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Are they following the science? Laura Lezza/Getty Images
I spent the last days of innocence before Trump and Brexit heavily pregnant. Like many first-time mums, I read a lot of pregnancy books, but the one I liked most was Expecting Better. Written by Emily Oster, an economist, the book sifts carefully through many of the dire warnings doled out to pregnant women about food, drink, birth choices, and so on, assessing the evidence for each.
On Monday, the same author published an essay arguing for âa pandemic amnestyâ. We should, she suggests, move on from the conflict, fear, uncertainty, and doubt that roiled the pandemic years, and focus instead on the urgent issues of today. But while I can understand why Oster might wish to put all the Covid-era bitterness back into a box labelled âthe common goodâ, her effort to do so has not been well received. And this is a consequence of the very policies which Oster would now like everyone to forgive and forget.
Reading avidly in the run-up to my daughterâs birth, it was already clear to me that many of the so-called âmummy warsâ are proxies for class issues. Against this emotive backdrop, Osterâs book felt like a refreshing counterbalance. Itâs astonishing, in fact, how recently it still felt possible to weigh competing claims on the evidence, and settle on something reasonable. But a great deal has changed since then. And itâs easier to understand why when you consider the difference between trying to settle the âmummy warsâ via science and trying to agree upon public health policy during a pandemic.
If the âmummy warâ is a class war writ small, Covid policy followed the same dynamic. It was, in fact, a class war writ so large it encompassed minute micromanagement of nearly every facet of everyday life, for years on end, and doled out material consequences for dissenters. And it was all justified with reference to the supposedly neutral domain of science.
This tracks a slow convergence of supposedly neutral governance with partisan class differences that was well under way before the virus, a phenomenon exhaustively documented following the two plebeian revolutions of Brexit and Trump. These events gestated concurrently with my daughter; I wonât rehash the debates here, save to note that they represented the first shot across the bows of the End of History belief that technocracy could be genuinely neutral, and based in objective evidence.
In questioning this doctrine, the mutineers dragged an incipient class war into the open, between what N.S. Lyons characterises as the âVirtualsâ of the laptop class, and the âPhysicalsâ whose work is more rooted in the material world. Amid this conflict, Osterâs plea for amnesty is unlikely to be heard, since under those appeals to neutral science much of Covid policy served in practice as a Virtual counter-volley to the 2016 uprisings.
In its most rarefied, de-materialised, Virtual form, the contours of that counter-volley are captured by a short series of declarations of faith. This text, a kind of Nicene Creed for Virtuals, first appeared in response to Trumpâs election, and has multiplied across posters, t-shirts, tote bags, and (in America, where they do such things) signs stuck into the front lawns of the faithful.
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SubscribeEverytime I have to talk about lockdowns, I realize I’m still angry. I don’t see myself offering any amnesty to the lockdown proponents anytime soon. I’m still trying to not let myself get upset when I talk about it. I want to move on with my life but it will be with a lot of people classified as a threat to my well-being.
Nor should we!
I feel exactly the same. There are many, many like us. We have to find some way to process our trauma but itâs very hard to do that when people simply wonât acknowledge what they did, what they got wrong, and try and work out why and how they allowed themselves to get so badly misled. They donât even want to know about hard facts. You canât just âmove onâ from and forget something like this without truth and reconciliation.
Very well put Andrew.
The same goes for so many topics today. I feel like we are living in a “post-truth” dystopia.
I bought 3 tubes of Horse de-wormer paste early on, long syringe like things with dosage for 1200 pounds. The plunger has a sliding ring which stops at any increment you want, so I set it to 225, my weight, and put that amount on my finger – it is like toothpaste in look and texture, and just eat it, a 1/2 inch long amount. Ivermectin –
Then take Qucertin, zinc, D, C, – the McCullough protocol, which is proven to reduce hospitalizations 85%, so only 15% of those hospitalized ever would have been if they had not banned early treatment.
Almost none should have died with early treatment – which they prohibited to force the vax – and because if treatments existed the emergency vax would have to be withdrawn.
Almost all covid deaths were preventable.
100%. It wasn’t “the unvaccinated” and the covid dissenters that were responsible for all those deaths. It was the people who suppressed Ivermectin and Vit D. 4,000 IU of Vit D/day alone will reduce your chances of dying of covid by 90%
Interesting but can you supply reliable evidence?
This has been well covered by many studies, and, no, Vitamin D does not have anything like this beneficial effect. See the Zoe Study under Professor Tim Spector (Kings College London)
Quite strange that back in 2015 when Ralph Baric and Shi Zheng Li were doing gain of function work on Classic Sars CoV they noted that vaccine and monoclonal antibodies therapeutics failed to inhibit the virus. But they said that Zinc with Ionospheres Quercetin /Flavonoids showed potential in stopping RNA viruses from replicating in human cells. Fast forward to 2020 and not a word about it from our Scientists.
Pfizer made billions
Now that is very interesting: especially with the evidence/ source stated.. I shall examine it further. Thank you…
The book is called “viral” by Alina Chan (et al) – a great read…
That is worth investigating: can you supply reliable evidence?
