The authors of the Great Barrington nonsense have produced a website called "collateral global", claiming to document the collateral effects of COVID-19 lockdowns I thought I'd have a look at the scholarship on display 1/npic.twitter.com/N6TdiWQ7Bp
You can add location information to your Tweets, such as your city or precise location, from the web and via third-party applications. You always have the option to delete your Tweet location history. Learn more
3/n There are currently 4 studies listed. One found no change in suicide rates, one is an opinion piece by a psychiatrist, and the other two are cross-sectional studies of suicidal ideationpic.twitter.com/qiOODb62DT
4/n This is odd, because there are now half a dozen academic studies showing NO increase of suicides during lockdown, and a further few published by governments:https://twitter.com/GidMK/status/1336493616097681412?s=20 …
5/n Moving on, education The very first study is a red flag. This is the research that a colleague and I have published a critique about due to mathematical, statistical, and theoretical errors https://osf.io/9yqxw pic.twitter.com/fVA1K7otkk
6/n Next up, we have in red a white paper by a for-profit exam/tutoring company, blue an analysis of students who got free school meals, and green an interesting non peer-reviewed "observation" piece from the institute for fiscal studiespic.twitter.com/4GH1N2m7s8
7/n Not nearly as bad as the suicide page, but it's not quite the robust evidence that we are promised on the tin
8/n Moving on, the employment section is just bad. Only the UK, no attempt to disaggregate the impacts of the epidemic from lockdowns, just blaming any and all financial issues on government actionpic.twitter.com/WRW8SJlSoU
9/n This is particularly surprising given that economists have indeed produced detailed analyses of the financial impact of lockdowns vs widespread COVID-19 epidemics For example, the IMF, who said this:pic.twitter.com/jWH9taOVOs
10/n Pretty odd to have a whole webpage on the collateral impacts of lockdown on the economy and completely ignore a report by the IMF saying that lockdowns may actually benefit the economy in some circumstances
11/n The Cancer page is a bit better, but again many of these studies don't address lockdowns specifically. Not sure why these would be included in a webpage about the collateral impacts of lockdownpic.twitter.com/AEAQmiRHY5
12/n All of this is a bit galling. The question of government restrictions and COVID-19 is a vitally important one. The answers are complex and nuanced
13/n Instead of engaging with that, the authors of this website are presenting all of these pieces of often very detailed scientific research as some kind of proof that lockdowns are bad Which is nonsense
14/n In reality, as we now know from many places in the world, the impact of COVID-19 itself are problematic, and there are quite clear BENEFITS to lockdowns in some cases
15/n The scientific approach is to approach restrictions with careful consideration Instead, we see this sort of absurd political rhetoric from the authors of the GBDpic.twitter.com/CcNvrjh1zW
Twitter may be over capacity or experiencing a momentary hiccup. Try again or visit Twitter Status for more information.