(Minghui.org) According to a study by a research group at Stanford University, mandatory lockdowns that required people to shelter at home and businesses to shut down didn’t have much effect in stopping the spread of the novel coronavirus.

In the paper published in the European Journal of Clinical Investigation on January 5, 2021, titled “Assessing mandatory stay-at-home and business closure effects on the spread of COVID-19,” the researchers analyzed coronavirus case growth in early 2020 in 10 countries, including England, France, Germany, Iran, Italy, Netherlands, Spain, the U.S., South Korea and Sweden. The first eight countries enacted strict lockdown orders, while the last two followed much more relaxed rules and only encouraged voluntary responses from the public.

By comparing the spread of the diseases in the two distinct systems, the researchers concluded that “no clear, significant, beneficial effect of [more restrictive measures] on case growth in any country.”

In fact, even within the U.S., different states also issued very different, or sometimes opposite policies to contain the pandemic.

Florida lifted nearly all mandatory epidemic prevention measures beginning in September 2020 and has remained open since, with the governor publicly stating his commitment to the open-door policy at the end of November of the same year. In contrast, many other states have continued more or less the means of closure. A prime example is California, where the government issued three waves of lockdowns since the beginning of the pandemic.

Much to people’s surprise, the strict lockdowns in California did not effectively prevent the spread of the virus, whereas Florida's open policy did not bring about a more serious infection rate than California either. At some point, California's infection rate even surpassed that of Florida.

In other areas with the tightest lockdowns, including New Jersey, New York, Massachusetts, and Connecticut, the number of cases as of January 2021 also remained very high and the infection cases for every one million population were similar to that of Texas, where schools and restaurants have remained largely open.

While the implementation of the mandates in many states did not control the epidemic more effectively than Florida and Texas, it has subsequently led to many social problems such as mental illness, substance abuse, suicide, and high unemployment rate.

People originally wanted to achieve the effect of preventing the epidemic through measures such as lockdowns and mask mandates, but the surprising reality only indicated the ineffectiveness of human intervention in controlling the virus.

In ancient Chinese culture, it is believed that pandemic happens as a heavenly warning when people’s morality has declined. If that’s the case, how can lockdown and mask mandates prevent heaven’s will from being shown in the human world? Maybe it is time to reflect on ourselves and return to traditional values.