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- Page navigation anchor for RE: COVID-19 lockdown revisionismRE: COVID-19 lockdown revisionism
As physicians we have many serious concerns with this commentary.
The authors claim that lockdown skeptics often frame a “false binary of full lockdown versus no measures”. In our opinion, this is a false claim and an attempt by the authors to create confusion around the lockdown discourse. Many of us who were opposed to draconian lockdowns were supportive of less draconian measures such as focused restrictions. There remains no high-quality evidence to show that compared to less restrictive approaches draconian lockdowns resulted in fewer overall deaths. For example, a new observational analysis in The Lancet (1) did not find a reduction in adjusted death rates in American states that had more physical distancing and mask mandates. Further, Sweden - a country that did not engage in draconian lockdowns, prolonged school closures, or mask mandates - has had one of the lowest overall excess deaths among OECD nations during the pandemic.(2)
The authors defend vaccine mandates without mentioning that some highly-credible academics have questioned the net benefit of this policy.(3) The authors also fail to disclose that even though vaccine mandates became unjustified with the arrival of the immune-evasive Omicron variant in Nov 2021, this policy continued for many more months. Further, they forget to mention the unscientific policy of excluding natural immunity in vaccine passport programs.
With regards to masks, the authors rely on low-quality and cher...
Show MoreCompeting Interests: None declared.References
- 1) Bollyky, Thomas J et al. “Assessing COVID-19 pandemic policies and behaviours and their economic and educational trade-offs across US states from Jan 1, 2020, to July 31, 2022: an observational analysis.” Lancet (London, England), vol. 401,10385 1341–1
- 2) https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/sites/1e53cf80-en/1/3/3/index.html?itemId=/content/publication/1e53cf80-en&_csp_=da51eb48eaaeedf7fcdf3f0f2a953149&itemIGO=oecd&itemContentType=book#section-d1e10677-66f043643c
- 3) Bardosh, Kevin et al. “The unintended consequences of COVID-19 vaccine policy: why mandates, passports and restrictions may cause more harm than good.” BMJ global health vol. 7,5 (2022): e008684. doi:10.1136/bmjgh-2022-008684
- 4) https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/covid-19/commentary-what-can-masks-do-part-2-what-makes-good-mask-study-and-why-most-fail
- 5) Ladhani, Shamez N. “Face masking for children - time to reconsider.” The Journal of infection vol. 85,6 (2022): 623-624. doi:10.1016/j.jinf.2022.09.020
- Page navigation anchor for RE: Strawman argument or proto-factual revisionism?RE: Strawman argument or proto-factual revisionism?
In their essay [1], Blake Murdoch and Timothy Caulfield conflate two issues around the COVID-19 lockdowns: the substantial critique of restrictive public health measures, and the label used by critics to describe these measures. By disparaging dissenting viewpoints as misinformation and revisionism, the authors contribute to stifling the ongoing scientific debate that underpins public discourse.
Far from “perverted”, the term “lockdown” reflects the lived experiences of Canadians affected by different non-pharmaceutical interventions of the past three years. The authors take issue with individuals and groups that lump different restrictions together under this term, yet most of the public discourse has focused separately on the measure du jour, whether isolation protocols, mask mandates, or vaccination passports. With their approach, Murdoch & Caulfield construct a strawman argument similar to many news media fact-checks. They dispel the validity of the term “lockdown” and thereby insinuate that related concerns are invalid.
Indeed, Murdoch & Caulfield actively engage in their own form of revisionism. They present selected, often outdated, analyses of the “public health initiatives designed to keep people safer,” as if the final assessment of the pandemic response was already in. Unfortunately, it is all but certain that the measures, sugarcoated here as “initiatives”, achieved their “design” goals in practice. As a trained systems scientist, I am a...
Show MoreCompeting Interests: None declared.References
- [1] Murdoch B, Caulfield T (2023) COVID-19 lockdown revisionism. Canadian Medical Association Journal 195(15): E552-E554, https://doi.org/10.1503/cmaj.221543