[Congressional Record Volume 167, Number 21 (Thursday, February 4, 2021)]
[House]
[Pages H327-H328]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                        LOCKDOWNS ARE KILLING US

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Cuellar). The Chair recognizes the 
gentleman from California (Mr. McClintock) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. McCLINTOCK. Mr. Speaker, we are now nearly 1 year into the most 
self-destructive social experiment in the recorded history of human 
civilization.
  On this day 1 year ago, we enjoyed the greatest economic expansion in 
our lifetimes. The poverty rate was at its lowest in 60 years. The 
unemployment rate was the lowest in 50 years. Wage growth was the 
strongest in 40 years. The wage gap was narrowing, with blue-collar 
wages rising the fastest. Unemployment rates for minority groups and 
women were at the lowest ever recorded.

[[Page H328]]

  Then, over the course of just a few catastrophic weeks, our 
government took a wrecking ball to it all. In the second quarter, GDP 
plunged by one-third, the worst decline in productivity ever recorded. 
Unemployment skyrocketed to its highest levels since the Great 
Depression. Tens of millions of Americans lost their jobs. Trillions of 
dollars of the Nation's wealth were squandered.
  In the months since, our children have been robbed of a year of their 
education. Millions of Americans have been forbidden from earning a 
living by their own government. Shopkeepers have seen their life's work 
destroyed, and when in desperation they try to hold on, they are led 
away in handcuffs.
  Our most cherished rights to worship freely; to peaceably assemble; 
and not to be deprived of our lives, liberty, or property without due 
process of law have all been destroyed.
  Now, COVID did not cause this damage. Public officials did. They 
promised us it was for our own good and that it would save lives. But 
mounting evidence in multiple scientific studies is putting the lie to 
these sophistries. It is becoming increasingly, tragically, and 
bitterly clear that the lockdowns have not only failed to save lives, 
but they are costing lives.
  Last month, the University of Denmark released the results of a study 
comparing Danish municipalities that locked down with those that did 
not. Their conclusion: The lockdowns had ``statistically insignificant 
effects.''
  Their conclusion mirrored a similar study out of Stanford University 
that compared eight lockdown nations and two non-lockdown nations. They 
concluded: ``We fail to find an additional benefit of stay-at-home 
orders and business closures.''
  Now, these are studies based not on assumptions and models but on 
actual, real-life, hardcore data. That is what the science is telling 
us, and it is telling us the same thing for multiple studies: The 
lockdowns have not saved lives, certainly not to any statistically 
significant level.
  But it gets worse, much worse. We are now seeing mounting evidence 
that the lockdowns are costing lives on a staggering scale. Last month, 
the National Bureau of Economic Research warned that increases in 
poverty caused by the lockdowns will cost more than 800,000 American 
lives over the next 15 years due to higher poverty levels, with the 
deaths disproportionately affecting African Americans and women. That 
comports with a U.N. warning that tens of millions of people worldwide 
are being pushed to the brink of starvation.
  Suicide rates have jumped dramatically over the past year. Dementia 
deaths between March and September jumped 13,000 as patients were left 
with little means of social interaction. San Francisco reported that 
additional deaths from drug overdoses exceeded the total COVID deaths 
in 2020.
  According to The Wall Street Journal, the CDC reported 475,000 excess 
deaths in the United States at a time when it was reporting 281,000 
COVID-related fatalities. Now, that difference is 192,000 additional 
deaths unexplained by normal mortality and COVID combined.
  Could it be this is the butcher's bill from a folly that has produced 
skyrocketing suicides, drug and alcohol deaths, domestic homicides, 
isolation-related deaths, delayed health screenings, delayed health 
treatments, and poverty-related deaths?
  Unlike COVID, which is a curse brought us by nature, lockdown deaths 
are the fault of specific individuals in positions of public trust who 
imposed draconian restrictions out of panic, fear, ignorance, or 
egotism. They preened and virtue-signaled and boasted how much they 
cared for the lives of others while they have pursued a folly that is 
needlessly taking an appalling toll of lives and livelihoods.
  Some of those responsible hold power by virtue of appointments by 
elected officials while others are elected officials themselves, and I 
fear this nightmare will not end until the officials who are 
responsible for it are removed from the offices they hold.

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