A Ph.D. biochemist and immunologist goes through the data on one of the greatest public policy disasters in human history—the lockdown response to COVID.
How deadly was COVID originally and after it had evolved for a year or two? How many COVID deaths were prevented by the lockdowns? How many people did the lockdowns throw into depression? How many people did the lockdowns kill by deaths of despair?
But the good news from the lockdowns is it shows citizens are willing to make enormous sacrifices for their society and that we can transform society on a dime. What if we used that for good purposes? What if we governed for the goal of happiness instead of maximizing GDP? What if we governed to protect the planet, instead of with the exclusive goal of extending the lives of the oldest and sickest people in society, even at the cost of killing the young and middle aged by deaths of despair and destroying the education and lives of children?
Hugh McTavish is a Ph.D. biochemist and immunologist and a patent attorney. He has authored 18 peer-reviewed scientific journal articles and is the inventor on 21 U.S. patents and has authored two prior books on public policy and nature. He has started two pharmaceutical companies off his own inventions—IGF Oncology for a targeted drug for cancer and Squarex Pharmaceutical for a drug that prevents cold sores or oral herpes virus outbreaks. The cancer drug invention came as an outgrowth of his having cancer. It was an improvement on the drugs he received as a cancer patient. The cold sore treatment he invented in order to treat his own frequent cold sores and originally tested on himself. Dr. McTavish's previous books are Ending War In Our Lifetime: A Concrete Realistic Plan and Wild Plants of the Minneapolis/St. Paul Area: A Field Guide to Trees, Shrubs, and Wildflowers. He was a third party candidate for Governor of Minnesota in 2022. He lives near St. Paul, Minnesota.
"McTavish draws on many strands of evidence and reasoning to argue that lockdowns probably saved no lives while causing harms—social isolation, depression, drug overdoses, unemployment, and deaths of despair—whose effects on mortality and quality of life outweighed any Covid-19 deaths the restrictions averted. McTavish shapes a wealth of scientific information into a clear picture. Assisted by illuminating graphs and charts, his prose is precise, lucid, and accessible to laypeople, and he has a knack for framing statistical risks in language that's pithy and forthright. (Would you be willing to make these sacrifices, to live the way we have lived for over one year, to add 0.9 days to your life?) America's legions of lockdown skeptics will find here a cogent summing up of the case against it. A well-honed challenge to the conventional wisdom on the war against Covid-19." - Betty Thompson
"Should be on the reading lists of sociology and political science students, as well as the general-interest, thinking reader. Supporters of the lockdowns will be forced to question their position if they read this book with an open mind, and opponents will be armed with the data and evidence to justify their position. McTavish pulls no punches in damning the influencers who made these decisions in the name of public interest or promoted the lockdowns while omitting facts that could have altered the lockdown approach to Covid: We should ask, and our leaders and experts should have asked also and told us, how many COVID deaths would be prevented by the lockdowns, and now that we are a year into this, how many COVID deaths the lockdowns have prevented." - James Goldfarb
"There are sane, compassionate, and effective ways to deal with a pandemic, but the US reaction to the coronavirus epidemic of 2020 was none of these things. Hugh McTavish's COVID Lockdown Insanity is a solid and well-documented exploration of one of the most serious public policy failures of our time." - John Michael Greer, author of The Long Descent and The Wealth of Nature
"Hugh McTavish methodically hacks his way beyond the ideologies that lead to disastrous policy decisions, steadfastly guided by scientific evidence as well as what it means to be human. Disciplined, bold, simple, and profound. A work of great human insight." - Horst Loeblich, Board Chair of COVID Sanity
"Mr. McTavish has been a rare voice of rationality during the epidemic, providing important data and policy evaluations to assist the public in avoiding fear and understanding the balance of harms and benefits from efforts to suppress COVID." - Kevin Roche, HealthySceptic.com
