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Who do lockdowns protect? Florida has an aged population and yet their COVID deaths were below average in the US without lockdowns.
Professor Sunetra Gupta has been part of a team whose focused protection approach was adopted by the governor of Florida, Ron DeSantis. Oxord’s professor Gupta and colleagues had briefed Prime Minister Boris Johnson in September last year and advised a similar focused protection approach. However, rising infection rates led to the decision to a lockdown in November, before a second, fuller lockdown was imposed in January.
Florida took a different approach and had already started to remove restrictions in May last year. It has one of the lowest mortality rates in America.
“Florida proved that lockdowns did more damage than good”
Professor Martin Kulldorff, harvard Medical school
Professor Gupta said: “Florida’s covid mortality rate has been significantly below the US average and protecting vulnerable groups saved lives.
“In contrast the UK lockdowns allowed the virus to rip through vulnerable groups including poor people and older people at the expense of the affluent ‘zoom’ classes who have been able to order food and goods online for other people to take the risk they didn’t want to take in order to deliver to them.”
Figures released last week (June) show the covid mortality in Florida is one of the lowest of all the biggest states of America and among the 10th lowest in the US.
Read the full Daily Express article: Lockdowns have protected the rich at the expense of working class people
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