Lockdown not effective, reduced Covid-19 death rate in first phase by just 0.2%: Study

A recent study says that lockdown has not been very helpful in preventing deaths due to the Covid-19 infection. Researchers have found that the effect of lockdown in reducing deaths from Covid-19 in the United States and Europe was little or negligible. The study said that the lockdown had a bad effect on the economy and also caused damage at the social level.

Many scientific studies were reviewed at Johns Hopkins University. Researchers found that in 2020, the lockdown in the initial phase of the pandemic reduced the death rate due to Covid-19 by just about 0.2%. The researchers wrote, "We found no evidence that lockdowns, school closures, border closures and limited public meeting had a significant effect on Covid-19 mortality."

The study said that instead the lockdown contributed to reducing economic activity, increasing unemployment, reducing school activities, increasing political tension, increasing domestic violence and reducing liberal democracy. The team of researchers included Steve Henk, Jonas Herbie and Lars Jonang.

They wrote, "Overall, we have found that lockdowns are not effective measures to reduce mortality during pandemic. At least not in the first wave of the Covid-19." Researchers said this after examining the deaths at the beginning of the pandemic.

They found that till the end of the lockdown period included in the study, that is, till May 20, 2020, 97,081 people had died due to Covid in the United States. During that time another study had estimated 99,050 deaths without lockdown.

Researchers did a 'meta analysis' of dozens of studies examining Covid mortality. Researchers found that closing the bars did contribute to some reduction in deaths. They said, "Closing non-essential businesses has had some effect (reducing the Covid mortality rate to 10.6%), it is likely that its strings are connected with the closure of the bar."

Experts said that the timing of the lockdown and the unintended consequences can play a bigger role than expected in influencing the mortality rate.