COVID Lockdowns and the Other Insanity Killed People

A lot of people.

What's this? A Wall Street Journal article that is NOT behind a paywall. They only do that when it is Important, with capital Imp. How Deadly Were the Covid Lockdowns?

Covid-19 is deadly, but so were the draconian steps taken to mitigate it. During the first two years of the pandemic, “excess deaths”—the death toll above the historical trend—markedly exceeded the number of deaths attributed to Covid. In a paper we just published in Inquiry, based on data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, we found that “non-Covid excess deaths” totaled nearly 100,000 a year in 2020 and 2021.

Say that again. 100,000 people per year died in EXCESS of what would have been expected, based on history, AFTER you eliminate COVID from the numbers.

Even these numbers likely overestimate deaths from Covid and underestimate those from other causes. Covid testing has become ubiquitous in hospitals, and the official count of “Covid deaths” includes people who tested positive but died of other causes. On the other side, some Covid deaths early in the pandemic weren’t diagnosed as such. We adjusted for the latter effect but not the former.

There are plenty of cases of people who died from things like motorcycle accidents, but because they tested positive 2 days before that, they were listed as "died from COVID." It should have been "died WITH COVID," but that wouldn't help the people at Pfizer, et al get rich.

What are non-Covid excess deaths? During the pandemic, deaths from accidents, overdoses, alcoholism and homicide all soared, as did deaths from hypertension, heart disease and diabetes.

Deaths from disease skew higher, while more young people died of accidents, overdoses, and homicide. All tied to anything except the disease.

Add in the failed businesses. The people put out of work. The dire impact on education. Someone should pay, but no one will.

While a thorough review, the WSJ article is for a general audience. If you would like a deeper dive into the numbers, I suggest Meep: Top Causes of Death by Age Group, 2021: Finalized U.S. Stats.

Huzzah! The CDC updated WONDER today, which means I’ll be moving forward with all sorts of items I had planned in response.

The first is the finalized ranking tables of cause of death for ten-year age groups, which I will give you in absolute counts as well as by rates (in percentages, because most people understand that better). I did a similar post for 2020 finalized ranking tables last year.