Canada's COVID-19 public health restrictions, such as lockdowns and mask mandates, were a "radical and untried social policy" that did little to decrease deaths but had enormous societal costs, according to new Fraser Institute report.."These policies provided only tiny benefits, yet imposed extraordinary costs. It is hard to imagine any other peacetime policy in living memory that comes close to being such a tragic failure," report author Douglas Allen said.."If lockdowns are ever again contemplated when COVID-19 makes its next return, it will not be because of the “science.” the report said..The Vancouver-based think tank said the original purpose of lockdowns was to mitigate the rush to hospitals and prevent Canada's healthcare system from being overrun. But later on, many believed that COVID-19 could be eliminated altogether through strict lockdowns, a policy known as "COVID Zero.".But the report said that reduced contact between people does not necessarily reduce infection and subsequent death, especially once a disease is endemic in the general population. It claimed that public health experts and politicians erred by never questioning if deaths would have fallen without the restrictions.."Initial benefit estimates were based on simple models that predicted the number of hospitalizations and deaths without lockdowns. Initial estimates of the costs of the lockdowns were based only on lost GDP from reduced labor-force participation. This led to grossly inaccurate cost/benefit estimates," the report said..The report criticized the epidemiological models used during the pandemic, which tended to drastically overestimate the number of hospitalizations and deaths, sometimes by a factor of 10 or more. For example, the Imperial College of London model, led by Neil Ferguson, predicted that with full lockdowns in place there would be 132,687 COVID-19 deaths in Canada by July 30, 2020. In reality, there were 9,019 actual deaths by that date..Further more, analyses of lockdown benefits have repeatedly found that they only had a small positive effect on death rates. The most recent and thorough meta-analysis found that after combining all lockdown effects, there was only an average reduction in mortality of 3.2%, which the report called "almost nothing.".Meanwhile, the negative impacts of lockdowns included severe economic disruptions, worldwide food insecurity, international trade reductions, reduced travel, increased domestic violence, increased alcoholism, and increased drug addiction and mental health issues..Public health restrictions were particularly hard on children's physical and mental well-being, as they experienced lost education time, disrupted early development, IQ delays and stunted social abilities. Babies born during the pandemic have scored lower on gross and fine motor skills, had developmental delays, and fared much worse on tests of intelligence.."It is tragically ironic that children were least likely to suffer from the COVID-19 disease, but the most likely to suffer from the COVID-19 response. "No widespread estimates of the actual size of these losses have been made, but it is generally acknowledged that children and youth have suffered under the lockdowns," the report said..Around the world, lockdowns also inadvertently resulted in collateral deaths. In the United States alone, estimates show that there were 171,000 excess non-COVID-19 deaths through to the end of 2021, while the US had recorded 825,929 COVID-19 deaths at that time. "However, if lockdowns only reduce deaths by 3.2%, then only 27,303 lives were saved by lockdowns.".Conservative MP Dean Allison (Niagra West, ON), shared the report on Twitter, claiming that lockdowns did "virtually nothing," to protect Canadians.."I was against them from the beginning and made that very clear, despite heavy criticism," he said. "Lockdowns destroyed small businesses, caused immense mental health suffering, and did untold damage to young people."
