WHO 'does not advocate lockdowns,' official says

FPI / October 12, 2020

Coronavirus lockdowns should be ended immediately as they are having a devastating affect on the world's most vulnerable people, an official with the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Friday.

“We in the World Health Organization do not advocate lockdowns as the primary means of control of this virus,” Dr. David Nabarro told The Spectator.

“The only time we believe a lockdown is justified is to buy you time to reorganize, regroup, rebalance your resources, protect your health workers who are exhausted, but by and large, we’d rather not do it,” Nabarro said.

Nabarro, the WHO's covid special envoy, said the lockdowns imposed by politicians the world over have significantly increased poverty and hunger and have devastated tourism industries.

“Look what’s happened to smallholder farmers all over the world. ... Look what’s happening to poverty levels. It seems that we may well have a doubling of world poverty by next year. We may well have at least a doubling of child malnutrition,” Nabarro said.

"Just look at what’s happened to the tourism industry in the Caribbean, for example, or in the Pacific because people aren’t taking their holidays,” he said.

Andrew Mark Miller, the Washington Exmainer's social media producer, noted: "In the United States, lockdowns have been tied to increased thoughts of suicide from children, a surge in drug overdoses, an uptick in domestic violence, and a study conducted in May concluded that stress and anxiety from lockdowns could destroy seven times the years of life that lockdowns potentially save."

Thousands of medical health experts recently signed their names to a petition calling for the end of coronavirus lockdowns, citing the “irreparable damage” they’ve caused.

"As infectious disease epidemiologists and public health scientists, we have grave concerns about the damaging physical and mental health impacts of the prevailing COVID-19 policies, and recommend an approach we call Focused Protection,” read the petition, known as the Great Barrington Declaration. "Current lockdown policies are producing devastating effects on short and long-term public health."

The document argued for allowing most people to “live their lives normally to build up immunity through natural infection,” while improving safeguards for the elderly and others at greater risk of death from covid.

“Coming from both the left and right, and around the world, we have devoted our careers to protecting people,” said the declaration. “Current lockdown policies are producing devastating effects on short and long-term public health.”

They include “lower childhood vaccination rates, worsening cardiovascular disease outcomes, fewer cancer screenings and deteriorating mental health—leading to greater excess mortality in years to come.”

Free Press International