Government-mandated stay-at-home orders, school and business shutdowns, mandatory face masks, and other non-pharmaceutical interventions to stop the spread of COVID-19 had “little to no effect” on mortality while increasing excess “collateral deaths,” according to a recent essay.
“Widespread, economy-wide lockdown policies were a disaster. They had only marginal effects on the ultimate number of deaths, but imposed enormous costs,” says an essay by Douglas Allen, economics professor at Simon Fraser University, and published by the Fraser Institute on Jan. 19.
