BIG NEWS New paper out in BMJ Global Health with a brilliant team of researchers on the health impacts of lockdowns Long story short - lockdowns aren't ideal, but COVID-19 outbreaks are probably much worse 1/nhttps://gh.bmj.com/content/6/8/e006653 …
-
Show this thread
-
2/n What did we do in this paper? It's a narrative review, so basically represents our knowledge and opinions about the topic, using all of the data that we could find ourselvespic.twitter.com/x72YPKQvgr
1 reply 12 retweets 55 likesShow this thread -
3/n That means that this isn't the definitive word on lockdowns, or interventions like them Having said that, we do think that there are a few points that are extremely clear from the evidence to date
1 reply 5 retweets 43 likesShow this thread -
4/n Firstly - lockdowns cannot possibly cause massive increases to short-term deaths. We used the World Mortality Dataset to look at this, thanks again
@ArielKarlinsky and@hippopedoid2 replies 24 retweets 85 likesShow this thread -
5/n Places WITH lockdowns but WITHOUT COVID-19 epidemics did not see excess deaths. There are numerous examples of this, and it largely invalidates the idea that lockdowns in and of themselves cause fatalitiespic.twitter.com/sW7kB6jA2v
1 reply 19 retweets 76 likesShow this thread -
6/n Importantly, this DOES NOT MEAN that lockdowns necessarily prevented deaths, as comparisons such as the UK vs Sweden show, but that it is not consistent with the evidence to claim that lockdowns have large impacts on short-term mortalitypic.twitter.com/UBfKZsvaCv
4 replies 7 retweets 43 likesShow this thread -
7/n After that, we get into the REALLY complex stuff. We looked at: 1. Disruptions to health services 2. Mental health/suicide 3. Global health programmes
1 reply 4 retweets 37 likesShow this thread -
8/n To cut a long story short, the evidence for all of these is mixed. There's some data showing impact of government interventions. There's also data showing that large numbers of COVID-19 cases are bad as well
1 reply 6 retweets 41 likesShow this thread -
9/n Mental health in particular is a tricky subject. Lockdowns certainly have not been associated with increases in suicide, but there have been consistent worries about mental health
2 replies 9 retweets 48 likesShow this thread -
Replying to @GidMK
I can say that in personal experience from the last year: - multiple suicide attempts - horrible alcoholism causing weight gain which ironically increases the risk of bad COVID, which feeds back into itself - persistent sense of impending despair and worse, especially lately.
2 replies 0 retweets 0 likes
Loading seems to be taking a while.
Twitter may be over capacity or experiencing a momentary hiccup. Try again or visit Twitter Status for more information.