Lockdowns were garbage policies that made everybody sicker, sadder and poorer, but left Corona unimpeded: Part 423460734

A Danish study compares case rates between locked-down and open municipalities in Northern Jutland in November 2020, finding once again that strict closures and travel restrictions do zero.

Figure 1 from the paper.

You might remember that two years ago, the big virus scare story was infected mink in Denmark. To stop the spread of mink-specific SARS-2 mutations, Denmark imposed a lockdown on seven municipalities in Northern Jutland. By some egregious lapse of foresight, authorities permitted the other four municipalities in Northern Jutland to retain the more moderate national pandemic restrictions, in the process granting us that thing which has proven so mysteriously rare in this pandemic – a control group.

An older preprint from January 2021 now making the rounds describes the local conditions as follows:

The restrictions were effective from November 6-9 and included: Work-at-home (Nov. 6), closing of bars, restaurants, cultural and leisure activities etc. (Nov. 7), school closure and distance learning, 4th to 8th grade and closing of public transport (November 9). Cafés, restaurants and bars were allowed to serve takeaway. Citizens were banned from passing the municipal border with the exception of essential health workers, and all public transportation across municipal borders was shut down.

The NPIs lasted for 1-2 weeks, similar to the typical full infectivity period of Sars-CoV-2, which is thus ideal for testing short-term effects without the risk of confounders from other events.

Comparing case rates across homogeneous, adjacent municipalities leads the authors to some completely amazing and totally unpredictable conclusions: