« Fox & Friends

Was lockdown a failed attempt to halt the spread of coronavirus?

2020-09-03 | 🔗
Fox News medical contributor Dr. Nicole Saphier and TrendMacro chief investment officer Donald L. Luskin.
This is an unofficial transcript meant for reference. Accuracy is not guaranteed.
Aims to boots on the ground by two thousand and twenty four Steve Steve Brian. Thank you. Meanwhile, down here on earth, businesses around the country still closed and millions out of work. So have the lockdowns been effective? Well, a foxnews dot com, Op Ed says Data shows the Covid 19 lockdowns are a failed experiment and did not contain the spread of the disease. The author of that article, Donald Luskin, from the analytics firm trim, macrojoins us right now, Fox NEWS, medical contributor and author of Make America healthy again, Dr Nicole Saphier, good morning to both of you hey there good morning, Steve Don this op Ed, you wrote really got our attention in particular, at the end of the first sentence, first paragraph you say, but now the evidence proves that lockdowns were an expensive treatment with serious side effects and no benefit to society. You know you would think the logic and Dr Saphier is going to talk about that in a moment.
If you keep people away from each other, that would have done something. But you said you analyzed the data and thats not the case. Look there is always a difference between theory and practice sounds great. If you say it fast, the you should contain a contagious disease by keeping people away from each other. The reality is, if you look at it country by country state by state Zip code by zip code, you track peoples, cell phones. If they were out in the world and sheltering in place, it turns out. It actually makes no difference that the states and zip codes and the countries that sheltered the most didnt get any better results than the ones that sheltered the least its expensive to lockdown. It cost people their jobs, it cost people their health, so dont do it. Unless there is strong correlation with good results and the numbers are in, there is no correlation Steve. You also write that the only factor that seems to make a demonstrable difference is the intensity of mass transit use so rather than lockdown the country, maybe we should just address mass transit.
It wasnt until New York had already passed peak cases and peak deaths that they finally decided that shut down those filthy subways at night and clean them. Now, what a concept to clean the New York City subways? You think that would have occurred to these geniuses a couple months earlier, but no, it turns out statistically thats the only thing that makes a difference: age, race, income, sunshine, doesnt matter its just rapid transit, Steve all right, Dr Saphier. What do you think? Well, you know, I think that any level of criticism and skepticism are crucial when it comes to policy, especially health policy, because public health can be messy, but the truth is Steve that I can find a model or anything to fit whatever narrative of your choice. But, ultimately, when you take when you look at the different areas of the United States, the northeast one that was hit the hardest, the reason that it was hit the hardest one- it is a large urban travel hub. We had international travel early on the virus was spreading before
we even knew it was, and unfortunately those lockdowns happened at a time where we already had massive circulating virus and those lockdowns, coupled with failed policies and decisions led to these high deaths, specifically at nursing homes. Now then, you see looking at the same cell phone tracking data. You actually saw the next wave of cases say in the southwest and in the south was from people directly traveling from the northeast. Had we perhaps halted interstate travel, you would have seen less cases going further and now, thankfully, we have a decrease in new cases and we also have a decrease in deaths. The only place that you are seeing rise in cases right now is in the Midwest. Why is that? This is a more sprawled area, but the cases are slowly trickling there. You have kids going back to school and theyre going to have outbreaks bottom line. A lot of lockdowns were not implemented correctly. They really werent Steve thats. Why have you such detrimental consequences? Because of this? Had we focused more on the social distancing, the mask wearing and really just
gaining knowledge of the vice and how its transmitted it would have been much better as well as less afternoons. Interstate travel, Steve Don final word, going forward its been suggested. There could be a second wave or flare up coming with the onset of the flu season. As well Correct Steve, your advice to the medical professionals regarding policy and the administration would be what it would be, do no harm. We have thrown enough people out of work. We have closed down the health system effectively to people suffering from anything at all other than covid. We have got more divorces, more alcoholism, more suicide, more depression, people arent getting their cancer screening. They are not going to emergency rooms. Enough is enough. The data is in lockdowns dont help lets not inflict that upon ourselves. Again, that is my advice, Steve and Dr Saphier. While I agree that all of those are negative consequences that needed to have been
avoided, I think lockdown does have some effect, but I dont think that should be a strict as they once were, because, as we know, the negative consequences likely will far outweigh that of the virus itself. Steve good chat with both of you, Dr Nicole Saphier and Donald Luskin, who has an op ed.
Transcript generated on 2020-09-08.