The price tag of lockdowns in terms of public health is high: by using the known connection between health and wealth, we estimate that lockdowns may claim 20 times more life years than they save.

The paper, which bases its conclusions on a comprehensive review of other relevant, lockdown-focused literature, was authored by researchers at the Jerusalem College of Technology.

“In this work, we performed a narrative review of the works studying the above effectiveness, as well as the historic experience of previous pandemics and risk-benefit analysis based on the connection of health and wealth,” summarized the article, titled “Are Lockdowns Effective in Managing Pandemics?”