To everyone who dumped on me for questioning the shutdown of civilization and calling out the damage it inflicted on the young and the poor: you can take your shaming, your scientific posturing, your insufferable moralizing, and stuff it. Every day, new research knocks more air out of your smug pronouncements.
Those Who Chose Shaming Over Science Read Journal Article
These results point to one conclusion: between one-half and two-thirds of the public believe that the pandemic response was an enormous flop, and that their own liberties are far less secure now than they were before. Further, none of it worked to achieve that goal. That is a devastating indictment on the biggest expansion of government power and control in our lifetimes, one that happened not only in the US but almost everywhere in the world.
How Public Opinion Ended Covid, and Started the Next Thing Read Journal Article
With two full years of hindsight, it’s clear that lockdowns were a disaster and that mandated measures caused more harm than benefit, yet this has not prevented leaders from declaring victory, crediting their own brave and resolute leadership for saving millions of lives and routing the viral enemy. However, SARS-CoV-2 isn’t a real enemy—it doesn’t have an intention other than to exist and spread, and it won’t agree to an armistice. Instead, we will have to live with the virus forever in an endemic state, and skip the victory parades.
War Was Always the Wrong Metaphor Read Journal Article
The federal government went further, using its vast regulatory powers to mandate vaccines as a condition of employment. These coercive actions effectively cast the unvaccinated into second-class citizenship. As they watched the vaccinated and unvaccinated alike contract COVID-19, they undoubtedly began to wonder whether public health truly had their best interests at heart.
Vaccine Fanaticism Fuels Vaccine Skepticism Read Journal Article
This was a turning point not only in the Trump administration. Pollsters agree that the Covid response not only cost him the Presidency but his party also lost the Senate and secured minority status in the House. It was a turning point for American liberty and the general stability of the world economy. It set in motion all that we currently endure, including emergency powers, egregious mandates, inflation, stagnation, demographic upheaval, ill-health, cultural disorientation, and arguably war too.
Travel Blocked from Europe: The Second Anniversary Read Journal Article
What was the underlying goal of these efforts? Did the experts genuinely believe that the virus could be suppressed or even eradicated through these methods? When does track-and-trace make sense and when is it futile, and how can we know?
The Failure of Track-and-Trace: Interview with Jay Bhattacharya Read Journal Article
It’s very puzzling why the CDC, most in the media and in the medical community hung on to many COVID-19 restrictions when the data was so apparent they didn’t suppress COVID-19. The lasting impact of this will be distrust in public health and those in the media.
The CDC: Source of Misinformation Read Journal Article
We truly did not know how good we had it. The world we are entering now is unlike anything we’ve previously experienced. Maybe two years ago, there was a chance to dig our way out of this pit of hell, but that seems ever less likely with each passing day.
How Seventy Years of Progress Came to an End Read Journal Article
These truckers and others drove from California to Hagerstown, MD, over a week and a half – and all across the country, from overpasses, at evening rallies, and all along the highways, Americans turned out to cheer them on. Hundreds of thousands if not millions of Americans turned out to show their support for the truckers, and hundreds of thousands if not millions more cheered them on from their homes, unable to be there in person.
What the Truckers Want: An Explanation for the Confused Read Journal Article
In my lifetime, society has been sufficiently remade to make me one of the marginals. Millions of people celebrate that. If they did not, we could not be here. I think I am going to start using that expression – one of the marginals – and using it, if you’ll excuse me, with just a little dash of moral pride.
Twitter Demanded that I Tell a Lie Read Journal Article
Covid-19 cases will eventually rise. I don’t know when, but we are extremely vulnerable to an ill-formed and schizophrenic response. As we near midterm elections, politicians will be more volatile, and seek to control news that is seen as a threat to political fortunes. That’s the territory for bad decision making.
What Happens When Cases Rise? Read Journal Article
As we step into year three, we urgently need to widen the lens beyond Covid metrics, beyond epidemiology, beyond even science itself. With Covid easing into endemicity, we need to grapple with big-picture concepts like costs, benefits and tradeoffs. We need to ask the tough questions. We need to name the hulking elephants in the room, to lift up their trunks and see what lies beneath.
It’s Time to Talk about Elephants Read Journal Article
