4-years today, Boris Johnson announced the first unprecedented UK Covid lockdown

2-years of emergency law followed, sidelining parliament & causing significant harm to society

The UK Covid Inquiry is tasked with evaluating this response

🧵 Thread on how it has done to far 👇 1/ This will be the most expensive Public Inquiry ever, with estimates of £300-500 million until 2026

Yet the legal structure has given priority status to bereaved family groups

This has biased the evaluation from the start

collateralglobal.org/article/one-we…

📢How did the Covid response harm society?

Read my new comprehensive evaluation of this important,complex topic

"Research shows collateral damage was substantial, wide-ranging & will leave behind legacy of harm for 100s of millions in yrs ahead"

👇1/12

papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cf… Covid was the most disruptive global crisis since WW2

& the use of NPIs, including lockdown, the most consequential set of policies in modern public health history

Early on, many voiced concern that NPIs would cause widespread social harm, esp for vulnerable/poorer pls.
2/12

The magnitude of lockdown & pandemic disruptions in 2020 is hard to appreciate

33% of people lost a job/business, highest in low-middle income countries& social grps, per Wellcome Global Monitoring project (113 countries, late 2020

Other figures👇

cms.wellcome.org/sites/default/…

📢Read our new paper:

Analysis suggests Covid-19 boosters likely to cause a net clinical harm to young adults(18-29 yr), where total severe adverse events (SAEs) will outweigh Covid hospitalizations averted

Booster mandates are unethical because:1/13🧵
jme.bmj.com/content/early/… In April, Paul Offit stated in a NEJM editorial:"It is now incumbent on CDC to determine who most benefits from booster dosing & educate the public about the limits of mucosal vaccines"

CDC/FDA has NOT conducted risk-benefit analysis for young people 2/13
nejm.org/doi/full/10.10…

Do face masks increase social conformity? Yes, based on 10 experiments from China. Masks (supposedly) make u: less likely to run red lights, park a bike in no-parking zones, cheat for money & misbehave in libraries. Wild paper in PNAS, but behind paywall

pnas.org/doi/abs/10.107… Here is a summary of the findings

Did u support lockdowns but now question them?

Prof. Woolhouse=1 of Scotland's most senior ID epidemiologists

🧵/25; my favourite quotes from his book: "The Year the World Went Mad"

"My main aim in writing this book is that lockdown scepticism will become the mainstream view" "The truth is that we didn't really try to protect the vulnerable. All in all, the under-investment in protecting the vulnerable is one of the most baffling failures of the UK's pandemic response."

📢NEW-Covid boosters in young adults?

Our risk-benefit analysis shows clinical harms outweigh benefits

University booster mandates are unethical 1/12 🧵

@KrugAlli @ID_ethics @TrudoLemmens @s_keshavjee @VPrasadMDMPH @MartyMakary @sdbaral @TracyBethHoeg

papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cf… In April, Paul Offit stated in a NEJM editorial: "It is now incumbent on CDC to determine who most benefits from booster dosing & educate the public about the limits of mucosal vaccines."

CDC/FDA has NOT conducted risk-benefit analysis for young pls. 2/12
nejm.org/doi/full/10.10…

The Doshi et al. paper on serious adverse events following mRNA COVID-19 vaccination based on the original RCT data has been published.

sciencedirect.com/science/articl… "These results raise concerns that mRNA vaccines are associated with more harm than initially estimated at the time of emergency authorization."

Impressive epidemiology study, @sdbaral et with important implications: which NPIs “work” and "for whom" ?

Study found no/weak association between NPI stringency and covid case growth in Canada, 2020.

2022 should be the year of mandate evaluation

sciencedirect.com/science/articl… @sdbaral Thought experiment: imagine the implications if this statement is true (evidence is still mixed & debated, of course): all the sacrifices, moralizing, grandstanding, harms for naught

The cultural, psychological and political forces against accepting this possibility are massive

New Oxfam report estimates 263 million more people could be pushed into extreme poverty in 2022.

Collateral damage from pandemic response (misguided lockdowns) and debt servicing

…es-d8-prod.s3.eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/s3fs-public/20… "The COVID-19 crisis has been one of the defining points in history for economic inequality. The wealth of the richest exploded, rising to unprecedented highs, while at the same time poverty numbers started to rise dramatically for the first time in decades."

I was just denied entry into Canada (land border) because I did not fill out the ArriveCap app. Had all necessary paperwork. Officer decided I needed a 5,000$ fine since 'App is mandatory'

"I am not denying you entry. Just giving you a $5,000 fine"

The faceless bureaucracy I decided to not enter. As far as I am concerned, I was just denied entry into Canada (I am a citizen) because some middle bureaucrat wanted to flex his muscle.

The pandemic has provided lots of opportunity for individuals to play micro-power games, supporting useless rules.

📢Are mandatory COVID-19 proof-of-vaccination policies ethical, scientifically justified & effective?

Read our new pre-print📰💉🦠

We explore 13 possible unintended consequences across society

& argue that they may cause more harm than good

Paper:papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cf…

🧵👇 1/ Our paper is the first to comprehensively explore this multifaceted & important topic

We discuss evidence from (👇)

1) Behavioural psychology 🧠
2) Politics and law 🗣️
3) Socioeconomics 👩‍👩‍👦‍👦
4) Science policy and public health 🧪

Canada's Justin Trudeau on the unvaccinated:

“They don’t believe in science/progress and are very often misogynistic and racist....This leads us, as a leader and as a country, to make a choice: Do we tolerate these people?" Original source neglected to mention this is from Sept 17 2021, right before our national elections.

westernstandardonline.com/2021/12/trudea…

So NOT a recent statement

Also longer video provides some context (its in French) m.facebook.com/JulieSnyderOff…