Review
Version 2
Preserved in Portico This version is not peer-reviewed
COVID-19: Rethinking the Lockdown Groupthink
Version 1
: Received: 14 October 2020 / Approved: 15 October 2020 / Online: 15 October 2020 (16:02:58 CEST)
Version 2 : Received: 3 November 2020 / Approved: 4 November 2020 / Online: 4 November 2020 (10:14:33 CET)
Version 2 : Received: 3 November 2020 / Approved: 4 November 2020 / Online: 4 November 2020 (10:14:33 CET)
A peer-reviewed article of this Preprint also exists.
Joffe AR. COVID-19: Rethinking the lockdown groupthink. Frontiers in Public Health 2021;9:625778 Joffe AR. COVID-19: Rethinking the lockdown groupthink. Frontiers in Public Health 2021;9:625778
Abstract
The Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) has caused the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) worldwide pandemic in 2020. In response, most countries in the world implemented lockdowns, restricting their population’s movements, work, education, gatherings, and general activities in attempt to ‘flatten the curve’ of COVID-19 cases. The public health goal of lockdowns was to save the population from COVID-19 cases and deaths, and to prevent overwhelming health care systems with COVID-19 patients. In this narrative review I explain why I changed my mind about supporting lockdowns. First, I explain how the initial modeling predictions induced fear and crowd-effects [i.e., groupthink]. Second, I summarize important information that has emerged relevant to the modeling, including about infection fatality rate, high-risk groups, herd immunity thresholds, and exit strategies. Third, I describe how reality started sinking in, with information on significant collateral damage due to the response to the pandemic, and information placing the number of deaths in context and perspective. Fourth, I present a cost-benefit analysis of the response to COVID-19 that finds lockdowns are far more harmful to public health than COVID-19 can be. Controversies and objections about the main points made are considered and addressed. I close with some suggestions for moving forward.
Keywords
COVID-19; Public Health; Lockdowns; Cost-benefit analysis; Groupthink
Subject
MEDICINE & PHARMACOLOGY, Allergology
Copyright: This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Comments (2)
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Commenter: Ari Joffe
Commenter's Conflict of Interests: Author
1. Updated with several more recent references to support the evidence base.
2. Added some paragraphs to improve the manuscript: the inequality of the effects of our response to COVID-19 [in section 3.1]; a reply to statements that 'herd immunity is a dangerous idea' [in added section 5.1.2]; and a brief discussion os some research priorities to improve the evidence base for our response [in added section 5.2].
3. Added Table 8: a cost-benefit analysis for the USA, based on a published paper in JAMA.
The commenter has declared there is no conflict of interests.