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Comment by Day1 | Hacker News Reader

The reality is both. We have largely focused on mitigating COVID deaths but we need to address the devastation caused from anti-COVID measures because despite it being largely underreported and understated, the impact is there and we all feel and see it.

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We can look at the effect of anti-COVID measures by examining regions with small amounts of COVID but large amounts of anti-COVID measures like Australia and New Zealand. You can even compare between Australian states like Victoria that had 6 lockdowns and WA that had virtually none.

The result is that all cause mortality went down, largely due to elimination of respiratory viruses but also due to a slight decrease in car accidents. Suicide rates actually went down, not up and there was a uptick in self-reported mental illness and distress but that uptick was far smaller than the later uptick when COVID became widespread. The economy took a hit but a far smaller hit than countries that that let COVID rip.

The effects of lockdowns are real and measurable and they are bad but far, far less bad than COVID itself.

I don’t think that can be generalized and taken as a sample. Australia, in terms of density of population and culture, might as well be another planet in comparison with say, Italy, or Spain. The truth is, all this conclusions can only be assumptions, because the amount of variables polluting any stat we’re trying to use are too large to properly control and account for.

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