Ontario doctors sign letter to Premier advising against sweeping lockdowns
I think an argument can be made the government ordered lockdowns (stay at home &#x2F; shelter in place) orders were appropriate in March when we knew much less about who was most vulnerable, and did not have a well vetted treatment protocol &#x2F; decision tree or any known therapeutics.<p>Given the tremendous public health and economic costs of lockdowns, the fear of the unknown (e.g. predicted <i>2% demographic wide CFR</i>) may have justified the multi-trillion dollar cost, and an unknown number of lives lost, due to lockdowns.<p>Forced mandatory lockdowns today would be unethical and actually counter-productive. Given our vastly increased knowledge of the highly stratified risk profile of SARS-CoV-2, the public health case cannot be ethically made to forcibly confine the general population to their homes; separating them from their livelihoods, their community, their ordinary healthcare, and their mental and physical wellness routines.<p>Anyone can always choose to self-isolate based on their own personal risk factors and risk tolerance. Government programs could better support at-risk populations which are self isolating by <i>focusing</i> on the minority of people who are acutely at-risk.<p><pre><code>  IFR     Age
  0.003%  0-19
  0.02%   20-49
  0.5%    50-69
  5.4%    70-79
  5.4%++  80+
</code></pre>
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