iowa or 19 in New York state.
We ran a simple one-variable correlation of deaths per million and days to shutdown, which ranged from minus-10 days to 35 days for South Dakota, one of seven states with limited or no shutdown.
Our correlation coefficient for per-capita death rates vs. the population density was 44%. That suggests New York City might have benefited from its shutdown-but blindly copying New York's policies in places with low Covid-19 death rates, such as my native Wisconsin, doesn't make sense.
Even a casual look at the open societies of Sweden and Korea - despite going too far in interventions - demonstrate that they experienced lower rates of death than Europe and the U.K. Even the World Health Organization has praised Sweden's response.
On the basis of the available data, we find that a lockdown in Sweden would not have limited the number of infections or the number of COVID-19 deaths.
https://www.aier.org/article/did-the-lockdown-save-lives/
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