How many lives did the draconian COVID-19 lockdowns save in jurisdictions dominated by Democrats? Few. How many lives did these lockdowns cost? Plenty.

The National Bureau of Economic Research has published a paper entitled, “The Long-Term Impact of the COVID-19 Unemployment Shock on Life Expectancy and Mortality Rates.” From the abstract:

We estimate the size of the COVID-19-related unemployment to be between 2 and 5 times larger than the typical unemployment shock, depending on race/gender, resulting in a 3.0% increase in mortality rate and a 0.5% drop in life expectancy over the next 15 years for the overall American population.

At least ham-fisted Democrat policies help the identity groups they aggressively pander to. Or maybe not:

We also predict that the shock will disproportionately affect African-Americans and women, over a short horizon, while white men might suffer large consequences over longer horizons.

As always, the cost run up by Big Government is high:

These figures translate in a staggering 0.89 million additional deaths over the next 15 years.

Yet there is no widespread acknowledgment that the lockdown policies were a failure, and every reason to believe that authoritarians will react the same way the next time a severe virus comes around.

On a tip from Henry.

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