Dear TD’s and Senators,
In regards to recent suggestions that Covid restrictions (mandatory Non-Pharmaceutical Interventions (NPI)) may be further extended if recommended by NPHET, I believe it is necessary to remind you of its very limited Terms of Reference.
NPHET’s Terms of Reference are limited to matters relating to “the overall national response to Coronavirus”.
NPHET is not required to, and so does not, assess the wider social, economic, public and mental health consequences of its recommendations. This assessment is the responsibility of others. Sixteen months into the epidemic, it is still not clear to whom this hugely important responsibility has been assigned.
It cannot possibly be that nobody is responsible for this assessment. In the absence of explicit delegation to a nominated agency or agencies, by default, it remains inescapably yours as TD’s and Senators, delegates of the people and responsible to the people for the actions or inactions of the State.
Nevertheless, there is unanimity that the social, economic, public and mental health effects of the mandatory NPI restrictions imposed on NPHET recommendation have been enormous, though as yet unquantified.
Importantly, despite the unquestioned magnitude of the burdens and harms consequent to the mandatory NPI restrictions, there has not yet been any cost/benefit analysis performed in order to verify whether the mandatory restrictions had in fact had a net benefit over and above the enormous social, economic, public and mental health costs.
In the absence of a specific cost/benefit analysis for Ireland, it is necessary to look overseas. The matter of the efficacy of mandatory NPI’s and their cost/benefit ratio has been the subject of extensive international research.
Please
find listed below forty-one (41) peer reviewed papers examining this
matter that have been published. Of these forty-one (41) papers,
thirty-nine (39) concluded that mandatory restrictions had no measurable
effect over voluntary actions by the public. Thus, the overwhelming
consensus of this research evaluating the efficacy of mandatory
restrictions in many countries including Ireland is they had no
measurable positive effect. In other words, their cost/benefit ratio is
BILLIONS : 0.
A Canadian economist, Douglas W. Allen of Simon Fraser University, Canada summarises his paper in its Abstract:
An examination of over 80 Covid-19 studies reveals that many relied on assumptions that were false, and which tended to over-estimate the benefits and under-estimate the costs of lockdown. As a result, most of the early cost/benefit studies arrived at conclusions that were refuted later by data, and which rendered their cost/benefit findings incorrect. Research done over the past six months has shown that lockdowns have had, at best, a marginal effect on the number of Covid-19deaths. Generally speaking, the ineffectiveness of lockdown stems from voluntary changes in behavior. Lockdown jurisdictions were not able to prevent non-compliance, and non-lockdown jurisdictions benefited from voluntary changes in behavior that mimicked lockdowns. The limited effectiveness of lockdowns explains why, after one year, the unconditional cumulative deaths per million, and the pattern of daily deaths per million, is not negatively correlated with the stringency of lockdown across countries. Using a cost/benefit method proposed by Professor Bryan Caplan, and using two extreme assumptions of lockdown effectiveness, the cost/benefit ratio of lockdowns in Canada, in terms of life-years saved, is between 3.6–282. That is, it is possible that lockdown will go down as one of the greatest peacetime policy failures in Canada’s history
There is every reason to believe his conclusions would be equally applicable to Ireland.
In conclusion, the weight of research evidence globally is that mandatory restrictions have had no measurable beneficial or positive effect. There is little or no reason to believe that Ireland is an exception to this global research, certainly, none of the papers that included Ireland in their evaluation identified it as an exception.
In the absence of a cost/benefit analysis with transparent methodology clearly demonstrating a positive cost benefit balance for extending mandatory restrictions, it is unconscionable that they should be extended on a mandatory basis. To do so would be to impose certain costs for almost certainly zero benefit.
All mandatory restrictions should be immediately converted to advisory recommendations. NPHET should continue to make its recommendations, but it should be up to each person to act in accordance with their personal risk assessment.
You are supposed to be leaders. It is time to stand up and be counted. Hold the Government accountable. Demand a clear cost/benefit analysis. End mandatory restrictions, convert them to advisory recommendations. Failure in this regard is dereliction of duty and would render you unfit for public office.
