The Carnage of the Covid Lockdowns, By Brian Simpson

The Nation First article, titled "LOCKDOWN CARNAGE: How Politicians Broke a Generation," authored by George Christensen,

https://nationfirst.substack.com/p/lockdown-carnage-how-politicians

paints a grim picture of the fallout from COVID-19 lockdowns, with a laser focus on the toll it took on youth. It accuses politicians of exploiting "manufactured hysteria" to enforce draconian restrictions, showing callous disregard for ordinary folks while shielding themselves from the consequences. The piece details a litany of woes—job losses, shuttered businesses, and deep psychological scars from isolation, with families splintering under financial strain and despair. It singles out the vulnerable, like the elderly and those with pre-existing conditions, claiming many died due to healthcare delays in the name of "flattening the curve." The article teases new UK data—hidden behind a paywall—that supposedly vindicates lockdown sceptics, framing the policies as a devastating blow to mental health and youth suicide rates.

Let's cut through the government bs: Covid lockdowns were a monstrous, ham-fisted disaster that smashed society to bits and left a generation of kids psychologically crippled—and the proof's stacking up like a landfill of broken dreams. Politicians, thoseself-serving cowards, didn't just drop the ball—they punted it into a woodchipper, all while preening behind their "public health" façade. Nation First has it dead right: this was a hysteria-fuelled power grab, a sadistic experiment in control that bowled over everyone but the elite. Jobs vapourised—U.S. unemployment hit 14.8 percent in April 2020, per the Bureau of Labor Statistics, with millions of small businesses gutted. In the UK, the Office for National Statistics clocked a 7.6 percent GDP drop in 2020, the worst since the Great Frost of 1709. Meanwhile, the suits in charge Zoomed from their cushy home offices, sipping lattes while the rest of us ate dirt.

The mental health carnage? It's abloodbath, especially for the young. The UK's National Child Mortality Database flagged a possible uptick in child suicides during the first 2020 lockdown—25 deaths, small but a screaming red flag. The BMJ confirms it: youth depression and anxiety spiked, with self-harm slashing through the roof as kids were caged indoors, cut off from friends and trapped in hellholes some called home. YoungMinds surveys from 2020-2021 show 79 percent of UK youth with mental health histories said lockdowns trashed their well-being—some relapsed into cutting, others lost all hope. Japan's not spared either—suicides among those under 20 jumped 7.7 percent in late 2020, tied to school closures, per government data. University College London researchers found UK child suicides outpaced Covid deaths nearly five-to-one in year one. Five-to-one! These weren't "tough times"; this was a slaughter of innocence, all for a curve that flattened nothing but lives.

Adults didn't escape the meat grinder either. The Guardian pegged UK depression rates at 19.2 percent by June 2020—double pre-pandemic levels—hitting young adults and women hardest. The British Journal of Psychiatry tracked suicidal thoughts creeping from 8.2 percent to 9.8 percent in the first six weeks of lockdown; multiply that by millions, and it's a tidal wave of misery. Australia's Institute of Health and Welfare saw mental health service use explode—crisis line calls surged, PBS scripts for antidepressants ballooned—yet official suicide rates didn't always spike? That's a lie by omission—coroner delays in England and underreporting skew the numbers, leaving us blind to the full body count. The elderly? Left to rot—thousands died alone when hospitals turned them away, "protecting" the system by abandoning the weak, as Nation First rightly rages.

And for what? "Flattening the curve" became a sick joke—hospitals sat half-empty while cancer screenings and surgeries got axed. The Health Foundation notes UK mental health took a bigger hit from isolation than the virus itself, with domestic abuse spiking—Refuge helpline calls jumped 49 percent in the first lockdown weeks. Kids in abusive homes? Trapped with monsters, no school to run to. The BMJ admits it: mental health was tanking pre-Covid—teen girls' self-harm was already climbing since 2010—but lockdowns poured gasoline on the fire and lit the match. Economic ruin fuelled the blaze—U.S. Census data shows 40 percent of households lost income in 2020, and the IFS found UK mental health cratered 8.1 percent worse than pre-pandemic trends, especially for the young and poor.

The so-called "experts" and their political puppets peddled this as "necessary"—but necessary for who? Not the 90,000 UK adults who told UCL's COVID-19 Social Study they were drowning in anxiety by Christmas 2021. Not the U.S. teens the CDC found in 2021, 37.1 percent of whom reported poor mental health during the pandemic, with 19.9 percent considering suicide. Japan's "honeymoon period" of low suicides flipped hard by August 2020—economic stress and isolation hit women and youth like a sledgehammer. The BMJ's modelings predicted suicide hikes from 1 percent to 145 percent, and while hard numbers lag, the distress signals are deafening—helplines couldn't keep up, per Australia's AIHW.

This wasn't science; it was sadism. Lockdowns didn't save lives—they traded physical health for a mental health apocalypse. The elderly died abandoned, kids offed themselves in record numbers, and families shattered while politicians clapped themselves on the back. Nation First's "new UK data" tease—likely echoing real-time surveillance showing no overall suicide spike—misses the point: the damage isn't just in coroner stats, it's in the living wrecks left behind. The BMJ warns of "dynamic" risks—early cohesion gave way to despair as lockdowns dragged on. Bangor University's 2023 study found rule-followers still reeling with worse mental health years later—proof this trauma's got legs.

So here's the verdict: lockdowns were a meat grinder, a generational betrayal sold as salvation. Politicians broke everything—minds, homes, futures—and they're still dodging the tab. The data's in, the bodies are counted, and the scars are permanent. Time to stop swallowing their lies and start swinging back, metaphorically speaking—this carnage demands reckoning, not excuses. Covid justice for all!