Report Criticizes ‘Catastrophic Errors’ of COVID Lockdowns, Warns of Repeat

‘Granting public health agencies extraordinary powers was a major error,’ says Johns Hopkins economist Steve Hanke.

UNICEF unveils its "Pandemic Classroom," a model made up of 168 empty desks, each seat representing 1 million children living in countries where schools were almost entirely closed during the COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns, at the United Nations headquarters in New York City on March 2, 2021. Chris Farber/UNICEF via Getty Images

It was four years ago, in March 2020, that health officials declared COVID-19 a pandemic and the United States began shutting down schools, closing small businesses, restricting gatherings and travel, and implementing other lockdown measures to “slow the spread” of the virus.

To mark that grim anniversary, a group of medical and policy experts released a report, called “COVID Lessons Learned,” which assesses the government’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic. According to the report, that response included a few notable successes, along with a litany of failures that have taken a severe toll on the population.