Brownstone Institute Policy articles feature opinion and analysis of global policy in news, economics, public health, public dialog, and social life. Policy articles are machine-translated into multiple languages.
Whenever applied, the precautionary principle needs to be challenged and stand scrutiny, to help us make decisions when there is uncertainty, and the situation is in flux as is typical in a pandemic. These alternatives emphasize seeking new facts, being rigorously honest about the evidence, being open to being wrong, adjusting our actions as we come to understand more, and communicating with trust, not fear.
It’s essential we debrief on the harm we caused – the epidemiological harm we simply displaced andconverted to economic harm that, at the end of the chain, has caused equally real people to suffer and die at higher rates than they would’ve had we acted differently. It’s irresponsible and unscientific to suppress discussions on the inconvenient truth that our response to the pandemic likely indirectly killed people.
Given these overall randomized trial findings regarding covid-19 vaccine boosters—absence of even a short- term reduction in mild covid-19 infections in those with natural immunity, and no data establishing that boosters prevent covid-19 hospitalizations, deaths, or SARS-CoV-2 transmission—there is no rational, evidence-based justification for covid-19 vaccine “booster mandates.”
The response to Biden’s infection should give us all hope that we can get back to normal, stop stigmatizing the sick, stop calling people who recover from Covid “survivors,” stop avoiding each other as if the human person is nothing but a vector of disease spread, and stop with this incredible cruel demand that every person separate from everyone else in the name of controlling a virus.
The political establishment is so devoted to this cause that it is hard to see how we can extricate ourselves. Accepting the first lockdown was the decisive point. We sacrificed our rights due to fear, and nearly two years later, we still don’t have them back. It was as obvious then as it is now: power is never seized and then voluntarily returned.
If these rules are strenuously enforced, millions of videos, interviews, television shows, lectures, press conferences, and scientific presentations will disappear. Maybe tens of millions actually. And all in the name of protecting “science” against its corruption, as if YouTube should be the determinant of what constitutes good science.
My life will be much easier getting the jab in Germany but my heart keeps saying that I should not take it from my ethical and moral standpoint. Perhaps, I will have no choice left in the near future if the governments introduce the general vaccine mandate for COVID. However, I think the western governments should donate these vaccines and support more to the poorer nations instead of vaccinating the children and mandating the vaccines for those who dot not need them.
What follows is the current totality of the body of evidence (available comparative studies and high-level pieces of evidence, reporting, and discussion) on COVID-19 lockdowns, masks, school closures, and mask mandates. There is no conclusive evidence supporting claims that any of these restrictive measures worked to reduce viral transmission or deaths. Lockdowns were ineffective, school closures were ineffective, mask mandates were ineffective, and masks themselves were and are ineffective and harmful.
A careful reading of Jacobson shows that it is not just an automatic consideration allowing the government to do what it wants when a pandemic emergency has been officially declared. Covid-19 vaccine mandates do not satisfy any of the required criteria in Jacobson, let alone all of them.
Shannon Robinson is a lead Plantiff who challenged the state of Missouri over what she sees as illegal and unconstitutional covid-19 policies mandated by the Department of Health and Senior Services. In this interview, she talks about her motivations and the process, and the widespread sufferings experienced by her and millions of others.
On November 6, 2020, the Journal of the American Medical Association sponsored an important debate between Stanford’s Jay Bhattacharya and Harvard’s Marc Lisitch over the policy response to the pandemic. They have very different points of view, with Jay favoring “focussed protection” and traditional public health measures, while Marc is on the side of the novel “non-pharmaceutical intervention” side, e.g. lockdowns.
