Lockdowns Reduced COVID Mortality Only 0.2 Percent: Johns Hopkins Analysis

An analysis of studies released last month by Johns Hopkins University indicated that lockdowns in the spring of 2020 reduced COVID-19 mortality by only 0.2% in the U.S. and Europe, Fox News reported.

Johns Hopkins University economics professor Steve Hanke, Lund University economics professor Lars Jonung, and Jonas Herby, special adviser at Copenhagen's Center for Political Studies,  analyzed various studies regarding how school shutdowns, business closings and mask mandates affected the COVID-19 death rate.

''While this meta-analysis concludes that lockdowns have had little to no public health effects, they have imposed enormous economic and social costs where they have been adopted,'' the researchers wrote. ''In consequence, lockdown policies are ill-founded and should be rejected as a pandemic policy instrument.''