The Fickle Science of Lockdowns – WSJ

Even at the outset of Covid-19, the unwisdom of lockdowns guided mainstream epidemiology. When the Wuhan region of China imposed harsh restrictions on Jan. 23, 2020, Anthony Fauci questioned the move. That s something that I don t think we could possibly do in the United States, I can t imagine shutting down New York or Los Angeles, Dr. Fauci told CNN. He likely had the scientific literature in mind when he advised that historically, when you shut things down, it doesn t have a major effect.

What caused the scientific community to abandon its aversion to lockdowns? The empirical evidence didn t change. Rather, the lockdown strategy originated from the same sources the WHO had heavily deprecated in its 2019 report: speculative and untested epidemiological models.

The most influential model came from Imperial College London. In April 2020, the journal Nature credited the Imperial team led by Neil Ferguson for developing one of the main computer simulations driving the world s response to Covid-19. The New York Times described it as the report that jarred the U.S. and the U.K. to action.

via www.wsj.com

Not to go all tin-foil hat, but it seems to me there’s got to be some sort of tin-foil hat explanation behind what otherwise appears to be an utterly stupid, just look-at-me-I’ve-got-a-model sort of explanation. Profound imbecility or profound malice, or perhaps some blend of the two. Who is this Neil Ferguson chap, anyway? Why did he have so much influence?