this is exactly what many of us were predicting back in march.

the knock on effects of lockdown are not just economic.

it's going to kill more people than covid.

this is an "order of magnitude error." https://www.forbes.com/sites/gracemarieturner/2020/05/22/600-physicians-say-lockdowns-are-a-mass-casualty-incident/#5680a4bf50fa

150,000 cancers a month that would have been detected.

play that one out over 4-6 months and see what kind of casualty rate you get.

600% spike in calls to suicide hotlines.

humans are social animals. isolating them and terrifying them is not good for their well being.

but at least we did not pile one of the other most stressful things that can happen to to a person on top of it

oh, wait, yes we did

lose your job while isolated and scared?

that's quite a potent brew to damage mental (and thereby physical) health

cortisol is immunosuppresive

heart attacks down by 40%?

either cov is a miracle cure for congestive heart failure or people are literally having heart attacks and are still too scared to go to the doctor.

let that one sink it.

for those who demand quotes from authority figures to believe anything, how about we listen to dr jane, director of the assn of american physicians and surgeons?

we're doing vast psychological damage for no benefit.

and, because we live in the age of hyper politics, this was, apparently, instantly seized upon as a political stunt and gaslighted as partisan politics.

it appears not to have been and all this makes sense.

i mean, we're all seeing this, no?

having been away for 4 months, i have been stunned to see what puerto rico has become.

people are no longer freindly, leaning into one another, wishing "buen provecho" to strangers in restaurants. it's isolated and fearful.

it feels WEIRD.

even the children seem withdrawn.

living in fear, isolation, and and endless miasma of liberty sapping rules and restriction is taking a real toll.

you can see it on people's faces. you can hear it in how quiet restaurants are. (and on PR, famous for its deafening cacophony, that's really dissonant.)

the world feels cowed and suppressed.

and that is no way to go through life.

nothing anyone has done here from lockdown to travel bans to school closures to masks looks to have done a damn thing to stop COV.

but wielding them like a mace of government power is doing real harm

none of this works and that's why all of it was explicitly contra-indicated in every set of standing guidelines from every major health organization.

it's being pushed as security theater, not real epidemiology or virology. https://twitter.com/boriquagato/status/1280990976694083585?s=20

and "what can it hurt?" is a completely false framing.

it can hurt A LOT.

it is hurting a lot.

we're doing deep damage to people's health, mental well being, and the very social fabric we inhabit.

if this seems like "no big deal" to you, then i think the problem is with you.

and if you think this is bad in the US, take a tour down to the steep part of the preston curve where small drop in in wealth/income lead to precipitous drops in life expectancy.

while karen rides her peleton, their kids die of preventable TB.

while you go to zoom meetings, south africans are locked in townships, unable to work and wondering how they will feed their kids.

lockdown is jarring to the rich, but life threatening to the poor.

i have always wanted to say "check your privilege, karen."

so, there we go.

so the next time someone says "precautionary principle" to you, remind them that PP literally warns against itself & the idea that lockdown and social control, fear, and shaming have no costs is the worst kind of short sighted virtue signaling

let's not get put back in the box