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News

Nearly three times more people dying of flu and pneumonia than coronavirus – METRO

Nearly three times as many people are now dying of flu and pneumonia than with coronavirus in England and Wales, new figures have revealed.

Numbers published by the Office For National Statistics show 917 flu and pneumonia deaths were registered for the week ending on July 10.

In comparison, 366 people died that week after testing positive for Covid-19 – the lowest number of deaths involving the virus in the last 16 weeks and a 31.2% decrease compared with the previous week, which saw 532 deaths.

Overall, the number of deaths registered in the same week was 6.1% (560 deaths) below the five-year average – the fourth consecutive week it has been below average.

https://metro.co.uk/2020/07/22/nearly-three-times-people-dying-flu-pneumonia-coronavirus-13021417/

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Publications

The role of chest radiography in confirming covid-19 pneumonia – The BMJ

A normal chest radiograph does not exclude covid-19 pneumonia

No single feature of covid-19 pneumonia on a chest radiograph is specific or diagnostic, but a combination of multifocal peripheral lung changes of ground glass opacity and/or consolidation, which are most commonly bilateral, may be present

Diagnosis might be complicated as covid-19 pneumonia may or may not be visible on chest radiograph; consider other causes for patients’ respiratory symptoms

https://www.bmj.com/content/370/bmj.m2426

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Publications

A country level analysis measuring the impact of government actions, country preparedness and socioeconomic factors on COVID-19 mortality and related health outcomes – The Lancet

Lockdowns may reduce the peak of transmission and recovery rates but not the number of critical cases or overall mortality.

Lastly, government actions such as border closures, full lockdowns, and a high rate of COVID-19 testing were not associated with statistically significant reductions in the number of critical cases or overall mortality.

…full lockdowns and early border closures may lessen the peak of transmission, and thus prevent health system overcapacity, which would facilitate increased recovery rates.

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/eclinm/article/PIIS2589-5370(20)30208-X/fulltext

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Publications

Particle sizes of infectious aerosols: implications for infection control – The Lancet

Note: Coughing and large droplets are note the issue beause breathing exhales more virus in fine aerosols than coughing. Finer aerosols bypass masks and nose to the lungs. Since masks nebulise particles, the solution is ventilation, not face masks.

The global pandemic of COVID-19, caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 [SARS-CoV-2]) has been associated with infections and deaths among health-care workers. There have been conflicting recommendations from health authorities on the use of masks or respirators to protect health-care workers. When I first reviewed personal respiratory protection against tuberculosis for health-care workers more than 20 years ago, there was very little information on infectious aerosols. Since then, colleagues in various disciplines have provided a wealth of data. The purpose of this Viewpoint is to review the scientific literature on the aerosols generated by individuals with respiratory infections, and to discuss how these data inform the optimal use of masks, respirators, and other infection-control measures to protect health-care workers from those aerosols. This is not a review of the literature on the use of surgical masks or respirators, as several have been done already.

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanres/article/PIIS2213-2600(20)30323-4/fulltext

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News

Sedation to manage ‘lockdown distress’ may have led to dementia deaths – Glasgow Times

A RISE in the use of sedation to manage ‘lockdown distress’ amongst the elderly may have contributed to a stark increase in dementia death rates, a charity has warned.

Figures show in all the deaths involving Covid-19 between March and June 2020, 92% had at least one pre-existing condition with dementia accounting for almost a third.

https://www.glasgowtimes.co.uk/news/18590724.sedation-manage-lockdown-distress-may-led-dementia-deaths/

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News

Parliament has ducked its duty to hold the Government to account – The Telegraph

The final Prime Minister’s Questions of the parliamentary session was played out before a smattering of MPs in the Commons, a depressingly familiar sight throughout the pandemic emergency. The legislature has been endeavouring to work within the constraints imposed by social distancing but its focus has been on piecemeal issues, not the bigger picture.