Yours Sincerely
Evaluations of Covid mandatory measures. | |
1 | Covid-19 Mortality: A Matter of Vulnerability Among Nations Facing Limited Margins of Adaptation |
Quentin De Larochelambert, Andy Marc, Juliana Antero, Eric Le Bourg and Jean-François Toussaint | |
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpubh.2020.604339/full | |
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2 | Assessing mandatory stay‐at‐home and business closure effects on the spread of COVID‐19 |
Eran Bendavid, Christopher Oh, Jay Bhattacharya, John P. A. Ioannidis | |
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3 | Stay-at-home policy is a case of exception fallacy: an internet-based ecological study |
Savaris,Pumi, Dalzochio, Kunst | |
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4 | COVID-19: Rethinking the Lockdown Groupthink |
Ari Joffe | |
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpubh.2021.625778/full | |
| |
5 | School closures and SARS-CoV-2. Evidence from Sweden’s partial school closure |
Jonas Vlachos, Edvin Hertegård,e Helena Svaleryd | |
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.10.13.20211359v3 | |
| |
6 | Did Lockdown Work? An Economist’s Cross-Country Comparison |
Christian Bjornskov | |
https://academic.oup.com/cesifo/advance-article/doi/10.1093/cesifo/ifab003/6199605 | |
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7 | A country level analysis measuring the impact of government actions, country preparedness and socioeconomic factors on COVID-19 mortality and related health outcomes |
Rabail Chaudhry, George Dranitsaris, Talha Mubashir, Justyna Bartoszko, Sheila Riazi | |
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/eclinm/article/PIIS2589-5370(20)30208-X/fulltext | |
| |
8 | Was R < 1 before the English lockdowns? On modelling mechanistic detail, causality and inference about Covid-19 |
S. N. Wood, E. C. Wit | |
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.02.03.21251112v2.full | |
| |
9 | Covid Lockdown Cost/Benefits:A Critical Assessment of the Literature |
Douglas W. Allen | |
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10 | SARS-CoV-2 Transmission among Marine Recruits during Quarantine |
Andrew G. Letizia, M.D., Irene Ramos, Ph.D., Ajay Obla, Ph.D., Carl Goforth, Ph.D., Dawn L. Weir, Ph.D., Yongchao Ge, Ph.D., Marcas M. Bamman, Ph.D., Jayeeta Dutta, M.B.A., Ethan Ellis, B.S., Luis Estrella, Ph.D., Mary-Catherine George, Ph.D., Ana S. Gonzalez-Reiche, Ph.D., William D. Graham, Ph.D., Adriana van de Guchte, M.S., Ramiro Gutierrez, M.D., Franca Jones, Ph.D., Aspasia Kalomoiri, Ph.D., Rhonda Lizewski, M.D., Stephen Lizewski, Ph.D., Jan Marayag, B.A., Nada Marjanovic, M.S., Eugene V. Millar, Ph.D., Venugopalan D. Nair, Ph.D., German Nudelman, Ph.D., Edgar Nunez, A.S., Brian L. Pike, Ph.D., Chad Porter, Ph.D., James Regeimbal, Ph.D., Stas Rirak, M.S., Ernesto Santa Ana, A.S., Rachel S.G. Sealfon, Ph.D., Robert Sebra, Ph.D., Mark P. Simons, Ph.D., Alessandra Soares-Schanoski, Ph.D., Victor Sugiharto, Ph.D., Michael Termini, M.D., Sindhu Vangeti, Ph.D., Carlos Williams, M.D., Olga G. Troyanskaya, Ph.D., Harm van Bakel, Ph.D., and Stuart C. Sealfon, M.D. | |
| |
11 | The lockdown effect: A counterfactual for Sweden |
Benjamin Born , Alexander M. Dietrich , Gernot J. Müller | |
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0249732 | |
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12 | COVID-19 pandemic-related lockdown: response time is more important than its strictness |
Gil Loewenthal, Shiran Abadi, Oren Avram, Keren Halabi, Noa Ecker, Natan Nagar, Itay Mayrose, Tal Pupko | |
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.06.11.20128520v1.full | |
| |
13 | Lockdown Effects on Sars-CoV-2 Transmission – The evidence from Northern Jutland |
Kasper Planeta Kepp, e Christian Bjørnskov | |
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.12.28.20248936v1.full | |
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14 | Full lockdown policies in Western Europe countries have no evident impacts on the COVID-19 epidemic |
Thomas Meunier | |
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.24.20078717v1 | |
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15 | Inferring the effectiveness of government interventions against COVID-19 |
Jan M. Brauner, Sören Mindermann, Mrinank Sharma, David Johnston, John Salvatier, Tomáš Gavenčiak, Anna B. Stephenson, Gavin Leech, George Altman, Vladimir Mikulik, Alexander John Norman, Joshua Teperowski Monrad, Tamay Besiroglu, Hong Ge, Meghan A. Hartwick, Yee Whye Teh, Leonid Chindelevitch, Yarin Gal, Jan Kulveit | |
https://science.sciencemag.org/content/371/6531/eabd9338/tab-pdf | |
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16 | Was Germany’s Corona Lockdown Necessary? |
Christof Kuhbandner, Stefan Homburg, Harald Walach, Stefan Hockertz | |
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17 | Inferring UK COVID-19 fatal infection trajectories from daily mortality data: were infections already in decline before the UK lockdowns? |
Simon N. Wood | |
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18 | Estimating the effects of non-pharmaceutical interventions on COVID-19 in Europe |
