A simple disproof that Alberta lockdowns worked

Vincent J. Curtis

10 May 2021

A disproof that lockdowns work is found in a simple thought experiment.  You start with understanding the normal progress of the infection.  A COVID infected person begins to show signs of infection within 5.5 days, and is free of the infection after 14 days; this occurs 99 percent of the time.  Now, what happens if a lockdown is imposed that is completely effective?  By completely effective I mean that transmission drops to zero.  What happens to the case count?

The daily case count may continue to rise until day 5 as those infected just prior to the lockdown show the signs of infection.  After day 5, the case count plummets to zero, since by assumption transmission ceases as a result of the lockdown.  No one became infected after the imposition of the lockdown, and everyone who was infected before the lockdown is either showing symptoms or is in the process of recovery.  By day 14 everyone who was infected before to the imposition of the lockdown is recovered, and the pandemic is stopped cold.  This is how quarantines are supposed to work.

If the lockdown is not one hundred percent effective, then the drop to zero new cases after day 5 would be replaced with a drop to a substantially lower number than the case count on day zero of the lockdown.  It could be ninety percent lower, or fifty percent lower.  It should be a substantial percentage lower if you’re going to say that “lockdowns work.”

If case counts continue to rise – even after day 14 – you have to conclude that lockdowns aren’t just totally ineffective, but may actually contribute to the spread.  And a case count higher on day 14 of the lockdown is what we saw in Alberta in March, 2020, and April, 2021.  The December 2020 lockdown was announced after the peak of the second wave, but still the numbers show little change.

Alberta’s third lockdown began April 9 with 1275 new cases, and 14 days later, April 23, there were 1510 new cases.  The second lockdown began December 9, 2020, with 1587 cases, and 14 days later, December 23, 2021, there were 1129  new cases. (The case count around Christmas fluctuated a lot.)  The first lockdown began March 15, 2020, with 9 cases, and on March 29 there were 18 new cases.  All three lockdowns saw either an increase or a negligible decline.

The empirical evidence is not just that lockdowns are totally ineffective, it is that lockdowns may contribute to the spread.  The case curve/graph shows no impact on its shape as a result of lockdown measures.  There is no sign of "flattening" or of an unexpected drop to a new level in any of the waves, which are quite obvious in shape.

The natural rhythm of the pandemic, as seen by the waves in the cases curve, eventually results in falling case counts.  It would be wrong, therefore, to attribute a fall in case counts after day 14 to successful lockdown measures.  That it is so attributed is an example of the logical fallacy of post hoc ergo propter hoc.

Lockdown measures need to be ended immediately.  They are offense to Charter rights and may actually contribute to the spread of the virus.

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