The most severe curtailment of civil liberties in peacetime went through parliament without a vote weeks after the laws had already taken effect. There will be no vote either on the extension of public health laws to require the wearing of face coverings in shops from tomorrow. The regulations will only be published today when the House will not be sitting. It is hard to believe that a Government diktat enforcing the wearing of masks is to take effect with nary a peep from parliament.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2020/07/22/parliament-has-ducked-duty-hold-government-account/

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Opinion

Viral second wave fear will drive us into another lockdown – The Telegraph

But with no sign of a second summer wave nor an autumn eruption reminiscent of 1918, the commentariat has amended the definition. Suddenly, a “second wave” meant Covid’s seasonal return, in winter, a year on. Widespread adoption of a new phrase in the Covid lexicology – “winter wave” – has academically formalised the idea.

But instead of looking us square in the eye, the Tories have chosen Big Brother’s panopticon; No 10’s new Joint Biosecurity Centre, which will drive “whack-a-mole” local lockdowns, is slickness posing as strategy – and, as it happens, reporting into track-and-trace app failure Dido Harding. When the public twigs that the infection is unlikely to be controlled in this way, the sheer panic could send us back into national lockdown. Three scenarios might help avoid the latter: a vaccine comes along; the Government gets its act together with a plan to protect the vulnerable; or we put in place safety valves against mass hysteria.

Imperial College’s research needs to be particularly scrutinised, as its international influence grows. Dr Seth Flaxman – the first author in the paper that notoriously claimed lockdowns may have prevented over 3 million deaths in Europe – this week won fresh funding to model the pandemic across several countries.

Revelations that disrupt the narrative also need to find a stronger voice: within 24 hours, the scandal of PHE’s inflated daily death figures was running out of mileage. This week’s London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine modelling on the impact of the pandemic on cancer deaths never gathered steam. So too a paper by Oxford’s Prof Sunetra Gupta, which elegantly combined those uneasy epidemiological bedfellows – theory and evidence – to find some parts of the UK may already have reached herd immunity.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2020/07/23/viral-second-wave-fear-will-drive-us-another-lockdown/

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Publications

Masking lack of evidence with politics – CEBM

This recent crop of trials added 9,112 participants to the total randomised denominator of 13,259 and showed that masks alone have no significant effect in interrupting the spread of ILI or influenza in the general population, nor in healthcare workers.

The small number of trials and lateness in the pandemic cycle is unlikely to give us reasonably clear answers and guide decision-makers. This abandonment of the scientific modus operandi and lack of foresight has left the field wide open for the play of opinions, radical views and political influence.

https://www.cebm.net/covid-19/masking-lack-of-evidence-with-politics/

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Videos

Oxford epidemiologists: suppression strategy is not viable – UnHerd

2:55 – Masks
• Tom Jefferson: “Aside from people who are exposed on the frontlines, there is no evidence that masks make any difference, but what’s even more extraordinary is the uncertainty: we don’t know if these things make any difference…. We should have done randomised control trials in February, March and April but not anymore because viral circulation is low and we will need huge number of enrolees to show whether there was any difference”.
• Carl Heneghan: “By all means people can wear masks but they can’t say it’s an evidence-based decision… there is a real separation between an evidence-based decision and the opaque term that ‘we are being led by the science’, which isn’t the evidence”.

9:26 – Pandemic life cycle
• CH: “One of the keys of the infection is to look at who’s been infected, which shows a crucial difference when comparing the pandemic theory to seasonal theory. In a pandemic you’d expect to see young people disproportionately affected, but in the UK we’ve only had six child deaths, which is far less than we’d normally see in a pandemic. The high number of deaths with over-75s fits with the seasonal theory”.

14:00 – Covid seasonality
• CH: “The stability of the virus is far less when the temperature goes up but humidity seems to be particularly important. The lower the humidity, the more stable the virus is in the atmosphere and on surfaces… It’s now winter in the southern hemisphere, which is why places like Australia are suddenly having outbreaks.”

20:37 – Lockdown
• CH: “Many people said that we should have locked down earlier, but 50% of care homes developed outbreaks during the lockdown period so there are issues within the transmission of this virus that are not clear… Lockdown is a blunt tool and there needs to be intelligent conversations about what mitigation strategies can keep society functioning while we keep the most vulnerable shielded”.