Seth Flaxman, Swapnil Mishra, Axel Gandy, H. Juliette T. Unwin, Thomas A. Mellan, Helen Coupland, Charles Whittaker, Harrison Zhu, Tresnia Berah, Jeffrey W. Eaton, Mélodie Monod, Imperial College COVID-19 Response Team, Azra C. Ghani, Christl A. Donnelly, Steven Riley, Michaela A. C. Vollmer, Neil M. Ferguson, Lucy C. Okell & Samir Bhatt | |
| |
19 | Comment on Flaxman et al. (2020, Nature, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-020-2405-7): The 1illusory effects of non-pharmaceutical interventions on COVID-19 in Europe |
Stefan Homburg1, Christof Kuhbandner | |
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20 | Impact of non-pharmaceutical interventions against COVID-19 in Europe: A quasi-experimental study |
Paul R Hunter, Felipe J Colón-González, Julii Brainard, Steven Rushton | |
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.05.01.20088260v2 | |
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21 | Trajectory of COVID-19 epidemic in Europe |
Marco Colombo, Joseph Mellor, Helen M Colhoun, M Gabriela M Gomes, Paul M McKeigue | |
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.09.26.20202267v1 | |
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22 | Effect of school closures on mortality from coronavirus disease 2019: old and new predictions |
Ken Rices, Ben Wynne, Victoria Martins, Graeme J Ackland | |
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23 | Modeling social distancing strategies to prevent SARS-CoV2 spread in Israel- A Cost-effectiveness analysis |
Amir Shlomai, Ari Leshno, View ORCID ProfileElla H. Sklan, View ORCID ProfileMoshe Leshno | |
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.03.30.20047860v3 | |
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24 | Smart Thinking, Lockdown and COVID-19: Implications for Public Policy |
Morris Altman | |
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25 | SARS-CoV-2 waves in Europe: A 2-stratum SEIRS model solution |
Levan Djaparidze, Federico Lois | |
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.10.09.20210146v2 | |
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26 | Four Stylized Facts about COVID-19 |
Andrew Atkeson, Karen Kopecky & Tao Zha | |
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27 | Association between living with children and outcomes from COVID-19: an OpenSAFELY cohort study of 12 million adults in England |
Harriet Forbes, Caroline E Morton, Seb Bacon, View ORCID ProfileHelen I McDonald, Caroline Minassian, Jeremy P Brown, View ORCID ProfileChristopher T Rentsch, View ORCID ProfileRohini Mathur, Anna Schultze, Nicholas J DeVito, View ORCID ProfileBrian MacKenna, William J Hulme, Richard Croker, Alex J Walker, Elizabeth J Williamson, Chris Bates, Amir Mehrkar, View ORCID ProfileHelen J Curtis, David Evans, Kevin Wing, Peter Inglesby, Henry Drysdale, Angel YS Wong, Jonathan Cockburn, Robert McManus, John Parry, Frank Hester, Sam Harper, Ian J Douglas, Liam Smeeth, Stephen JW Evans, Krishnan Bhaskaran, View ORCID ProfileRosalind M Eggo, View ORCID ProfileBen Goldacre, Laurie A Tomlinson | |
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.11.01.20222315v1 | |
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28 | Exploring inter-country coronavirus mortality |
Trevor Nell, Ian McGorian, Nick Hudson | |
https://pandata.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/Exploring-inter-country-variation.pdf | |
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29 | Lockdowns and Closures vs COVID –19: COVID Wins |
Surjit S Bhalla | |
http://ssbhalla.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/Lockdowns-Closures-vs.-COVID19-Covid-Wins-Nov-4.pdf | |
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30 | Government mandated lockdowns do not reduce Covid-19 deaths: implications for evaluating the stringent New Zealand response |
John Gibson | |
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00779954.2020.1844786 | |
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31 | Predicting the Trajectory of Any COVID19 Epidemic From the Best Straight Line |
View ORCID ProfileMichael Levitt, Andrea Scaiewicz, Francesco Zonta | |
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.06.26.20140814v2 | |
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32 | Potential lessons from the Taiwan and New Zealand health responses to the COVID-19 pandemic |
Dr Jennifer Summers, Dr Hao-Yuan Cheng, Professor Hsien-Ho Lin, Dr Lucy Telfar Barnard, Dr Amanda Kvalsvig, Professor Nick Wilson, Professor Michael G Baker | |
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanwpc/article/PIIS2666-6065(20)30044-4/fulltext | |
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33 | Commentary on : Potential lessons from the Taiwan and New Zealand health responses to the COVID-19 pandemic |
Amelia Janaskie | |
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34 | Effects of non-pharmaceutical interventions on COVID-19: A Tale of Three Models |
Vincent Chin, John P.A. Ioannidis, Martin A. Tanner, Sally Cripps | |
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.07.22.20160341v3 | |
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35 | A First Literature Review: Lockdowns Only Had a Small Effect on COVID-19 |
Jonas Herby | |
