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Why Didn't the 1958 and 1918 Pandemics Destroy the Economy? Hint: It's the Lockdowns

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Media pundits and politicians are now in the habit of claiming it was the pandemic itself that has caused unemployment to skyrocket and economic growth to plummet. The claim is that sick and dying workers, fearful consumers, and disrupted supply chains would cause economic chaos. Some have even claimed that economic shutdowns actually help the economy, because it is claimed allowing the spread of the disease will itself destroy employment and economic growth.1

Leaving aside the fact there's no evidence lockdowns actually work, we can nonetheless look to past pandemics—where coercive government interventions were at most sporadic—we should see immense economic damage. Specifically, we can look to the the pandemic of 1957-58, which was more deadly than the COVID-19 pandemic has been so far. We can also look to the 1918-19 pandemic. Yet, we will see that neither produced economic damage on a scale we now see as a result of the government mandated lockdowns. This thoroughly undermines the claims that the lockdowns are only a minor factor in economic destruction, and that the virus itself is the real culprit.

Economic Reactions in 1957–58, and in 1918–19

The CDC estimates that as of May 18 this year approximately ninety thousand Americans have died of COVID-19. Adjusted for population size, that comes out to a mortality rate of 272 per million.
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The 'Science' Behind Social Distancing

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The world has been turned upside down with draconian government orders to “flatten the curve” with what is called Social Distancing. Schools have been closed for months, businesses have been involuntarily shut down and travel restrictions have idled 90 percent of the airlines. The net result is over 36 million American’s are unemployed and the number is rising. 

Now we learn the whole social distancing lockdown that has paralyzed the nation comes from a very surprising source. A May 2nd article in the Albuquerque Journal reveals social distancing hysteria is NOT based on scientific evidence or clinical medical trials for that matter. 

How would you feel if you learned your normal way of life had been completely upended based on a computer model created by a 15 year old Albuquerque New Mexico High School student named Laura Glass?

Glass, along with her Dad Robert (a government scientist then working at Sandia National Laboratories) cooked up a home brew computer model for a science and engineering fair in May, 2006. Robert Glass had been working on computer models for the National Infrastructure Simulation and Analysis Center at Sandia and often worked from home.
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One Good Thing about the Lockdown

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One of the few good things to come out of the government-mandated shutdown is that many parents have started homeschooling their children. Many of these parents are likely to continue homeschooling after the government schools reopen.
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The CDC confirms remarkably low coronavirus death rate. Where is the media?

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Most people are more likely to wind up six feet under because of almost anything else under the sun other than COVID-19.

The CDC just came out with a report that should be earth-shattering to the narrative of the political class, yet it will go into the thick pile of vital data and information about the virus that is not getting out to the public. For the first time, the CDC has attempted to offer a real estimate of the overall death rate for COVID-19, and under its most likely scenario, the number is 0.26 percent. Officials estimate a 0.4 percent fatality rate among those who are symptomatic and project a 35 percent rate of asymptomatic cases among those infected, which drops the overall infection fatality rate (IFR) to just 0.26 percent — almost exactly where Stanford researchers pegged it a month ago.

Until now, we have been ridiculed for thinking the death rate was that low, as opposed to the 3.4 percent estimate of the World Health Organization, which helped drive the panic and the lockdowns. Now the CDC is agreeing to the lower rate in plain ink.

Plus, ultimately we might find out that the IFR is even lower because numerous studies and hard counts of confined populations have shown a much higher percentage of asymptomatic cases. Simply adjusting for a 50 percent asymptomatic rate would drop their fatality rate to 0.2 percent – exactly the rate of fatality Dr. John Ionnidis of Stanford University projected.
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‘Nothing can justify this destruction of people’s lives’

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Countries across the world have been in lockdown for months in response to the coronavirus pandemic. The costs of the policy are enormous – in terms of life, liberty and the economy. But is it worth it to save lives? Yoram Lass was once the director-general of Israel’s Ministry of Health. Lass is a staunch critic of the lockdown policy adopted in his native Israel and around the world. He has described our response to Covid-19 as a form of hysteria. spiked caught up with him to find out more.

spiked: You have described the global response to coronavirus as hysteria. Can you explain that?

