by Brian T. Lynch, MSW
The American Institute for Economic Research (AIER) is on a national campaign to convince us that lockdown orders have no proven effect on reducing the transmission of the Coronavirus. In an article this week by Ethan Yang, he argues that the very high death rates in the Northeast states where the pandemic hit hardest are proof that the “draconian” lockdown measured employed didn’t work to reduce the number of people who died. He writes that, “… states like Wyoming, Utah, South Dakota, and North Dakota, which did not lock down are amongst the best overall in terms of deaths per capita.”
Yang doesn’t mention that months passed between the outbreaks in New York and New Jersey and the later arrival of the infections out west. He doesn’t factor in the differences in population size and density between these regions, nor does he mention the hard-won advances in diagnosis and treatments made early on by doctors in the Northeast. And what of the severe lack of medicines, respirators, ventilators, PPE’s and testing kits that the Northeast states confronted. Additionally, the way COVID-19 deaths are medically defined and reported has changed over this time period. All reporting now passing through two private contractors with special, no-bid contracts.
Yang’s argument is completely disingenuous. But then, consider Yang’s background. Before the AIER hired him this year, Yang was an intern at the ALEC, the American Legislative Exchange Council that drafts corporate-friendly legislation for state and federal Republican legislators to introduce as if it was their own work product. And the AIER itself is not a research institute as their name implies, but partisan “think tank” promoting a corporate agenda. Its real mission is to give a veneer of scholarly consideration to baseless policy ideas that serve corporate interests.
Meanwhile, actual scholarly attempts to quantify the benefits of national lockdowns and other prevention measures are underway. The literature is still thin. Pandemics of this magnitude are (thankfully) infrequent with the last comparable case being the pandemic of 1918. But the early scientific consensus based on recent studies is that lockdowns, social distancing, and other prevention measures are saving lives. For example, an analysis of a study conducted by a group at Imperial College London that compared COVID-19 cases reported in several European countries under lockdown with the worst-case scenario predicted for each of those countries by a computer found that the lockdowns avoided 3.1 million deaths.
Just a closer look at publicly available data show evidence that lockdown orders work to bring infection rates under control. I combined timeline information published by the BBC on prevention measures taken by various countries to control the spread of infections (and cited by Yang in his article), with bar graphs of daily new COVID-19 cases published by Worldometer, an independent data reporting organization. I looked at France and Spain, two countries that were greatly impacted by the pandemic when it swept through Europe. Both countries imposed a national lockdown to try and bring the exponential spread of the virus under control. There has never been a national lockdown order in the United States, so I looked at New York and New Jersey, the two states that had the worst outbreaks. Both states imposed lockdown orders on March 20th and March 21st respectively. I arbitrarily chose a 16-day period to allow the lockdown to begin taking effect and 2 months from the lockdown date to see how well the lockdown was working.
The results are in the graphs below. The first graph shows the timeline for four different prevention strategies used by some of the countries in Europe and the Americas. The full graphics can be viewed at the BBC site (see sources below).
These next two graphs show how the national lockdown correlated with the number of daily new cases in Spain and France.
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And the next two graphs show how the statewide lockdowns correlated with the daily new cases of COVID-19 in New Jersey and New York.
In an even more outlandish article by Stephen Miller published by AIER on August 26th, he writes about a new National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) working paper by Andrew Atkeson, Karen Kopecky, and Tao Zha focused on countries and U.S. states with more than 1,000 COVID deaths as of late July. Miller writes:
“Based on their analysis, the authors present four “Stylized Facts” about COVID-19, which are:
1. Once a region reaches 25 total COVID deaths, within a month the growth rate in deaths per day falls to approximately zero. In other words, no matter the country or state and its policies, deaths per day stop increasing within 20-30 days of passing a threshold of 25 deaths… ”
In other words, this group suggests that there is a natural cutoff point beyond which the virus is no longer fatal? Or that the exponential growth of the virus just stops on its own? Stylized facts, indeed. Here below are two daily new cases graphs from Mexico and Brazil. Mexico has only issued recommended restrictions and precautions. Brazil has issued some localized lockdowns, but no national lockdowns.
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There is no evidence of a natural decline in cases in these countries. Clearly, the types of interventions countries choose to fight the pandemic matters, and national or statewide lockdowns do appear to work.
SOURCES
AIER – American Institute for Economic Research
A Closer Look at the States that Stayed Open
AIER – American Institute for Economic Research
Lockdowns and Mask Mandates Do Not Lead to Reduced COVID Transmission Rates or Deaths, New Study Suggests
The Scientist
Counting the Lives Saved by Lockdowns—and Lost to Slow Action
Social distancing measures prevented millions of COVID-19–related deaths around the world, according to a handful of studies, but it’s hard to quantify the effects with certainty.
The Scientist
The Effects of Physical Isolation on the Pandemic Quantified
Social distancing measures are based on limited data. As much of the world remains stuck in lockdown, researchers are trying to measure the benefits.
BBC
Coronavirus: The world in lockdown in maps and charts
Worldometers
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