25:20 – Nightingale hospitals
• CH: “They are the wrong structure. What you need is fever hospitals which were here until around the 1980s or 90s. They were on single floors and had isolation within isolation. Theere were no lift shafts and staff were trained, which meant that everyone was protected from each other… It looks like at leats 20% of people got the infection while they were in hospital”

27:30 – Suppression strategy
• CH: “The benefits of the current strategy are outweighed by the harms…When it comes to suppression, only the virus will have a determination in that. If you follow the New Zealand policy of suppressing it to zero and locking down the country forever, then you’re going to have a problem… This virus is so out there now, I cannot see a strategy that makes suppression the viable option. The strategy right now should be how we learn to live with this virus”

32:45 – Response to the virus
• TJ: “I am a survivor of four pandemics and for the other three, I didn’t even realise they were going on. People died but nothing changed and none of the fabric of society was eroded like this response… Do I see steps being taken at a European level about learning from our mistakes and changing policies? The answer is no…

39:30 – Politics of the virus
• CH: “We as individuals are part of the problem because sensationalism drives people to click and read the information. So it’s a big circle because we’ve created the problem — if we put the worst case scenario out there, we will go and have a look. If you want a solution, you’ve got to get people to stop clicking on this sensationalist stuff”.

43:30 – IFR
• CH: “We will be down about where we were with the swine flu: around 0.1-0.3% which is much lower than what we think because at the moment we are seeing the case fatality”.
• TJ: “If you look at the whole narrative, it was distorted from the very beginning by the obsession with influenza which was just one or two agents and nothing else existed. We’re no different now”.

Categories
Opinion

The Key to Defeating COVID-19 Already Exists. We Need to Start Using It – Dr. Harvey Rish, Newsweek

As professor of epidemiology at Yale School of Public Health, I have authored over 300 peer-reviewed publications and currently hold senior positions on the editorial boards of several leading journals. I am usually accustomed to advocating for positions within the mainstream of medicine, so have been flummoxed to find that, in the midst of a crisis, I am fighting for a treatment that the data fully support but which, for reasons having nothing to do with a correct understanding of the science, has been pushed to the sidelines. As a result, tens of thousands of patients with COVID-19 are dying unnecessarily. Fortunately, the situation can be reversed easily and quickly.

I am referring, of course, to the medication hydroxychloroquine. When this inexpensive oral medication is given very early in the course of illness, before the virus has had time to multiply beyond control, it has shown to be highly effective, especially when given in combination with the antibiotics azithromycin or doxycycline and the nutritional supplement zinc.

  •  As a result, tens of thousands of patients with COVID-19 are dying unnecessarily.
  • An inexpensive and be highly effective treatment, especially when given early: Hydroxychloroquine in combination with the antibiotics azithromycin or doxycycline and zinc.
  • The article, “Early Outpatient Treatment of Symptomatic, High-Risk COVID-19 Patients that Should be Ramped-Up Immediately as Key to the Pandemic Crisis” was published in the American Journal of Epidemiology (AJE). It analyzed five studies, demonstrating clear benefits and safety of this treatment.
  • Other studies include:
    • an additional 400 high-risk patients treated by Dr. Vladimir Zelenko, with zero deaths;
    • four studies totaling almost 500 high-risk patients treated in nursing homes and clinics across the U.S., with no deaths;
    • a controlled trial of more than 700 high-risk patients in Brazil, with significantly reduced risk of hospitalization and two deaths among 334 patients treated with hydroxychloroquine;
    • and another study of 398 matched patients in France, also with significantly reduced hospitalization risk.
  • “Natural experiments:” northern Brazil state of Pará used hydroxychloroquine to reduce deaths.
  • Hydroxychloroquine has shown major success when used early in high-risk people but, as one would expect for an antiviral, much less success when used late in the disease course.
  • Delays in waiting before starting the medications can reduce their efficacy.
  • FDA concerns about the drug did not announce is that these adverse events were generated from tens of millions of patient uses of hydroxychloroquine for long periods of time, often for the chronic treatment of lupus or rheumatoid arthritis.
  • The harms are minuscule compared to the mortality occurring right now in inadequately treated high-risk COVID-19 patients.

https://www.newsweek.com/key-defeating-covid-19-already-exists-we-need-start-using-it-opinion-1519535

https://web.archive.org/web/20200723155027/https://www.newsweek.com/key-defeating-covid-19-already-exists-we-need-start-using-it-opinion-1519535

Categories
News

People with treatable cancers will die due to Government scaremongering, warns NHS nurse – The Telegraph

People with treatable cancers are going to die because hospitals have been laid empty due to Government scaremongering, an NHS nurse has warned.

