Bookpleasures welcomes as our guest Hugh McTavish author of Covid Lockdown Insanity.

Hugh is a Ph.D. biochemist and immunologist and a patent attorney. He has authored 18 refereed scientific journal articles and is the inventor of 21 U.S. patents. He has also written two prior books on public policy and nature. He has started two pharmaceutical companies off his own inventions.

Good day Hugh and thanks for taking part in our interview.

Norm: What do you wish that people had understood at the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic?

Hugh: That COVID was about twice as deadly as the flu, if you have not been vaccinated against either disease. So however afraid you were of dying from the flu in 2019 if you caught it, multiply that by 2 and that is how afraid you should be of dying from COVID if you catch it. For most of us, we have zero fear of dying from the flu, so two times zero is still zero.

Norm: What is your overall opinion on the concept of a lockdown and how do you think it should be modified in the USA?

Hugh: The lockdowns were an unmitigated disaster. The net effect has been to kill people because the lockdown policies will wind up causing about 100,000 additional deaths, mostly deaths of despair in young people—increased suicides and drug overdose deaths—as well as increased cancer and heart disease deaths.

We deliberately threw 16% of the workforce out of their jobs, which we know causes a large increase in suicides and deaths of despair. And worse, we deliberately isolated people from one another—that was the entire point of the lockdowns—and since we are a social species that predicably caused an explosion of depression and unhappiness—the percentage of the U.S. population in major clinical depression more than tripled from 8.5% to 27.8% of the population—which also predicably leads to deaths of despair. So we effectively decided to kill young people to try to save old people. It was completely immoral and insane.

You do not even have to get into a debate of how much loss of freedom or how much economic loss or even how much increased clinical depression and unhappiness is it worth to save one person, on average an 84-year-old in a nursing home, from COVID death.

The lockdowns caused more loss of life than they saved. They probably killed more people than they saved, but because the people we decided to kill by driving them to suicides and drug overdose deaths were far younger with far more time of life left than the people we were trying to save by preventing their death from COVID, it is a certainty that the lockdowns caused more person-years of life lost from the people they killed than the person-years of life saved from the people they saved.

What we should have done is nothing mandatory at all: No stay at home orders, no closing of schools, no closing of restaurants and bars, much less health clubs, churches, and state and national parks, no mask mandates.

We should have educated people that COVID, just like colds and flu, is spread mostly or perhaps entirely by getting the virus on your hands and then touching your mouth, nose, or eyes. So wash your hands and use hand sanitizer and try not to touch your face. Beyond that, live your life as usual.

Norm: Do you believe that politics played a role in the handling of COVID in the USA?

Hugh: I don't know. It should not have. But for some reason this has become yet another reason to divide us from one another. It actually seems to me that dividing us from one another and blaming one another for COVID may have been the intent.

Norm: Is there any policy that you believe should have been implemented initially around the world or specifically in the USA?

Hugh: No, I do not think any mandatory policies should have been implemented anywhere in the world, because all the evidence indicates that all the mandatory policies even taken together—school closings, stay-at-home orders, mask mandates, etc.—have had no effect on COVID deaths at all.

The one major country that did none of that, Sweden, has fewer COVID deaths per capita than the U.S., U.K., France, Italy, Spain, and most of the other major countries in the world that all implemented lockdowns.

Among U.S. states, there is no correlation of COVID deaths per capita with strength of lockdowns and no correlation with Republican or Democratic governors.

Norm: What motivated you to write Covid Lockdown Insanity?

Hugh: I was just mystified and outraged at the near universal rush to lockdowns at the beginning of this. And I was thrown into depression by the lockdowns and the closing of my church and health club and lost social interaction.

So I was standing up for myself, but also standing up for everyone else who was kicked out of school, thrown into depression, had their business destroyed or their jobs taken away, driven to suicide and drug and alcohol abuse, and generally treated like their lives don't matter. And then when they objected to their treatment, they were shouted down that they were selfish. I was and am outraged for them.

Norm: What were your goals and intentions in this book, and how well do you feel you achieved them?  

Hugh: My goal was to get these facts out about the massive increase in depression and large increase in deaths of despair that by any measure outweigh the benefits of the lockdowns. My goal was to create some debate about the wisdom of the lockdown policies, which we really have not had.

I have not achieved them as well as I would like. This is largely because of press and tech platform censorship. My organization COVID-Sanity.org tried to place advertisements in major newspapers and with Google and Facebook that merely said these facts about how many deaths of despair the lockdowns were causing and how many people were thrown into depression by the lockdowns.

None of them would even accept our money to run those ads. We were completely censored from even presenting CDC statistics about those things. Amazon will not allow us to advertise this book.

Norm: What was the most difficult part of writing this book?  

Hugh: I actually enjoyed writing it very much. There really was not a difficult part to writing it, except maybe learning the rules on commas and hyphenation better.

Norm: How much research did you do before writing the book?

Hugh: I did a ton of research. It was mostly while writing the book, rather than before writing it. I cite almost entirely CDC numbers and refereed scientific journal articles, usually the most prestigious medical journals, for all the numbers and facts in my book.

Norm: Whom do you believe will benefit from your book and why?  

Hugh: Anyone with an open mind about public policy, including I suppose especially people who currently support the lockdowns and think this response was necessary or beneficial.

I do not think you can continue to hold that belief after you read my book. Also people who have an inclination or a certainty that the lockdown response to COVID was a mistake and harmed them personally. My book shows you are right that this was a mistake and you are far from alone in being harmed by the lockdowns.

Norm: What challenges or obstacles did you encounter while writing your book? How did you overcome these challenges? 

Hugh: Really just the censorship, as I mentioned above. I have overcome that by doing a number of radio and podcast interviews and trying to start publicizing this on social media, although I previously did not use social media at all and I am generally not a fan of it.

Norm: Where can our readers find out more about you and Covid Lockdown Insanity?

Hugh: You can buy the book an Amazon and Barnes and Noble online or in the store or in any local bookstore. But it is also available for free on my website HughMcTavish.com. Also I blog there, mostly about COVID and the lockdowns so far, but soon it will be about other concerns.

Norm: What is next for Hugh McTavish?

Hugh: I am considering a run for Minnesota Governor this year. I also want to implement and publicize an idea I have that I call Jury Democracy.

Norm: As this interview comes to an end, is there anything else you'd like to share with us?

Hugh: Thank you for having me. And to those who were kicked out of school, kicked out of their churches and synagogues, lost their jobs or businesses or income, and thrown into depression because of the social isolation, I say your life matters. You were wronged. Your life matters as much as anyone else's.

Norm: Thanks once again and good luck with Covid Lockdown Insanity.