So Much for the “Strawman” of Lockdowns
Phil MagnessPhillip W. Magness
– November 2, 2020

AIER >> Daily Economy >> Policy >> Crisis >> Authoritarianism



The Great Barrington Declaration website went live on October 5, 2020. Over the next four weeks it amassed signatures from over 10,000 health scientists, 30,000 medical practitioners, and 600,000 members of the general public – all calling for an end to lockdowns as the primary tool for mitigating Covid-19. Lockdowns have imposed immense social and economic harms over the last eight months. Meanwhile, surprisingly little evidence exists to support the effectiveness of the lockdown approach.

The response from previous defenders of such policies, both in epidemiology and journalism, sought to both vilify the signers of the Declaration and deny that lockdowns are even on the table as a future policy option.

Gregg Gonsalves, an epidemiologist at Yale University, answered the Declaration on October 5th: “First, let’s knock down the straw man up front. No one is supporting massive, across-the-board lockdowns everywhere, all the time. This is the foil for these arguments. And it’s a convenient bogeyman.”

William Hanage, an epidemiologist at Harvard University, reacted to the Great Barrington Declaration on October 6th: “This is a dangerous falsehood. -- excerpt, rest at link above --