Lockdowns kill.

This post originally appeared on Instagram on January 6, 2021.

For hundreds of MILLIONS of people in developing countries, lockdowns may impoverish, starve, and ultimately kill them.

But don’t take my word for it.

“Already, 135 million people had been facing acute food shortages, but now with the pandemic, 130 million more could go hungry in 2020,” said Arif Husain, chief economist at the World Food Program, a United Nations agency. [...] We’ve never seen anything like this before,” Mr. Husain said. “It wasn’t a pretty picture to begin with, but this makes it truly unprecedented and uncharted territory.”” -Abdi Latif Dahir, New York Times, April 22, 2020

In APRIL the UN was warning us what continued lockdowns might do to people in developing countries. 🤔

Lockdowns also have extremely negative mental health effects.

“To put all of this in perspective, I believe it is important to point out that, pre-pandemic, we lose 120,000 lives a year to drug overdose and suicide. How many more lives are we willing to sacrifice in the name of containing the virus?” -Dr. Elinore McCance-Katz, assistant secretary for mental health & substance abuse (SAMHSA)

The quote above was taken during a cabinet meeting in MAY 2020, at which point it was also revealed that “The number of calls to SAMHSA’s Disaster Distress Helpline increased 1,000 percent for the month of April 2020, compared to April 2019.”

ONE THOUSAND PERCENT.

Neither of the stats above can even begin to accurately reflect the increases in domestic violence and abuse, the lapses of recovering addicts back into their addictions, or the struggles of small business owners who have been stripped of their livelihoods/dignity, all the while big businesses boomed and leaders broke their own rules.

Please don’t ever again utter the words “if a lockdown saves just one life.” Because lockdowns may be reassigning deaths to something other than Covid, but there is zero evidence that they’re preventing them.

Father in Heaven, deliver Thy people. Let us be Thy hands and feet here on earth, reaching out to the poor, needy, lonely, and broken-hearted. Give us the courage to fight tyranny,not for ourselves,but for Thy little ones against whom the greatest injustices have been done. Amen.