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36 | COVID-19 Lockdown Policies: An Interdisciplinary Review |
Oliver Robinson | |
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37 | The effect of interventions on COVID-19 |
Kristian Soltesz, Fredrik Gustafsson, Toomas Timpka, Joakim Jaldén, Carl Jidling, Albin Heimerson, Thomas B. Schön, Armin Spreco, Joakim Ekberg, Örjan Dahlström, Fredrik Bagge Carlson, Anna Jöud & Bo Bernhardsson | |
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38 | Evaluating the effects of shelter-in-place policies during the COVID-19 pandemic |
View ORCID ProfileChristopher R. Berry, Anthony Fowler, Tamara Glazer, Samantha Handel-Meyer, and Alec MacMillen | |
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39 | Longitudinal variability in mortality predicts Covid-19 deaths |
Jon O. Lundberg, Hugo Zeberg | |
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.12.25.20248853v1.full-text | |
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40 | Evaluating the effects of shelter-in-place policiesduring the COVID-19 pandemic |
Christopher R. Berrya, Anthony Fowlera, Tamara Glazera, Samantha Handel-Meyera, and Alec MacMillen | |
https://www.pnas.org/content/pnas/118/15/e2019706118.full.pdf | |
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41 | SARS-CoV-2 elimination, not mitigation, creates best outcomes for health, the economy, and civil liberties |
Miquel Oliu-Barton, *Bary S R Pradelski, Philippe Aghion, Patrick Artus, Ilona Kickbusch, Jeffrey V Lazarus, Devi Sridhar, Samantha Vanderslot | |
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(21)00978-8/fulltext | |
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I have carefully read the IT Community Standards in order to understand why my comments have been de-activated.
The Community Standards are:
"The following activities are not acceptable.
* Personal abuse of our authors, of commenters, members or of any other individuals.
* Posts which contain incitement to hatred of groups or individuals, or foul or profane language.
* Posts which promote or provide instructional information about illegal activities, promote physical harm or injury against any group or individual, or promote any act of cruelty to animals.
* Contributions which may put The Irish Times in legal jeopardy, because they are unlawful, harmful, threatening, abusive, harassing, tortious, defamatory, vulgar, obscene, libellous, invasive of another's privacy, hateful, or racially, ethnically or otherwise objectionable
* Comments which are not relevant to the topic in question
* Posts which appear to be promoting commercial products or acting in a spam-like fashion.
* Posts whose purpose is to promote propaganda or external links, rather than adding to the particular discussion taking place on irishtimes.com.
* Posts which create a false identity for the purpose of misleading others.
* Posts which "stalk" another."
None of my comments:
* have personal abuse of authors, of commenters, members or of any other individuals.
* contain incitement to hatred of groups or individuals, or foul or profane language
* promote or provide instructional information about illegal activities, promote physical harm or injury against any group or individual, or promote any act of cruelty to animals.
* are contributions which may put The Irish Times in legal jeopardy, because they are unlawful, harmful, threatening, abusive, harassing, tortious, defamatory, vulgar, obscene, libellous, invasive of another's privacy, hateful, or racially, ethnically or otherwise objectionable
* are comments which are not relevant to the topic in question
* are posts which appear to be promoting commercial products or acting in a spam-like fashion.
* create a false identity for the purpose of misleading others.
* "stalk" another
The remaining guideline is:
* Posts whose purpose is to promote propaganda or external links, rather than adding to the particular discussion taking place on irishtimes.com.
There are three parts to this one.
> Starting with the last part, I was seeking to add to the particular discussion by informing readers of successful actions taken in India to control the indian variant. All the deactivated posts related to early treatment.
> I linked to external sources, not to promote them, but to inform readers of my sources so they could see for themselves. I do not ask people to simply take my word for it. (Though they should :-))
> Propaganda. Coming from the IT, that is a good one. Who decides what is propaganda? A key element of successful propaganda is to simply not report on events that contradict the preferred narrative. IT excels at this. I was presenting additional information that opposes the IT doomnfearmongering propaganda.
I believe my posts were deactivated because of this opposition to IT propaganda and presentation of facts in conflict with their doomnfearmongering.
For anyone who may wish to compare my comments to the IT Community Guidelines, I have posted them here:
https://ltexpat.blogspot.com/2021/06/deactivated-comments-relating-to.html
If, having read them, any one considers that any of my comments may genuinely have violated the above guidelines, I would appreciate it if you would leave a comment explaing why. Thank you.