This could be symbolically stated as the cure being worse than the problem. The "cure" was to be the lockdown countermeasure to COVID-19. This virus or whatever it is was touted as a deadly pandemic the world hasn't seen since the flu of 1918. Fear was pumped into media and propagated to the masses.
Source
Resistance to the lockdown is usually spun as being a position held by selfish people. From someone who only cares about money. "Lives matter more than money or the economy", you will hear some people say to this day. But this is a foolish understanding of the situation.
This is what the lockdown has done:
- People force to not work
- Businesses ruined
- Economic hardship into the future
- Increased poverty
- Increased unemployment
- Increased depression
- Increased domestic abuse
- Increased child abuse
- Increased sexual abuse
- Increased suicides
- Fines and arrests for not standing 6 feet apart
- Long lines for buying food
Some people are fine with this, since the alternative is the deadly killer virus wreaking havoc on society and killing millions. But this was never going to happen.
I've demonstrated this by looking non-lockdown Sweden vs. lockdown USA. They were always similar in total population death rates. Over the past month we've had more accurate data for the amount of the population that is likely infected. This has produced an infection fatality rate ranging from 0.02% o 0.4%. The CDC recently reported on the fatality rate for symptomatic people to be 0.4%, which is 0.26% for everyone who has been infected.
This isn't a major deadly pandemic. Otherwise, Sweden would have been up shit creek. The elderly in nursing homes account for most of the death: 33% of all US deaths, and 80% of all deaths in Canada. If any group of people needed to be protected from this illness to save lives, as the government purported to do with the lockdown, then it was the elderly, especially those in nursing homes. But they failed to do that.
Lockdowns will create more deaths int he longterm. Here are two expert that appeared at the US Senate Hearing on COVID-19 earlier this month.
John Ioannidis, MD, Professor of Medicine, Epidemiology, and Population Health at Stanford University:
"While lockdowns were justified initially, their perpetuation may risk many lives. While treatments and advances in vaccine efforts may be successful eventually, lockdowns measures cannot be prolonged until we find treatments in vaccines."
"Deaths from common chronic diseases and treatable conditions, such as heart attacks, may increase, as these patient avoid hospitals from fear as interaction with their care-giver is interrupted."
"Unemployment may create more marginalized citizens without health insurance. Mental health can be affected, with increase in depression, suicides, domestic violence and child abuse."
Scott W. Atlas, MD, Senior Fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution & Former Chief of Neuroradiology, Stanford University Medical Center:
"100s of thousands of people have serious diseases that are not being treated. Transplants from living donors are down 85% from last years. Int he US alone, 150,000 new cancer cases arise every single month. These patients are not being seen."
"Treating COVID-19 at all costs, is severely restricting other medical care and installing fear in the public and creating a massive health disaster."
Letting the economy be destroyed and the consequences on human lives isn't the only factor, as you can see and research more if you are so inclined. Due to the fear-hype hysteria created by the media and supported by the government, there are millions of people who are afraid to go get medical treatment for fear of contracting the "deadliest virus since the 1918 flu". Many of them have already died due to this false fear.
The media may claim no responsibility for this. But they were the ones putting out the message of fear. People listen to the media. If the media wasn't putting out this message of fear for the virus, then people wouldn't have developed fear for it.
If you trust the UN, they project increases of children dying from starvation to go up millions more. They are estimating between 42 and 66 million to die as a result of the lockdown and the extreme poverty it has created.
Without the lockdown, and with the withholding of treatments like HCQ and zinc, or boosting immunity to reduce symptom severity and duration of the illness with vitamin C, A,D and zinc, a fraction of people would have died globally. Even with only the lockdown removed, it would be near what we have now, as Sweden demonstrates. The lockdown also didn't prevent people from being infected, as 2/3 of new cases in NY were from people who were staying at home. The isolation and lockdown didn't work. It's only making things worse in the longterm.
The economic suffering imposed by the government through the lockdown is going to produce so many more deaths than COVID-19 alone. It's estimated that a 1% increase in unemployment over 6 years translates to over 50,000 more deaths. So far, the unemployment rate in the US went form 4% (I believe) to now over 14%. Most of those jobs have evaporated from small business going bankrupt. They aren't coming back quickly.
COVID-19 was a non-crisis as bad the flu. But it was manufactured and engineered into a crisis by the government response which will echo non-COVID-19 deaths into the future for a while to come. We will have to wait and see the damage the government has created. Get off the corona-phobia bandwagon.
References:
-COVID-19 by the Numbers: Lockdown vs Herd-Immunity - What's Better? Round 2
-Nursing Home Neglect Accounts for Much of the 'COVID-19 Deaths', Reason to Get Off the Corona-Phobia Bandwagon Pt.3
-Experts from the US Senate Hearing on COVID-19 Destroy the Bullshit Lockdown, Isolation and Social Distancing
-A 'shocking' two-thirds of patients recently hospitalized in NY had been staying home
-Will “Deaths of Despair” Outpace Deaths From Coronavirus?
-DEBATING CORONA-PHOBIA
Well, one issue that I can agree with would be a properly managed restrictions and guidelines on how to run economy in the situation we are in. As you pointed out in the post, Sweden did not follow the mainstream lockdown measures the world is in. That does not mean they never considered the virus to be as normal as flu, armed with a vaccine already developed.
There are always two sides of agreements and everyone is free in voicing what they believe in. Even with the less restrictions imposed in Sweden, the argument cannot be made that Corona virus should be treated like that of flu virus.
Governments should work in reopening businesses and promote health measures that reduce the risk of the disease. With time, things will change and I am sure the hard measures to combat the virus will not continue for always.
How should it be treated? What are you worried about? The elderly are the ones that needed protecting. They are the majority of the dead. 80% of all dead are from nursing home sin Canada. 33% in the US. Rather than lockdown and isolate everyone to protect everyone from everyone, the group that needed to be protected was the elderly, and they weren't. In NY the governor forced nursing homes to not reject COVID-19 patients, spreading the virus to those vulnerable elderly and not providing any treatments that can reduce symptoms severity and duration.
The corona virus should be treated like flu once we have the agreed understanding of its mechanisms and supporting policies for corona virus that is comparable to flu virus. It does not mean that I am supporting the lockdown for ever. It should not be a curfew but it should be a situation where businesses and communities can rely on and believe in our system.
Deaths in long term care homes are also due to the lack of protocol in dealing with the virus, myopic decision-making and rampant mismanagement that was present for decades. Governments in Canada are setting up committees to look into the reasons behind the mismanagement of long term care homes.
Lockdown won't help, the only thing that will help to keep safe
Everything almost ruined here in my country because of lockdown. Everything closed for the last two months. Medicine has not been discovered yet, but how long will people stay at home like this?