Health
During the lockdowns, a broad spectrum of medical professionals observed that people were not receiving proper medical treatment. It is believed that this has led to an increase in deaths from heart attacks[1], cancer, diabetes and more.[2] The UK experienced a dramatic increase in dementia deaths during the lockdown.[3] Fully two-thirds of excess deaths in nursing homes were not COVID related[4], while at the same time about 40% of hospital beds remained unoccupied.[5]
There has been a significant increase of people dying at home from non-COVID causes as well,[6] including depression and other mental health issues.[7] In Australia, from March to August 2020, six times as many people died from suicide than from COVID.[8] In Japan, it stands at eight times.[9] Twenty-eight percent of parents in quarantine with their children are later diagnosed with a trauma-related health disorder.[10] In Israel, domestic violence reports increased by 95%,[11] and there was a 40% increase in anxiety and depression during the lockdown.[12] By October 2020 after a steady increase, fully 20% of the Israeli public had been diagnosed with high or very high levels of depression[13] and 30% with high or extremely high anxiety.[14] Even the elderly, who are at the highest risk from COVID, led protests against the “lockdowns”, stating that they’d rather die from COVID than from loneliness.[15] A meta-analysis of over 100 studies on the cost/benefits of lockdowns concluded that "Lockdowns are not just an inefficient policy, they must rank as one of the greatest peacetime policy disasters of all time."[16]
See COVID and kids for more on the negative effects on kids.
[1] https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/08/27/heart-attacks-detected-treated-fell-40-per-cent-covid-pandemic/
[2] 16,000 people died because they didn't get medical care between March 23 and May 1”
[3] “Extra 10,000 dementia deaths in England and Wales in April”
[4] “Staggering number” of extra deaths in community is not explained by covid-19”
https://www.bmj.com/content/369/bmj.m1931
[5] “NHS hospitals have four times more empty beds than normal”
[6] “Between March and September 2020, there were 24,387 more deaths in England than expected in private home”
https://www.bbc.com/news/health-54598728
[7] “The psychological impact of quarantine”
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)30460-8/fulltext
[8] There’s been over 1,200 suicides since March compared to just over 200 deaths with the virus.
[9] “self-inflicted deaths were up 600 year on year, with female suicides, about a third of the total, surging over 80%”
[10] “This is arguably the largest psychological experiment ever conducted”
[11] “Association of Rape Crisis Centers in Israel (ARCCI) saw a 95% increase in reporting”
[12] “Haifa University reports a 300% increase in requests for psychological treatment”
https://www.ynetnews.com/magazine/article/S1eZC9OHw
[13] “15% increase in referrals to psychiatric clinics since pandemic’s start”
[14] “Just 5% of the 804-strong sample think health represents the biggest threat”
http://www.timesofisrael.com/pandemic-plunging-israelis-to-depression-depleting-bounce-back-ability/
[15] “Rather die from COVID than loneliness”
[16] https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13571516.2021.1976051
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