“Another lockdown would be disastrous, Governor. At this point, we know that the benefits of lockdown are small. All they do is push cases off into the future. It doesn’t actually prevent the disease from happening. And the costs are absolutely catastrophic, enormous.
Schools are a good example of this. Schools are places where kids get, obviously, education, but they get nutrition through school lunches, school breakfasts. They get counseling they have psychological problems or abuse is picked up.
People who don’t go to the hospital because they’re more scared of COVID than they are of cancer is a disaster. Parents who don’t take their kid in for immunization.
Lockdown costs are absolutely catastrophic. We know that for a fact; there’s not uncertainty around that. Whereas we’ve learned from our experience over the last few months that the lockdown benefits are much smaller than expected. Places that have locked down – for instance Argentina and Spain famously locked down very sharply, and yet they’re still seeing a sharp rise in cases.
Lockdowns are not a way to eliminate the disease. Lockdowns have never in history eradicated a disease and it will not do that in this case either, and the costs are too high.”
Stanford Professor Dr. Jay Bhattacharya responding to Governor DeSantis’ question if lockdowns should be an option.
