Go back to last year when the COVID War broke out. As we have noted in detail, Big Tech was the first to close down their offices, telling employees they could work from home.
It worked perfectly for them. As the world went remote, the tech-heavy NASDAQ spiked 43.6 percent.
For the rest of society, schools and “non-essential” businesses closed down, office occupancy rates plummeted to a percentage rate in the teens, millions fled large cities for suburbs and ex-burbs, tens of millions became unemployed, and millions of businesses closed down and/or went bust.
Were the lockdowns worth it?
Not according to a study published last month by the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), titled, “The Long-Term Impact of the COVID-19 Unemployment Shock on Life Expectancy and Mortality Rates.”
The research by two economists from Johns Hopkins and Duke University and a medical researcher from Harvard Medical School concludes the recession caused by lockdown policies may cause deaths that “far exceed those immediately related to the acute COVID-19 critical illness.” The researchers concluded, “The recession caused by the pandemic can jeopardize population health for the next two decades.”
To date, this is the first study that analyzes the devastating long-term lockdown effects.
As the 6 January article in Fortune magazine reviewing the study notes, “In March and April [the first two months of lockdowns in the U.S.], the unemployment rate jumped from nearly the lowest in 50 years to the highest since the current measurement system began in 1948.”
Hit Hard
The study found that those suffering the most from the lockdown recession are women and minorities:
“Importantly, COVID-19 related job losses disproportionately affect women, particularly of Hispanic heritage; African Americans; foreign-born individuals; less-educated adults and individuals age 16-24. In fact, the unemployment rate underestimates the extent of the economic contraction as many potential workers have abandoned the workforce (especially women).”
Culling decades on unemployment, lifespan, and fatality rates from the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the CDC, the study concluded the fatality effect of the 2020 lockdown “staggering”: “Over the next 20 years, 1.37 million more people will die than would have died without the unemployment shock the pandemic caused.”
The article reporting on this study makes clear that “in coming decades, we will never know exactly whose lives have been shortened by the economic distress the pandemic caused. But that suffering will be just as real and shouldn’t be forgotten or ignored.”
TREND FORECAST: The word on the Street being sold by the media and politicians and believed by the majority of the population is that with the vaccine rush-out underway, businesses and “life” will bounce back in late spring/early summer.
Yes, it will, to some extent. But what has been lost is lost and will not be recovered as the “Greatest Depression” worsens. As long-term economic conditions decline, COVID War fatality rates will continue to rise.
