COVID Lockdown Study Shows Negative NJ Impact: Legislators

NEW JERSEY — A recent study released by Johns Hopkins University regarding the negative impacts of COVID-19 lockdowns on communities has resonated among some New Jersey state legislators.

State Sen. Joe Pennacchio (R-Parsippany) said in a statement released on Feb. 2 that he believes the study shows Gov. Phil Murphy made a mistake in not including the legislature “in pandemic decision-making.”

On the heels of the study, State Senators Declan O'Scanlon (R-Little Silver) and Vin Gopal (D-Asbury Park) co-sponsored a bill on Jan. 31, S1200, to terminate some of Murphy's emergency powers. That bill currently sits with the Senate's State Government, Wagering, Tourism & Historic Preservation Committee.

Johns Hopkins researchers said in their study, published in January, they conducted a meta-analysis 24 separate studies. They challenged whether there was “empirical evidence to support the belief that ‘lockdowns’ reduce COVID-19 mortality, according to the report.

Researchers looked at lockdown stringency index studies, shelter-in-place order (SIPO) studies and non-pharmaceutical intervention (NPI) studies throughout Europe and the United States. They found that the lockdowns “reduced COVID-19 mortality by 2.9 percent on the average.”

“Specific NPI studies also find no broad-based evidence of noticeable effects on COVID-19 mortality,” researchers wrote.

“While this meta-analysis concludes that lockdowns have had little to no public health effects, they have imposed enormous economic and social costs when they have been adopted,” the researchers continued. “In consequence, lockdown policies are ill-founded and should be rejected as a pandemic policy instrument.”

The researchers cited mandates for additionally contributing to “reducing economic activity, raising unemployment, reducing schooling, causing political unrest, contributing to domestic violence, and undermining liberal democracy.”

Patch asked New Jersey’s Department of Health if it could weigh in on the study.

“The Department has not closely examined this report so we decline comment,” Donna Leusner, the department’s director of communications, emailed in a statement to Patch on Monday.

“The governor’s policies that bankrupted one of every three businesses in the state turned out to be worthless,” Pennacchio said.

“As the Johns Hopkins study proves, decisions that forced mom-and-pop businesses to shut down while big box stores remained open made no sense and created job losses and financial problems that were unnecessary,” he wrote.

Pennacchio also took exception to Murphy calling residents who visited beaches and parks during the pandemic lockdowns “knuckleheads,” stating those who had “turned out not to be knuckleheads after all," he wrote.

Toms River Mayor Maurice B. “Mo” Hill, Jr. also addressed the study and legislator's bill. Hill additionally mentioned in a statement on the township's website, a panel of doctors and scientists calling for the end of lockdowns and mask mandates in schools.

“I don’t question Governor Murphy’s sincerity or good intentions in trying to protect the people of New Jersey,” Hill wrote, “but it turns out the ‘knuckleheads’ in and out of the Legislature who questioned Murphy’s omnipotent wisdom might have been right all along.”

He said residents need to be vigilant about COVID-19 and "executives with unchecked power."

"Our governments as established in the United States and New Jersey Constitutions are based upon checks and balances for very wise reasons," Hill said. "It is long past time to that we returned to those principles.”

“These costs to society must be compared to the benefits of lockdowns, which our meta-analysis has shown are marginal at best,” Johns Hopkins researchers said. “Such a standard benefit-cost calculation leads to a strong conclusion: lockdowns should be rejected out of hand as a pandemic policy instrument.”

During Murphy's press conference on Feb. 2 in the clip below, a reporter's questions for state epidemiologist Dr. Christina Tan about the John Hopkins study, as well as O'Scanlon's and Gopal's bill to terminate Murphy's emergency powers, were not immediately answered:

Click here for the full Johns Hopkins University study, here for Pennacchio’s full remarks and here for Hill's statement.

Questions or comments about this story? Have a news tip? Contact me at: jennifer.miller@patch.com.