An NHS nurse called Holly* has said that throughout the lockdown period “hospitals were empty” beyond the ICU units and Covid wards and that people have died as a result. 

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/07/23/people-treatable-cancers-will-die-due-government-scaremongering/

Categories
News

This is the hard-to-swallow truth about a future coronavirus vaccine – The Independent

Clinical trials:

  • Phase I clinical trials simply test the safety of a drug or vaccine in a small number of healthy volunteers — usually brave and naïve college students.
  • Phase II trials are responsible for testing its effectiveness in a larger number of subjects.
  • A hyped-up and exuberant response to a Phase I trial as seen with Moderna press release is rare and nearly unheard of.
  • Little information is gleaned from an investigational drug in Phase I that has many more hurdles to overcome before it successfully gets to market
  • 77 percent of vaccines for infectious diseases make it through Phase I, but only 33 percent make it through the entire process overall.

Moderna’s RNA vaccine

  • Upon examining Moderna’s non-peer reviewed press release, the actual data on the vaccine’s success is even more flimsy.
  • When it comes to finding out whether the vaccine elicits an antibody response that could potentially fight the coronavirus, they only had data on eight patients out of the 45 patients who received the vaccine.
  • The only data Moderna mentioned when it comes to determining whether the vaccine was clinically effective against the coronavirus were from mice.
  • History also proves that success in animal models is often not replicated in human studies.
  • Moderna’s messenger RNA vaccine is completely new and revolutionary. Messenger RNA vaccines have never before been brought to market for human patients
  • It uses a sequence of genetic RNA material produced in a lab that, when injected into your body, must invade your cells and hijack your cells’ protein-making machinery called ribosomes to produce the viral components that subsequently train your immune system to fight the virus.
  • Some messenger RNA vaccines are self-amplifying. That means they can force the cell to replicate more copies of itself.
  • There are unique and unknown risks to messenger RNA vaccines, including the possibility that they generate strong type I interferon responses that could lead to inflammation and autoimmune conditions.

Oxford Vaccine Group’s vaccine:

  • Oxford Vaccine Group has a competing vaccine that does not need to invade and hijack our cells’ own machinery.
  • From a medical and clinical perspective, there is less risk of generating a type I interferon response and autoimmunity because there is no messenger RNA floating around our blood, invading our cells.

https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/coronavirus-vaccine-covid-19-cure-doctor-moderna-novavax-oxford-a9523091.html

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News

Coronavirus pandemic already in retreat before lockdown – Chris Whitty, The Times

The coronavirus pandemic was probably already in retreat before the full lockdown was imposed, the chief medical officer for England said as he insisted that there was no “huge delay” in government action.

Chris Whitty said that “many of the problems we had came out of lack of testing capacity”. He blamed a failure to build up public health infrastructure in previous years for leaving Britain unprepared.

Chris Whitty blames poor planning for lockdown in bad-tempered health committee – The Times, 22 July 2020

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/chris-whitty-blames-poor-planning-for-lockdown-in-bad-tempered-health-committee-d5kb3fmw2

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Visitor Contributions

Four scientific evidences of the null effect of massive confinement during covid 19 in Spain

In the interest of public debate, we allow visitors to share opinions, experiences and research that may be of value to others. This is a visitor contribution from our Discussions page.

The views expressed are those of the individual posters themselves. Please read our Comments and contributions disclaimer.