Let’s stick with the Mary Harringtons of this world and not a bunch of cranks who variously can’t decide whether covid was a scam, a dangerous disease that for some reason governments were deliberately suppressing effective treatments for (even though they were at the same time competing to reduce ‘covid deaths’), or lastly a deliberately introduced bio-engineered virus from the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
It is evidenced that gain of function on near identical virus to covid19 was underway from 2014. In case you missed it “Viral” by alina Chan. Not only scientifically rigorous, but a great page turner
I’m open minded on Ivermectin, but your claim is most certainly not ‘proven’. There have been many studies of the effectiveness of Ivermectin against covid, which certainly do not support your (extreme) claim.
Here is one:
https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/nejmoa2115869
Quite apart from the dubious ethical question about why recommending (I agree it should not be mandated) vaccines produced by Big Pharma is an evil anathema, but encouraging people to self administer large doses of an animal tranquilliser is just tickety-boo.
And why governments, who whatever else they did, who very aware of, and ‘competing’ amongst themselves on the numbers of ‘covid deaths’, would deliberately suppress a treatment as effective as the one you claim, you don’t explain.
Whatever the NEJM or other medical journals produce, the anecdotal evidence is strongly in its favor. Also see https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35135310/
Dr Tess Lawrie is the world’s expert on Ivermectin in the treatment of the virus, having done an exhaustive meta analysis on the subject, whilst discounting the less valid studies. She determined it’s efficacy to be in the range of 60 to 70%, which compares very well to Remdesivir, with an efficacy of minus 3%.
The dictionary definition of ‘vaccines’ had to be changed to accommodate the new mRNA technologies, such that any comparison with other vaccines should be discounted. All vaccines can be questioned for safety when data concerning all cause mortality is considered, something Pharma never does for obvious reasons.
Many Governments (though not all, like Japan, Mexico, and India) didn’t consider effective treatments like Ivermectin, because they were being advised by health ‘experts’ in the pocket of the pharmaceutical industry. 85% of MHRA’s funding comes from Pharma for example, and Ivermectin, at a few pence per dose, was never going to be allowed to prevail against the bumper payday the jab delivered.
oh come on now. At least check out the Wikipedia article for Ivermectin. Don’t worry, Wikipedia is on your side, they also claim “not enough evidence” for COVID treatment. But at the very least get the facts right about what the substance is.
not a tranquiliser, its a weird miracle earth spore that seems to treat … everything. Used as a pet de wormer but clinically tested over and over and proven super safe. Read more https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3043740/
Pontius Pilate said, “What is truth?”, long ago ushering in the “post-truth dystopia.”
With regard to the Wuhan flu abuses we need to remember there is no mercy without justice.
Pilate was a political functionary, so only carrying on the long tradition of nice differentiation within the meaning of words that have been the hallmark of politicos down the ages.
‘Truth’ is whatever keeps you in power and, therefore, safe from consequence.
Indeed. Though in the Gospels Pilate alone stands at the turning point, embodying subjective truth in the face of objective truth.
From a Machiavellian perspective yes truth ought to serve power.
I often wonder if the parable of the unjust steward (Luke 16:8) ought not to suggest the application of Machiavellian political principles.
He would have made a fine Jesuit!
So true. I used to be incredulous over the statements made by self righteous and arrogantly indignant leftists making bold statements that defy anything approaching truth let alone logic on just about any topic, not limited to covid, and exhibiting the same mind bending lies presented as truth.
Their problem syems from a desire for truth coupled with a naivety that it is possible to attain it. Rightwingers have little interest in truth which gives them a head start in the reality stakes.
Objective truth is absolutely possible, gravity is real, this table is made of wood, the Earth orbits the Sun, the Normans and not the Anglo Saxons won the Battle of Hastings etc. In our everyday lives we are very rational about reality. We tend for example to blame burglars and not poltergeists if we come home to find our windows broken and house trashed, and if our money is missing we don’t assume that demons have taken it or it has magically disappeared. Even the most religious or superstitious react this way.
Myths are not literally true but also may be illustrating a real understanding of human prehistory, psychology etc.
But the ravings of QAnon, 9/11 conspiracy theorists, believers that the Jews run the world, among many others are true in no sense at all. But tribalism and belief in the nefarious activities of often ill-defined enemies, trump whether something is true or not. The word ‘believe’ though doesn’t mean quite the same thing in those cases. Very few people put themselves in physical danger on the basis of untrue beliefs for example, making some rationalising excuse why they do not, though it is not unknown.
We are: and have been for a long time. Now everyone has their “own” truth which means of course actual truth no longer exists in the minds of the woke. It is, on fact beyond their capacity to grasp the concept. That comes from a mindset of entitlement, replete with rights and devoid of responsibilities.
Oster is essentially asking for forgiveness without repentance, excusing their actions as altruism based on the “science” of the time. Recent thought on forgiveness often considers repentance to be optional, but it seems clear to me from the pushback to Oster’s essay that human nature finds lack of repentance to be a major hurdle to reaching forgiveness. The literature also commonly points out that forgiveness does not require reconciliation nor does it preclude consequences for the offender. Without their repentance, I see no compelling argument to simply forget and move on.
