The Simple, Sacred and Inviolate Right to Protest

When New South Wales’ lockdown was extended by four weeks, chief health officer Dr Kerry Chant claimed the state had to “hold its course” to curb the latest COVID outbreak. “We know lockdowns work,” Dr Chant repeated for what might well have been the 10,00th time[1].  It is the mantra of chief health officers in favour of locking down normal life, sometimes at a moment’s notice.

The truth is that Dr Chant has her ‘facts’ hopelessly mangled. According to Dr Mark Woolhouse, the eminent epidemiology professor at Edinburgh University and health adviser to the UK government, any attempt to control the spread of the virus through lockdowns constitutes a “monumental mistake”.[2]  that inflicts harm on the  education of the young, health care access and the economy far greater than the virus itself, “the cure being much worse than the disease”.[3]

David L. Katz undoubtedly agrees. This eminent founder and former director of Yale University’s Yale-Griffin Prevention…