Science and facts of lockdowns - Ontario

Vincent J. Curtis

18 May 21

In January, 2021, a team of four authors from the Stanford University Department of Medicine released a paper entitled, “Assessing Mandatory Stay-at-home and business closure effects on the spread of COVID-19.”  The study found no significant benefits on case growth, meaning extreme lockdown measures were worthless for controlling the spread.

The COVID data from Ontario confirms the study’s findings.  A lockdown in Ontario is an effort to quarantine 14.7 million people, 99+ percent of whom are uninfected.  The ordinary course of a COVID infection proceeds as follows: within 5.5 days of infection, the infected person shows symptoms, and within 14 days the person recovers.  This holds true in more than 95 percent of cases.  If a lockdown worked, what effect would one see in the daily case numbers and the total active case numbers?

In theory, a lockdown stops transmission.  If a lockdown worked, case numbers might continue to grow until day 5 of the lockdown, as people infected immediately before the lockdown was imposed showed symptoms and became cases.  By the end of the first week, there being no further transmission as a result of the lockdown, daily case numbers should drop to zero and total active case numbers should begin to drop also.  By day 14 of the lockdown, a full quarantine period, both daily and total active case numbers should be at or near zero, as cases recovered and no transmission occurred.  Ontario’s data shows no such trend.

Ontario’s first lockdown began on March 13, 2020.  On April 3, 2020, Ontario reported 462 new cases, and 2165 total active cases.  April 17, 2020, Ontario reported 564 new cases and 4491 total active cases.  The peak in active cases occurred on April 25, with 5675 active of which 476 were new that day.  May 1, 2020, Ontario reported 421 new cases and 4662 active; May 15, 341 new cases and 3456 active; May 29, 344 new and 3997 active; June 12, 182 new and 3041 active; June 28, 178 new and 1889 active; July 12, 129 new and 1476 active; and finally on July 26, 2020, 137 new cases and 1558 total active cases.  As expected, no control whatsoever is found on the spread of the pandemic as a result of the March 13, 2020, lockdown.

Ontario’s second lockdown began December 26, 2020, with 2142 new cases that day and 19,688 total active cases as the starting points.  A peak occurred on January 10, 2021, with 4249 new cases and 30,074 active; January 24, 2487 new and 24,153 total active cases; February 8, 1265 new and 14,331 active; February 22, 1058 new and 10,335 active.  Again, one sees no effect of lockdown on the ordinary course of a pandemic.

Ontario’s third lockdown began on April 3, 2021, with 3009 new cases and 23,190 total active cases as starting points.  On April 17, Ontario reported 4812 new cases and 40,694 active; a peak in total active cases occurred on April 20, with 3469 new cases and 42,941 active; May 1, 3887 new cases and 37,438 active; and finally, May 15, 2584 new and 27,568 active.  Once again, nothing in the data shows the expected effect of a lockdown and stay-at-home order.  There are no sharp drops anywhere and especially none within the first two weeks of the imposition of lockdown.   This serves as confirmation of the conclusion of the Stanford University study that found no benefit in controlling the spread of lockdowns and stay-at-home orders.

Such is the science and this is the supporting data from Ontario.  However, too many reputations and too many hopes have been placed in lockdown in Ontario for either the government or the media to accept it and act upon it.

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