Yoram Lass: It is the first epidemic in history which is accompanied by another epidemic – the virus of the social networks. These new media have brainwashed entire populations. What you get is fear and anxiety, and an inability to look at real data. And therefore you have all the ingredients for monstrous hysteria.

It is what is known in science as positive feedback or a snowball effect. The government is afraid of its constituents. Therefore, it implements draconian measures. The constituents look at the draconian measures and become even more hysterical. They feed each other and the snowball becomes larger and larger until you reach irrational territory. This is nothing more than a flu epidemic if you care to look at the numbers and the data, but people who are in a state of anxiety are blind. If I were making the decisions, I would try to give people the real numbers. And I would never destroy my country.
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Ohio Judge Deems the State's COVID-19 Lockdown 'Arbitrary, Unreasonable, and Oppressive'

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Ohio's COVID-19 lockdown is illegal, a state judge ruled today, because it exceeds the powers granted by the statute under which it was imposed. Responding to a May 8 lawsuit filed by the 1851 Center for Constitutional Law on behalf of 35 gyms, Lake County Court of Common Pleas Judge Eugene Lucci enjoined Ohio Department of Health Director Amy Acton from penalizing the plaintiffs or similar businesses for violating the lockdown, provided "they operate in compliance with all applicable safety regulations."

In issuing her business closure and stay-at-home orders, Acton relied on a statute that gives her department "ultimate authority in matters of quarantine and isolation." Lucci concluded that Ohio's lockdown does not meet the legal requirements for "isolation," which is defined as "the separation of an infected individual from others during the period of disease communicability," or a "quarantine," which is defined as "the restriction of the movements or activities of a well individual or animal who has been exposed to a communicable disease during the period of communicability of that disease." A quarantine is supposed to last only as long as "the usual incubation period of the disease"—two to 14 days, in the case of COVID-19.

By contrast, Lucci writes, "The director has quarantined the entire people of the state of Ohio, for much more than 14 days. The director has no statutory authority to close all businesses, including the plaintiffs' gyms, which she deems non-essential for a period of two months. She has acted in an impermissibly arbitrary, unreasonable, and oppressive manner and without any procedural safeguards."
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Coronavirus Overkill, as Stats, New Facts Belie Panic

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Stay home, stay away from strangers, shut down the schools and for God’s sake, whatever happens, do not touch plastic or stainless steel. That was COVID-19, April.

Now? A few hop, skip and jump days later? Oops. Oopsies. Oppose-daisies.

“Coronavirus ‘does not spread easily’ by touching surfaces or objects, CDC now says,” one USA Today headline read.

How embarrassing.

Or, if you’re a small business owner or one of the 33 million, err, 35 million, err 36 million put out of work by government’s forced closures due to COVID-19 — how #$(&&*%! unbelievable.

It was just April, after all, when the news headlines rang loud and panicky about a study from The Lancet Microbe that showed the virus was a pesky little thing that clung stubbornly to all kinds of stuff people touched daily, particularly plastic.

“Researchers behind the new study tested the virus’ life span in a 71-degree-Fahrenheit room at 65% relative humidity,” Business Insider wrote in April. “After three hours, the virus had disappeared from printing and tissue paper. It took two days for it to leave wood and cloth fabric. After four days, it was no longer detectable on glass or paper money. It lasted the longest, seven days, on stainless steel and plastic.”
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600 Doctors Warn Trump: Lockdown May Be More Deadly Than Coronavirus!

Hundreds of doctors have sent a letter to President Trump warning that the nationwide lockdown is killing thousands of Americans. It may end up more deadly even than the coronavirus it is intended to defeat. Doctors understand that you don't kill the patient to save the patient. Also, homeschool moms in Lake Jackson, TX, defy officials and take their kids to the park. City workers call the cops - but in a twist, the moms know their Constitution and end up schooling both the cops and city officials. Watch today's Liberty Report...
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