That study is a piece of garbage from the very beginning:
- it includes only Europe and US, all other countries are excluded
- A lockdown is defined as at least one (1) NPI mandated that restrict people possibilities. So locations which only closes down bars and nightclubs, and nothing else, are called "being in lockdown".

So basically this "study" excludes 75% of the world and compares apple to suspension bridge. And the author are aware because somewhere in the study, this is found:

In other words: the authors admit their definition are poor and as a result can not find a concluding effect, in whatever direction.

Blimey, as always a very quick analysis and debunking when the articles of faith are questioned. One wonders why we even need to do any research in this area when the conclusions are already set in stone apparently :)

You should have started with that to save us the rest of the reading...

Even if you think you may disagree with something, it is worth reading it just to see whether anything does challenge your beliefs. You may well end up concluding it doesn't, but I would suggest it is worse not to bother and only allow yourself to read stuff you already think you will agree with.

I may not always agree with fransknorge, but at least he seems to have read the article and drawn his own conclusions. We may disagree on those conclusions potentially, but he hasn't dismissed it out of hand just because some supposed "trigger" words are noted.

Always need to do research, it is the cornerstone of the scientific method. The research needs to be good though.
Question: do you consider that closing nightclubs and only nightclub is exactly the same measure and 100% comparable to have a mandated stay at home for everybody but essential jobs ?
It is not that quick, I read this study last week.

I don't disagree, but sometimes you have to make some quick decisions based on the level of bias....:p

When people with such high level of bias do research I personally cannot trust anything, not the lit review, not the design or the methods, not the raw data, not the analysis, not the conclusions, pretty much nothing...They should pre-register the study and have an independent monitor of everything...in other words, forget about it to begin with...

No I personally wouldn't but equally I don't think the article says all measures which fall under the way they choose to define were ineffective. They go on to breakdown between specific measures within the broader usage they have applied to the term. The article isn't suggesting all restrictions were ineffective.

In a sense the use of the term in the newspaper article is closer to how I would use it, so relating to restrictions on freedom of movement and/or mandated stay at home.

Do I get a question back? :)

Let me ask you, are you open to the possibility that some of the restrictions that have been imposed at various points over the last 2 years had very little or even no effect in improving health outcomes whilst at the same time causing damage in other ways to peoples lives and livelihoods?

so in your mind anyone associated with that declaration has such a high level of bias that anything they produce should be discounted out of hand?

Of course.
Some are known since quite some time to have a detrimental effect and be completely ineffective, like basically masking outdoor, restrictions on being outdoor in general (stupid stuff like restricting access to parks, beaches, hiking trail, etc ...). This was useless and harmful since the very beginning (and I always thought that). School closure was always a serious problem. I would say the school closure of the Feb-Apr 2020 were justified. During the summer of 2020, a huge work should have been done to secure them (ventilation, filtration, providing FFP2 masks, millions of LFT stocked for that unique purpose) to avoid closing them again except in strict necessity. Anyway I consider all lockdowns post summer 2020 to be failure of handling the pandemic. They were harmful because they could have been avoided. Curfew were no better since they probably have a small effect anyway (not sure this was proven to be effective, so I don't truly know but I suspect it was not). Plenty of other measures were not very useful.

As for the study, again the conclusion of that study is quite different from what is in the study. The authors acknowledge themselves the definition is too broad to actually find an effect and they can not conclude.

These meta-analyses are going to be central to any review of the ways Covid was handled and the effectiveness and costs of approaches employed to reduce mortality, serious illness and the concomitant toll on health infrastructure. They avoid the opportunistic citing of selected parts of individual studies in a bid to support particular views.

But we are in an area where experimental controls are absent, and the statistical treatments used in component studies vary in their nature and robustness, and the levels of (unintentional) bias that infuse them. The meta-analysis can amplify these methodological problems by introducing its own bias in the selection, inclusion, weighting, statistical refinement and interpretation of data from constituent studies.

The phrasing of a single comment in the concluding remarks of this study (Herby et al) suggests a measure of editorial bias has crept in:
"Indeed, we do find some evidence that limiting gatherings was counterproductive and increased COVID-19 mortality"
Anyone who has prepared reports will recognise the technique for planting subjective conclusions not fully supported in the body of the study.

All that doesn't mean this the report is intentionally misleading, or that it is significantly flawed: but it's conclusions should be approached with the usual level of scepticism that surrounds analyses of his nature.

Daily data:

Cases 88,171 (96,871 last Thurssday)
Deaths 303 (338)
Patients admitted 1,386 (1,664 on the 23rd)
Patients in hospital 14,816 (16,572 on the 26th)
Patients in ventilation beds 483 (561 on the 26th)
vaccinated up to and including 2 February 2022:
First dose: 52,385,688
Second dose: 48,494,414
Booster: 37,419,104

The rolling seven day daily average for cases is now down 2.6% on the previous week and the same measure for deaths is down 2.7%. The rolling 7 day daily average for deaths is 252.1 today. The last time there was less than 500 in mechasnicasl ventilation beds was 12th July.

No, but minimally it would need extra scrutiny (more reviewers, for example), possible access to raw data for checks or re-analyses, possible published commentaries/rejoinders, thorough checks of interpretations/conclusion sections, etc. I would only trust a good journal to handle these, if it appears in a low quality outlet it is even less trustworthy....Just talking in general now, I haven't seen this article...

I'm no expert in this area, but it seems questionable to state that lockdowns should not be considered at all. Not all pandemics will have the same profile as this one.

rb211.

Daily data:

Cases 84,053 (89,176 last Friday)
Deaths 254 (277)
Patients admitted 1,596 (1,746 on the 24th)
Patients in hospital 14,634 (15,217 on the 27th)
Patients in ventilation beds 478 (549 on the 27th)
vaccinated up to and including 3 February 2022:
First dose: 52,399,031
Second dose: 48,520,513
Booster: 37,458,017

The rolling seven day daily average for cases is now down 2.4% on the previous week and the same measure for deaths is down 3.4%. The rolling 7 day daily average for deaths is 248.9 today.

As noted already they describe "lockdown" as anything mandated, rather than recommended, by a government. So a place where masks are legally required but with not a single other restriction is considered to be "in lockdown" (page 5 of the paper).

​​​​​I don't have time to digest the whole paper to see if they really mean that there should be no legal restrictions in the future ever, or if there's some sloppy definitions.