Tierney on Lockdowns and Excess Deaths

Writing at City Journal, John Tierney considers the cost of the lockdown policies adopted in response to the coronavirus in terms of excess deaths, that is, death statistics exceeding usual values. While I don't agree with every aspect of his analysis, I do agree with his concluding paragraph:

Image by Kuma Kum, via Unplash, license.

If a corporation behaved this way, continuing knowingly to sell an unproven drug or medical treatment with fatal side effects, its executives would be facing lawsuits, bankruptcy, and criminal charges. But the lockdown proponents are recklessly staying the course, still insisting that lockdowns work. The burden of proof rests with those imposing such a dangerous policy, and they haven't met it. There's still no proof that lockdowns save any lives -- let alone enough to compensate for the lives they end.

This is true. But how much more weight would such an accusation carry had the public a more common knowledge of what government is actually for, or had the author at least mentioned that these lockdowns violated our individual rights, and by depriving us of liberty, greatly reduced the quality of those lives it didn't shorten outright?

The lockdowns were not just "the single worst public health mistake in the last 100 years," they were stark evidence of just how much the West has lost its way during that same period. Few questioned the propriety of the lockdowns, and fewer still did so in terms of the proper role of our government -- be it in normal times or in those of plague.

-- CAV