Author

Alfonso Longo


Four scientific evidences of the null effect of massive confinement during covid 19 in Spain

It is obvious that the official hypothesis of the non lockdown deaths in Spain is dismantled by the real result in Sweden. The huge difference between 10,000 and 450 in Sweden could not be explained, either very remotely, by geographical, demographic or sociological factors that differentiate Sweden from Spain. If That is the case, Sweden would naturally be an anti-covid society. A scientifically unsustainable fantasy.

No medical treatment would be approved without using control groups in the experiments, however mass confinement is accepted without this condition, knowing that Sweden serves perfectly as an experimental control group.

Download the document here.

(Note that the document is hosted on Google Drive.)

Categories
Publications

Treatment with hydroxychloroquine, azithromycin, and combination in patients hospitalized with COVID-19 – International Journal of Infectious Diseases

  • As of May 27, 2020 there are over 1,678,843 confirmed cases of COVID-19 claiming more than 100,000 lives in the Unites States. Currently there is no known effective therapy or vaccine.
  • According to a protocol-based treatment algorithm, among hospitalized patients, use of hydroxychloroquine alone and in combination with azithromycin was associated with a significant reduction in-hospital mortality compared to not receiving hydroxychloroquine.
  • Findings of this observational study provide crucial data on experience with hydroxychloroquine therapy, providing necessary interim guidance for COVID-19 therapeutic practice.

https://www.ijidonline.com/article/S1201-9712(20)30534-8/fulltext

Categories
News

Hydroxychloroquine could save up to 100,000 lives if used for COVID-19: Yale epidemiology professor – Fox News

Dr. Harvey Risch, an epidemiology professor at Yale School of Public Health, said on Tuesday that he thinks hydroxychloroquine could save 75,000 to 100,000 lives if the drug is widely used to treat coronavirus.

“There are many doctors that I’ve gotten hostile remarks about saying that all the evidence is bad for it and, in fact, that is not true at all,” Risch told “Ingraham Angle,” adding that he believes the drug can be used as a “prophylactic” for front-line workers, as other countries like India have done.

Risch lamented that a “propaganda war” is being waged against the use of the drug for political purposes, not based on “medical facts.”

Researchers at the Henry Ford Health System in Southeast Michigan have found that early administration of hydroxychloroquine makes hospitalized patients substantially less likely to die.

https://www.foxnews.com/media/hydroxychloroquine-could-save-lives-ingraham-yale-professor

Categories
Publications

Doctors From Harvard and Yale Medical Schools Support Dr. Zelenko’s Treatment Method (The Zelenko Protocol)

JRC Publishing LLC, New Jersey has published an important book on treatment of COVID-19 virus. The book is based on medical research and treatment conducted by Dr. Roland DerwandProf. Martin Scholz and Dr. Zelenko.

The compendium presents treatment process and detailed experiences of COVID-19 patients while undergoing medical care with Dr. Zelenko and his colleagues from around the world. This extensive work, covering 248 pages, offers unparalleled breath of medical research and is the first volume to be published in this field to date. The e-book is available for download and is being distributed free of charge.

https://internetprotocol.co/covid-19/2020/07/21/yale-harvard-professors-support-zelenkos-protocol/

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News

No known case of teacher catching coronavirus from pupils, says scientist – The Times

There has been no recorded case of a teacher catching the coronavirus from a pupil anywhere in the world, according to one of the government’s leading scientific advisers.

Mark Woolhouse, a leading epidemiologist and member of the government’s Sage committee, told The Times that it may have been a mistake to close schools in March given the limited role children play in spreading the virus.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/news/no-known-case-of-teacher-catching-coronavirus-from-pupils-says-scientist-3zk5g2x6z

Categories
Opinion

UK Government Vaccine Damage Payment Sheme

  • In July Health Secretary Matt Hancock claimed that conspiracy theorists are putting lives at risk
  • The UK government’s Vaccine Damage Payment scheme is proof that vaccines can be unsafe
  • Eligibility criteria Vaccine Damage Payment changed in 2015
  • Update October 2020: AstraZeneca protected from vaccine liability
  • Update November 2020: MHRA expects high volume of COVID-19 vaccine adverse drug reaction
  • Update December 2020: Pfizer is given protection from legal action by the UK government

Discussion around vaccinations can be very contentious. There’s great nuance in this area and a short post will not do justice to the complex issues surrounding the usefulness and safety of vaccines. Nevertheless, while vaccines may have their role in protecting target populations from disease, not all have been proven safe to an acceptable level as shown in the resources below.

