IEA Communications Officer Reem Ibrahim has written in CapX discussing new IEA research suggesting that lockdowns had a negligible effect on COVID mortality, emphasising the risks of sacrificing our freedoms when we don’t have a perfect understanding of why we are doing so.

Reem wrote:

“And we are still living with the consequences of the various policies brought in to mitigate the short-term impact of lockdowns. From ‘Eat Out to Help Out’ to furlough and emergency business loans, a combination of borrowing and money-printing by the Bank of England lumbered the country with even more debt. The high inflation we’re all now experiencing is in no small part a direct consequence of the lockdown era.

“That’s before we even come to the effects on school children, the huge increase in NHS waiting list and the cultural madness of the curtain-twitching Covid policing that prevailed during the pandemic. If lockdowns only reduced mortality by 3.2%, was all that really worth it?

“One of the main aims of the Covid inquiry is to learn lessons for the future. If our report makes one thing clear, it’s that in future we should be far more cautious when it comes to taking away people’s basic freedoms in the name of ‘protecting’ the public.”

Read Reem’s full piece here.