How Many Millions Have Lockdowns Killed?
What was it then that caused the remaining 70% of the excess deaths? What did those 12 million people die from if it wasn’t vaccination or the coronavirus?
Dr. Eyal Shahar, Professor emeritus at the University of Arizona recently published a very interesting article on vaccine deaths. His conclusion is that they are between 7-14 per 100,000 which is far beyond what is acceptable compared to other vaccinations, and for most people much higher than the Covid-19 IFR. When we take into account how limited, or even negative the effectiveness of those vaccines is, it is clear that they are neither safe nor effective, Shahar says.
As Shahar points out this explains only a small part of the surge in excess deaths we have witnessed in the past two years. He notes, however, that there is uncertainty about the longer-term effects of the vaccinations on mortality rates.
Sweden now has the lowest rate of excess deaths in Europe in the last three years. Sweden was also almost the only country that avoided lockdowns for the best part of 2020. However, the vaccination rate in Sweden was on par with other European countries. This supports Shahar's hypothesis that although the harm of the vaccines is unacceptable, it only explains a part of the excess deaths.
Now, let’s do a crude assessment of how large that part is, using OECD excess mortality figures and NYT vaccination coverage figures. Continuing with Sweden, excess deaths in 2021-2022, that is, after vaccination started, was 2,261 in total. With 76% of the population vaccinated at least once, vaccinated persons are just under 8 million. Assuming Shahar’s median figure of 10 vaccine related deaths per 100,000 we get 798 deaths, which is around 35% of excess deaths.
Let’s look at the UK now. Using OECD excess mortality figures, 81% vaccination rate and the same assumption of vaccine related deaths, we get a total of 5,384 deaths due to vaccination. However, considering different population sizes the excess mortality rate for the UK in 2021-2022 is seven times that of Sweden, which means the vaccine related UK deaths are only 5% of excess mortality as compared with 35% in Sweden.
Looking at my own country, Iceland, with an 86% vaccination rate, around 6% of excess mortality in 2021-2022 is vaccine related, using Sharar’s estimate. Not far from that of the UK.
Finally we can do a rough estimate for the OECD as a whole. With a total of excess mortality of three million in 2021-2022, and assuming a vaccination rate of 75%, slightly higher than the worldwide 70%, around 3% of excess deaths are vaccine related, using Shahar’s median estimate. This means the remainder of the excess deaths have other causes than the vaccines. Extrapolating to the world as a whole (crude, I know, but I’m getting lazy now crunching the numbers, plus reliable figures for the whole world are hard to come by), we get some 16.6 million excess deaths not accounted for by vaccination. According to the WHO, total coronavirus deaths were 6.8 million by year-end 2022. Two million of those occurred in 2020 which leaves us with 4.8 million in 2021-2022. This is just under 30% of the 16.6 million estimated excess deaths during that period.
What was it then that caused the remaining 70% of the excess deaths? What did those 12 million people die from if it wasn’t vaccination or the coronavirus? Is it possible that the consequences of lockdowns; job losses, fear and panic, isolation, depression, the attack on childrens’ education and well-being, delayed diagnoses and operations, are just so much more serious than we could have imagined? That for every coronavirus death, at least two people died directly due to the measures taken to avoid or delay that single death, not even counting those killed by the vaccines?
Is it possible that tearing up the fabric of our societies because of a virus with a 99.8% survival rate wasn’t such a good idea after all?
This seems to be what the Swedish figures tell us.
But further research is needed. The only measure we currently have for comparing lockdown severity between countries is the so-called "stringency index". However, this measure is not perfect, both because stringency changes over time and also because it does not seem to distinguish between recommendations and mandates. As an example, stringency in Sweden and in Iceland in 2020 appears similar looking at the index, while the critical difference is that Iceland mandated closures of schools and businesses, masks and social distancing while Sweden only made recommendations. We must therefore dig deeper to be able to assess the relationship between the severity of lockdown and excess deaths. This work must be carried out, because it is crucial that we learn from the events of the last three years. And that we never repeat them.
Great work as always.
For those interested in the role the American mainstream media plays in protecting all the Covid narratives ...
AP hatchet job on RFK, Jr. is a new low for mainstream journalism.
https://billricejr.substack.com/p/hatchet-job-on-rfk-jr-is-new-low
I'm glad to see you bring up the lockdowns. I have long felt that there has not been enough reporting and discussion, even here in Substacklandia, on the damage caused by lockdowns. Some of it was outright death. But there was also severe psychological damage, not to mention damage to the social fabric. Coincidentally I came upon some testimonies for the Canadian National Citzens Inquiry and found this one, by a father, especially moving.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-kXvSGVgdaI