The UK government’s Vaccine Damage Payment scheme is probably the strongest proof that vaccines can be unsafe. Under the Vaccine Damage Payment scheme, people who have been severely disabled as a result of a vaccination against certain diseases can be eligible for a one-off tax-free payment of £120,000.

Conspiracy theorists are putting lives at risk?

It is an objective fact that a compensation scheme exists for those who have been damaged by vaccines. Nevertheless, Health Secretary Matt Hancock claimed that conspiracy theorists are putting lives at risk:

“Those who promulgate lies about dangers of vaccines that are safe and have been approved–they are threatening lives…”

Source: The Independent, 20 July 2020

Clearly, concerns about the safely of vaccines cannot be lies if there is a vaccine damage compensation scheme in place.

Eligibility changed in 2015

Eligibility requirements for vaccines covering certain diseases are listed and change over time. Interestingly, sometime around 2015, damage from vaccines for influenza caused by pandemics are explicitly listed as not eligible.

Source: archive.org

We do not know how the government compiles is eligibility criteria or why this change was made. However, it would be worthwhile to keep an eye on this list to see if the status of the upcoming COVID-19 vaccines.

AstraZeneca protected from vaccine liability

Update 1 August 2020: On 30 July 2020, Reuters reported that AstraZeneca, the UK government’s partner for developing its COVID-19 vaccine, will be exempt from coronavirus vaccine liability claims in most countries. The countries have not been named but Ruud Dobber, a member of Astra’s senior executive team, commented:

“This is a unique situation where we as a company simply cannot take the risk if in … four years the vaccine is showing side effects.

In the contracts we have in place, we are asking for indemnification. For most countries it is acceptable to take that risk on their shoulders because it is in their national interest.”

MHRA expects high volume of COVID-19 vaccine adverse drug reaction

Update November 2020: It came to light in mid-November that the UK’s Medicines & Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) put out a contract award notice for an Artificial Intelligence (AI) software tool. It appears they expect a high volume of COVID-19 vaccine Adverse Drug Reaction (ADRs) from the upcoming vaccines:

…it is not possible to retrofit the MHRA’s legacy systems to handle the volume of ADRs that will be generated by a Covid-19 vaccine. Therefore, if the MHRA does not implement the AI tool, it will be unable to process these ADRs effectively.

Pfizer given legal indemnity

Update 2 December 2020: According to the Independent, Pfizer now has a legal indemnity from being sued by patients who develop any complications from its new mRNA vaccine that will be rolled out in the UK. NHS staff providing the vaccine will also be protected.

Resources

View all articles related to COVID-19 and vaccination.

Categories
Publications

A country level analysis measuring the impact of government actions, country preparedness and socioeconomic factors on COVID-19 mortality and related health outcomes – The Lancet

Increasing COVID-19 caseloads were associated with countries with higher obesity (adjusted rate ratio [RR]=1.06; 95%CI: 1.01–1.11), median population age (RR=1.10; 95%CI: 1.05–1.15) and longer time to border closures from the first reported case (RR=1.04; 95%CI: 1.01–1.08). Increased mortality per million was significantly associated with higher obesity prevalence (RR=1.12; 95%CI: 1.06–1.19) and per capita gross domestic product (GDP) (RR=1.03; 95%CI: 1.00–1.06). Reduced income dispersion reduced mortality (RR=0.88; 95%CI: 0.83–0.93) and the number of critical cases (RR=0.92; 95% CI: 0.87–0.97). Rapid border closures, full lockdowns, and wide-spread testing were not associated with COVID-19 mortality per million people. However, full lockdowns (RR=2.47: 95%CI: 1.08–5.64) and reduced country vulnerability to biological threats (i.e. high scores on the global health security scale for risk environment) (RR=1.55; 95%CI: 1.13–2.12) were significantly associated with increased patient recovery rates.

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/eclinm/article/PIIS2589-5370(20)30208-X/fulltext