Studies That Show Lockdowns Are Ineffective at Slowing Covid-19

Nah.. don't buy it. Here in Australia we tried em. We did them hard, and right, and then we had zero's. Zero cases in 10 days, and less than 1000 dead total. If they don't work, what are we doing right?

An article published on Nature journal is the holy grail of biomedical research. Like this one, titled "Estimating the effects of non-pharmaceutical interventions on COVID-19 in Europe" https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2405-7

It fits the bill bill and states "Lockdown has an identifiable large effect on transmission (81% (75–87%) reduction)"

Not a popular statement to make, but it is what it is.

I think this mostly conflates main factors affecting how hard covid-19 hits with things governments can do in the short term to contain it. Factors such as obesity and average GDP correlate much stronger with lethality, but you can’t turn those knobs overnight.

Also, I don’t think all of these say lockdowns are ineffective. The lancet study (#1 from the article) says “full lockdowns… were significantly associated with increased patient recovery rates.”

That means they can make the difference between being able to give all patients the care they need and overloaded hospitals.

Also, I don’t read that lockdowns are ineffective in #3. In my reading, it (more) says that, if you do a lockdown, you better do it fast, as that means you can keep it limited.

fee.org — "The Foundation for Economic Education (FEE) is a libertarian economic think-tank in the United States dedicated to the "economic, ethical and legal principles of a free society."

Read, not an authoritative source.