"The COVID-19"

Weight gain is a predictable and dangerous side effect of lockdown

On October 4th, 2020, three world-renowned epidemiologists, Dr. Martin Kulldorff of Harvard, Dr. Sunetra Gupta of Oxford and Dr. Jay Bhattacharya of Stanford, got together and authored the “Great Barrington Declaration” in which they claimed that lockdown policies were having devastating effects on short and long term public health. They argued, in effect, that the lockdown “cure” was worse than the (COVID) disease and that “Focused Protection” of vulnerable populations was a much more sensible (and evidence-based) approach.

The Great Barrington Declaration currently has over 925,000 signatures, including 15,790 medical and public health scientists and 46,732 medical practitioners (including yours truly.) If you’ve never heard of it, though, that’s no coincidence: recently released e-mails between Dr. Anthony “la science, c’est moi” Fauci and NIH director Francis Collins have revealed a coordinated attempt to smear the esteemed authors as “fringe epidemiologists” and to conduct a “swift and devastating takedown” of their premises.

Now—almost a year and a half later—it’s becoming increasingly clear that the GBD authors were right. There is a growing mountain of real world data showing that lockdowns are net killers, including the recent meta-analysis from Johns Hopkins showing that partial lockdown measures reduced COVID mortality by a mere 0.2%, and even draconian “shelter in place” measures reduced it by only 2.9%. Meanwhile, all cause mortality, particularly in younger age groups, is on the rise—and most of this excess mortality is due to factors other than COVID.

So what is killing all those people, exactly? There has certainly been an increase in opiate overdoses and other “deaths of despair.” There have been unconscionable delays in diagnosis and treatment of pretty much everything that isn’t COVID. And some have claimed that vaccine adverse reactions are at least part of the explanation. On a personal level, most of us know of someone who has “died of lockdown” in one way or another. I personally know several.

But pandemic weight gain has been largely overlooked, in spite of having the potential to be one of the biggest killers of all. We’ve heard the jokes about the “COVID 19” (pounds) that many of us have packed on since the pandemic began and it turns out that almost half of us have indeed gained more weight than we intended.

Nurpie claims his weight problem is “glandular” but we suspect stress eating and a lack of mousing opportunities due to lockdown

Among those who have gained unintended weight, the amount has been significant, with one large survey estimating an average of 29 pounds and another smaller study estimating 25 pounds, on average, by the summer of 2021. Children have not been spared, with already obese kids gaining an average of more than a pound a month between March and November of 2020 and normal weight kids gaining a smaller but still significant amount—enough to significantly increase rates of obesity in children. School closures and lack of group activities appear to have been among the primary drivers of this.

Keeping kids “safe”….

Aside from the devastating long term effects of excess weight on cancer and cardiovascular risk (and all cause mortality), we also know, ironically, that excess weight is one of the primary risk factors for severe illness and death from COVID. In fact, with the exception of advanced age, it is THE primary risk factor.

Until recently we didn’t know exactly how much effect weight gain had on COVID risk but a new report by the National Institute of Health Research in the UK helped to quantify this risk. The news is not good for those of us who packed on a “few pounds” when the gyms were closed.

Even within the “normal” weight range, going from a body mass index (BMI) of 23 to 25 (the upper end of the normal weight range) increased the risk of hospitalization by 10% and ICU admission by 20%. This was independent of other risk factors like type 2 diabetes (which also tend to increase as weight increases.)

For someone with a BMI of 30, the risk of ICU admission was 70% higher than the baseline rate and the risk of death was also substantially higher. Overall, the risk of hospitalization increased by 5% for every unit of BMI increase over 23 and risk of ICU admission increased by 10% for very unit of BMI increase. Risk of death increased by 4% for every unit of BMI over 28—in the overweight range.

To put these numbers in perspective, you can calculate your own BMI here. To give you a concrete example, in order for a a woman who is 5’7” tall to have a BMI of 23, her weight would be approximately 147 pounds. If she gained 25 pounds, her BMI would increase to 26.9, putting her at approximately 20% higher risk for hospitalization and 40% higher risk for ICU admission.

A man who is 6 feet tall would weigh around 170 pounds at a BMI of 23. If he goes up to 195, (BMI of 26.4) his risk of hospitalization is again increased substantially. If he goes up to 215 pounds (BMI of 29.2) his risk of death starts to increase substantially. And so on.

Hiding at your cottage can cause significant weight gain

But that is just COVID risk. When you start to calculate the effect of weight gain on all-cause mortality over longer periods of time, the numbers are staggering. In a nutshell, your risk of dying (from any cause) if you are even mild to moderately overweight, when compared to people in the lower end of the normal range (BMI 18.5-22.5) is substantial.

To give just one specific example, if you have a BMI of 27.5 at age 18, you are more than twice as likely to die of cardiovascular diseases in subsequent years than someone in the normal weight range. Since weight gain at an early age tends to stay with us, and since more than 32% of deaths worldwide are due to cardiovascular disease, even moderate changes in average weight in young people could lead to tens of millions of premature deaths (from cardiovascular disease alone) over the next several years, potentially dwarfing the total death toll from COVID-19.

Still, public health officials in Nova Scotia and elsewhere continue to limit our access to recreational physical activity options. They continue to pursue destructive lockdown policies that have little scientific basis and which we now know cause more harm than good. They are killing us, quite literally, with their monomaniacal focus on COVID “safety.”

One of the remarkable things about the COVID pandemic is that any discussion of “cost-benefit analysis” seems to have been verboten from day one. We can talk about how essential lockdowns and masks and vaccines are. But doctors or scientists who mention the downsides of any of these quickly get on the wrong side of Fauci, or the NSHA.

Yet many aspects of the pandemic response—from vaccinating young children, to cancelling school, to shutting down down gyms and rinks, to deliberately instilling exaggerated fear in the population—should generate controversy and debate, since the benefits are far from clear and the costs potentially devastating.

The costs of lockdown will appear over a long period of time through missed cancer diagnoses, weight gain, lost education, and developmental delay just to name a few. The lack of scientific debate, including ignoring the Great Barrington declaration and other voices of reason earlier on in the pandemic may prove to be extremely costly.

I’ll leave you with this public health policy gem, which seems to encapsulate everything that’s gone wrong. Nuf said.

—Julie