It has long been understood that lockdowns during 2020 and 2021 were not effective tools for reducing the spread of, and casualties from, COVID-19 . Aside from observations that there were significant numbers of COVID-19 cases and deaths despite lockdowns, numerous academic studies have also confirmed this fact.

Now, a new “Global Evaluation and State of Knowledge Review” authored by Kevin Bardosh, a scholar affiliated with the University of Washington and the University of Edinburgh, offers a comprehensive account of lockdown harms.

This 119-page report synthesizes 600 publications and looks specifically at domains including health, economy, education, lifestyle, and relationships. In doing so, the author paints a stark picture of lockdown harms that will undoubtedly have lingering effects for years to come.

He writes that COVID-19 lockdowns were associated with “a rise in non-Covid excess mortality, mental health deterioration, child abuse and domestic violence, widening global inequality, food insecurity, lost educational opportunities, unhealthy lifestyle behaviours, social polarization, soaring debt, democratic backsliding and declining human rights.”

Tragically, yet unsurprisingly, “Young people, individuals and countries with lower socioeconomic status, women and those with pre-existing vulnerabilities were hit hardest.”

Starting with health, the evidence shows there was a 20% increase in excess mortality in North America. Doctor Jay Bhattacharya, a professor at the Stanford School of Medicine, notes that the “Primary causes included hypertension, heart disease, diabetes, drug-overdoses, homicide, Alzheimer’s, and motor vehicle fatalities.”

Mental health did not fare much better.

Bardosh writes that there were “an additional 53 million cases of major depressive disorder globally (a 28% increase) and 76 million cases of anxiety disorders globally (a 26% increase) in 2020. A review of data from the United States estimated a larger increase, with 30% to 50% increases in anxiety and depression during 2020.”

The most troubling data, though, comes from the research on education.

Worldwide, “A modeling study by UNICEF (2022) estimated a sharp 13% increase in global learning poverty, which rose from 57% in 2019 to 70% in 2022.” Different studies estimate an average learning loss somewhere between 35% and 50% of a school year’s worth of learning. To put that in perspective, pandemic-related lockdowns erased “all global educational gains achieved since 2000.”

These effects were particularly harsh in South and West Asia, along with Sub-Saharan Africa. “For example, a study from Malawi found 14% of students did not return to school, rising to over 30% for girls aged 17-19.” And 725,000 students in South Africa were simply absent from school in 2021 — which is a figure “four times larger than pre-pandemic years.”

This data is certainly remarkable, but it is not necessarily unique. A study from McKinsey & Company showed that students ended up months behind in math and reading, and numbers from the CDC itself reveal a concerning rise in anxiety and depression.

Similarly troubling data can be found in the section on the economy, which indicates GDP per capita fell “6.7% in emerging markets, 4.6% in advanced economies and 3.6% in low-income countries,” and lifestyle, which revealed that children exercised up to 26% less during the pandemic and screen time rose by more than an hour per day.

And so at, at length. In section after section, the data are shocking. No area of life was insulated from the devastating effects of lockdowns, and this study hammers that fact home.

This, of course, makes sense intuitively.

In the normal course of one’s day, it is standard to interact with different people, go to different places, and have the option to engage in a wide range of activities. However, under lockdowns, people were shut in their homes with nothing to do and only a few people to interact with. Friendships, communities, and standard interactions with the world were put on hold.

There was no way it could have any other outcome than it did.

Aristotle aptly wrote that “Whosoever is delighted in solitude is either a wild beast or a god.” Implicit in this statement is that, fundamentally, humans exist in relation to one another. As such, when you remove a person from the community and isolate him, he loses something profound. He loses a part of his humanity insofar as his life is made whole by interaction with the wider world.

Unfortunately, over the past few years, we learned the hard way that when one person is isolated, it is a personal tragedy; but when everyone is isolated, the loss is infinitely greater in magnitude.

Jack Elbaum is a summer 2023 Washington Examiner fellow.