Nobel Prize Winner: Coronavirus Lockdowns Cost Lives Instead Of Saving Them

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Coronavirus lockdowns may have cost more lives than they saved, according to a Nobel laureate who accurately predicted when China would peak in the crisis, the NY Post reports.

Stanford University biophysicist Michael Levitt, a British American Israeli who won the 2013 Nobel Prize in chemistry, said he believed other health precautions, such as enforcing the use of masks, would have been more effective in combating the pandemic, the Telegraph reported.

“I think lockdown saved no lives. I think it may have cost lives,” Levitt, who is not an epidemiologist, told the publication. “There is no doubt that you can stop an epidemic with lockdown, but it’s a very blunt and very medieval weapon and the epidemic could have been stopped just as effectively with other sensible measures (such as masks and other forms of social distancing),” he added. Levitt attributed the additional lives lost to other dangers from the fallout of the lockdowns, such as domestic abuse and fewer people seeking health care for ailments other than the virus.

Read more at the NY Post.


13 COMMENTS

  1. Right, but how to get adequate respiratory protection? There is not even enough availability for people who are doing actual dangerous work in industry because everything is being funneled to hospitals, where by the way workers have not been trained in using them and often use them incorrectly. The general public, if they can get something at huge prices on the black market, can surely not buy enough to get out every day, unless they are uber-rich or uber-well-connected like a Nobel Prize might be. For our community there is also the issue of beards, not compatible with KN95 and the like. Under these conditions, going out is unsafe.

  2. Sam Clemens said, There are three type of lies: Lies, damn lies, and statistics.”
    I would add a fourth: Imaginary statistics. Imagine if there was no lock down how many would have died. Just imagine what ever you want it to be and present it as fact.

  3. Lockdown certainly saved lived. You never know how many of the coronas, “the invisible enemies” wanted to retaliate as they’re being pursued.

  4. enforcing the use of masks has cost loves also. Guards at stores were killed for trying enforce the use of masks. NPDY REFUSED to enforce wearing masks in certain parts of of NYC.

    This might be true in theory but is wishful thinking.

  5. B’Ezras Hashem, I would like to say a parable:

    One day, a very old good friend whom you knew from your earlier days calls you. He relates that with his company downsizing, he lost his job and has had no income for the last several months and was thus forced to use up all his savings to get by. He has now come to your town as he wants settle there and make a new life. As he has no monetary resources though, he is completely unable to put down the large initial minimum sums needed to purchase a house or to even rent an apartment.

    So he tells you that he needs a place to stay for about three weeks to give him enough time to find a job; then, with a new source of steady income, he will be able to get his own place.

    So, wanting to do Tzedaka and Hachnossas Orchim, you happily invite him in, putting your house at his service. At first, everything is great as you and he spend spend many hours chatting about the old times and what happened since. He heavily praises your nice home, your fine furniture, and your exquisite art collection. However, his job-hunting-expedition is getting a pretty slow start. He explains, that, of course, he must first “plan out” his “strategy”; then, he will have to write up a resume. You offer him your computer to work on his resume, but the only “work” he does on it is the computer games! Each morning you give him the local newspaper, which you open to the “Help Wanted” section, but he never looks at it and, instead, turns to the sports and comic pages.

    You excitedly inform him of a new company that just opened and needs employees for many different kinds of tasks; you further relate that several of your friends got great jobs there with good pay and not-overly-long-hours. He though, claims that, that company is not so good and its work is not what he likes. You retort about even more people who were hired and insist that he at least check it out. So, he goes there but then claims that they coldly rejected his application. So, you call one of the people in Personnel whom you know, and he tells you that a counselor had tried to interview your friend, but he was very rude to her and refused to give her basic information about himself.

    By now, it is long past the “three weeks” that your friend initially requested; it is more like six weeks going into seven and eight! Throughout this time, as mentioned above, he is hogging your computer with his leisure games. He is also tying up your phone with endless calls — not to local businesses but — to cronies at his previous company. He is eating up almost all the foodstuffs in your refrigerator and leaving huge messes in your kitchen and dinning rooms. As he rarely leaves the house, you are compelled to stay at home with him through the day, putting your own business on hold.

    Then, one evening, he drops a bombshell as he reveals that his former company is planning to open a branch office in your town and install him as the manager. It is THIS prestigious position of branch office manager that is his goal, and until that occurs, which will not be for at least another six or even eight or nine months, he is not budging from your house!!

    On top of this, you discover that your friend’s former company never “downsized”; instead, he and a few of his friend’s were caught in an embezzlement scheme. As it did not want the scandal to blow into the open, the company is (quietly keeping him on the payroll and) planning to eventually move him and his crew to this new office in your town.

    So, by now, it is glaringly clear that, all along, he never intended to look for any job, most of what he told you were outright lies, and this all had nothing to do with any Tzedaka or Chesed, as it was just a mean scam to, Chas V’Shalom, suck you out dry!!

  6. (Continuation of my story)

    OK, I said the Moshel – the parable; now, what is the Nimshal – what is the parable referring to?

    We were all told that there is this new gravely dangerous virus, called “Coronavirus” that “somehow” seeped out of a meat market in the Wuhan section of China. It is severely contagious, and a person carrying it will not even know that he is carrying it — and further spreading it — until a couple of weeks later when the illness starts coming out in him. The disease, called “Covid-19,” is quite deadly, with each day bringing reports of increasing numbers of deaths, Lo Alaynu.

    As the epidemic, now a pandemic, spread devastation through countries of Europe and, sooner than later reached our American shores, our governments “took action.” To try to stop the virus from spreading even further, they declared that people must not be near each other! Yes, for three weeks, do not gather together; do not even go out! “Stay in Place!” “Lockdown!”

    In response, we all readily and happily agreed to this. All our Gedolay Torah leaders emphatically instructed us that, as we well know, our Torah HaK’dosha clearly declares that we absolutely must avoid any possible threat to human life. So, just like Hashem commands us to, for example, pray to Him B’Tzibbur – in a congregation, in this situation of Pikuach Nefesh – of a threat to human life, He commands us to NOT pray to Him B’Tzibbur – in a congregation, and, instead, to pray to Him B’Yichidus – individually.

    The lockdown program was vigorously promoted from other angles too. The director of the website “NaturalNews,” a scholarly scientist Mike Adams, gave a brilliant analogy. During World War II, when our nation was in the fight for its life — and, really, the whole world’s life — against the evil Axis assault, our government asked everyone, for example, to please donate whatever leftover materials they had, for these supplies were greatly
    +needed to make the numerous items needed to fight the war: Tents, uniforms, stretchers, tanks, planes, guns, etc. Famous photos of the war show children thus carrying old rubber tires and scrape metal pieces to designated government depots.

    So, Mr. Adams exclaimed that here, in our fight now for our lives against this dangerous virus, our government is not asking us to “donate” anything; instead, it is really asking us to “do nothing”! Just stay home; do not go out! So, we certainly should be able to gladly do that!

    (Im Yirtza Hashem, to be continued)

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