There is now a large body of evidence that says the lockdowns cost huge harms.

It was a mental health crisis of alarming proportions.

Girls 12 to 17 years old saw 50% increase in suicide attempts in 2021 compared to prior to the pandemic.

Let me read this really quick.

By early May 2020, ED visit counts for suspected suicide attempts began increasing

among adolescents age 12 to 17 years, especially among girls.

During July 26th through August 22nd, 2020, the mean weekly number of ED visits for suspected suicide attempts among girls aged 12 to 17 years was 26.2% higher than during the same period a year earlier.

During February 21st through March 20th, 21, mean weekly ED visit counts for suspected suicide attempts were 50.6% higher among girls age 12 to 17 years compared with the same period in 2019.

Those are staggering numbers.

There's graphs that go along with this.

This is CDC numbers.

Alcohol-related deaths went up significantly. Drug-over-drelated deaths went up significantly. Drug over-dose deaths went up significantly.

There's something called deaths of despair. And these are people who just are so depressed and they

don't see a way out of their situation. And again, these are younger people. These are not older

people. These are not the people who would be vulnerable necessarily to COVID.

But these are people who are low income, lower education level, and the deaths of despair

went significantly up.

So you would hope this mental health crisis of alarming proportions.

In fact, Vivek Murthy, you know, the US Surgeon General earlier this year, had a white

paper on the epidemic of depression and isolation and loneliness in this country.

I mean, this country is in no shape to tolerate another lockdown and to usher in even worse mental health outcomes. So the mental health

outcomes alone should be enough to prevent us from going back into extended lockdowns. But then

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