Category Archives: Coronavirus crisis

Lockdown cost-benefit analysis for Australia by Martin Lally

Posted on April 28, 2021 by Paul Frijters

Martin Lally is a kiwi economist who late in 2020 decided to calculate for himself what his own country was losing by locking itself away from the world, coming to the conclusion that New Zealand was sacrificing something like 26 … Continue reading →

Posted in Coronavirus crisis, Death and taxes, Economics and public policy, Employment, Health, Politics - national, Science, Social Policy | 108 Comments

Common features of the Covistance

Posted on April 21, 2021 by Paul Frijters

I am co-writing a book on the Great Panic to explain what happened and what can be done to avoid a repeat. In the course of our research for that book, me and co-authors are scouring websites in the rest … Continue reading →

Posted in Coronavirus crisis, Cultural Critique, Health, History, Humour, Social, Society, Terror | 61 Comments

Australia or Sweden: which has had the better 2020?

Posted on April 14, 2021 by Paul Frijters

Compared to the trends on January 2020, has Australia or Sweden lost more wellbeing in 2020? And which has seen the greater damage to expected future wellbeing years for after 2020? The Table below summarizes the answers to this. For … Continue reading →

Posted in Coronavirus crisis, Cultural Critique, Death and taxes, Ethics, Health, Life, Politics - international, Science | 39 Comments

Some favourite anti-lockdown art

Posted on March 31, 2021 by Paul Frijters

I here want to salute the brave artists who used their talents to capture the inhumanity and essential insanity of lockdowns. My favourite is the “guerilla mask force”, an artistic idea that apparently started in Switzerland but spread all over … Continue reading →

Posted in Art and Architecture, Coronavirus crisis, Cultural Critique, Dance, Health, Society | Leave a comment

A World Anti-Hysteria Organisation?

Posted on March 17, 2021 by Paul Frijters

The essential governance problem in March 2020 in Western countries was the overwhelming demand of the vast majority of the population to do something dramatic in response to their fear. There was a clamour to be ‘led to safety’ by … Continue reading →

Posted in Coronavirus crisis, Democracy, Health, Information, Innovation, IT and Internet, Metablogging, Politics - international, Science, Society, Terror | 27 Comments

What experiments on cult behaviour tell us about lockdown beliefs

Posted on March 10, 2021 by Paul Frijters

With a recent publication in Nature that reported lockdowns have no effect on covid-cases or covid-deaths, there are now over 30 studies that fail to find any covid-reducing benefits of lockdowns. Worse, across countries and time, more severe lockdowns are … Continue reading →

Posted in Coronavirus crisis, Death and taxes, Health, Medical, Politics - international, Politics - national, Religion, Science, Society, Terror | 62 Comments

Two more interesting articles on covid mass hysteria

Posted on February 25, 2021 by Paul Frijters

Guess which crackpot started his article on covid in that notorious right-wing publication ‘The Guardian’ with the sentence “The virus has been used as a pretext in many countries to crush dissent, criminalise freedoms and silence reporting”? It’s that obvious … Continue reading →

Posted in Coronavirus crisis, Democracy, Health, History, Inequality, Political theory, Politics - international, Science, Social Policy | 23 Comments