May 20, 2023
- Justice Neil Gorsuch labeled the avalanche of lockdown measures imposed during the pandemic as among ‘the greatest intrusions on civil liberties’
- He said leaders at state and federal level issued emergency decrees ‘on a breathtaking scale’
- Congress and state legislatures ‘too often fell silent’ as strict rules were laid down, he added
‘Governors and local leaders imposed lockdown orders forcing people to remain in their homes. They shuttered businesses and schools, public and private,’ he wrote.
‘They closed churches even as they allowed casinos and other favored businesses to carry on. They threatened violators not just with civil penalties but with criminal sanctions too.’
[…]
Several studies have questioned the efficacy of lockdown in the US and internationally, indicating that in some cases the negative impacts outweighed the positives.
One review by an international team of economists found draconian shutdowns only reduced Covid mortality by 3 per cent in the UK, US and Europe in 2020.
The experts, from Johns Hopkins University in the US, Lund University in Sweden and the Danish think-tank the Center for Political Studies, said that equates to 6,000 fewer deaths in Europe and 4,000 fewer in the US.
But official data in the US has showed the country suffered nearly 300,000 more deaths than usual in more than two years of the pandemic that cannot be attributed to Covid.
Dr Coady Wing, a health policy expert from Indiana University, told DailyMail.com that these pandemic mandates kept people who needed care the most away from the doctor’s office – potentially costing thousands of lives.