Well said. Those who favored lockdowns and mandates caused irreparable harm…and they want no consequences for what they’ve wrought.
Unfortunately public opinion originally broke about 75% in favour lockdowns and 25% against. Governments knew this. People on the whole aren’t all that concerned with the freedoms of others, especially those they consider are doing harm. And, along with the huge economic costs of lockdowns, the changed position of the public (they are just completely exhausted by it) is the reason that, despite continuing high levels of covid, governments aren’t doing it again (I truly hope I am right on this!). Only in a totalitarian country like China is this disastrous policy going on it seems indefinitely, seemingly to protect Xi’s face as much as anything.
Especially after they repeatedly insisted that those who warned of or even talked about consequences were stupid and wrong and just “wanted to kill people.”
Same, that period traumatized me. I will never look at people I know who went along with this the same way, and I fear them being able to do it again. They would, too, without an unequivocal rejection of that approach.
I am experiencing the same thingâeven with regards to some members of my own family! I just canât speak to or even look at them; and yes, they would do it all again.
I supported the first lockdown because I didnât know better and I gave our politicians and scientists the benefit of the doubt. However, it went on for way too long and every other lockdown afterwards was not needed. Absolutely criminal after that and we are paying for it now.
Same here. You speak for me.
Yes, pretty much on the money. Essentially what Sumption was saying. Early events in China notwithstanding, what was happening in Italy gave serious cause for concern; body bags piled up in hospital grounds is not a good look for any government. But once it became apparent that this was not black death 2.0, the reactions became utterly absurd.
For what is worth I never went along with it for the simple reason that by the time they got round to shutting the stable door the horse was past the post ne weighed in.
Wuhan airport has 14m passengers a year. The virus would have been round the world several times before we had even realised that their was a problem
In the interests of fairness, because we should be open minded on this forum, it should be said that several countries, Including Taiwan, New Zealand and Australia had orders of magnitude less covid deaths. An excellent track and trace system for the first and relative geographic isolation in the past two cases helped. But in North America and Western Europe, with their huge amounts of international travel, this was probably never an option, and it is certainly not a simple case of the stricter the lockdown the less the overall illness and death.
Africa performed best by a mile, with the lowest vaccination rates, but easy over the counter access to Ivermectin and HCQ due to the incidence of malaria and parasitic infections in the continent.
Yes, that’s how I feel. But even though I went along with it, I felt right from the outset that it was important to openly discuss the trade-offs, the different views and alternatives. I found it utterly shocking that this discussion was so forcefully suppressed and how those expressing other views were treated. The uniform lack of willingness to perform basic democratic tasks of debate – or even to think beyond one’s own point of view – was (and still is) terrifying.
Thank you for at least being reasonable about it. I was against locking down from the start, after reading about the potential for disastrous consequences. Just having a basic understanding of how supply chains work was enough for me to think it utterly mad to shut down an economy.
I still shake my head in disbelief at the then 2020 recovery trials whereby our Doctors?? trialled Hydroxychloroquine. They gave the drug too late and in initial dose of 2400 mg (near toxic levels) and then claimed the drug did not work. They clearly did not have clue how to use the drug. They didn’t even use zinc which would have been better. Trials in other Countries used 200mg over 5 days with zinc and an antibiotic with good results.
“They clearly did not have clue how to use the drug.”
Or had they been told that it must fail, or else?
I just read an article about that disastrous HCQ study. My understanding from the article was that they administered doses that absolutely were toxic; levels far beyond any amount that had ever been used in the normal course for diseases. Levels that “the science” decades ago had discovered were lethal.
And, strangely (!), levels far beyond what the proponents of HCQ were using in their treatment protocols.
Why hasn’t it been prescribed anywhere then, if it is so beneficial? This article is not to do with the claims for dubious medical treatments, and it is a shame you could not resist introducing your pet obsession.
In any case why I am supposed to be in the one hand to be immensely distrustful of Big Pharma and on the other to welcome various (inconsistent) treatments advocated in a suspiciously close minded way by people on the internet, I am not sure. Is it Ivermectin, or Hydroxychloroquine? You seem to impute malice or incompetence on a mass scale amongst doctors and researchers to justify your claims..
Malice and incompetence were very much subordinate to sheer greed during this pandemic, though incompetence did give greed a run for it’s money at Elmhurst Hospital, New York. The Recovery HCQ trial was nobbled because it threatened the Emergency Use Authorisation of the jab. Similarly, Ivermectin was sabotaged by Andrew Hill at Liverpool University, but his efforts were rewarded by Unitaid (financed by Bill Gates) to the tune of $40,000,000 for his employers. Vladimir Zelenko successfully treated over 3000 patients with HCQ (with only one death) during the pandemic, but he always maintained that the virus inhibiting action of zinc was the mainstay of his treatment. All you need to know is in the book, The Real Anthony Fauci by Robert Kennedy Jr. It’s been out nearly a year now, and still no sign of legal action by Dr Fauci – I wonder why?
If hydroxycloroquinine has no measurable effect at high doses, why would it have a higher effect at low doses?
Apples to oranges. Various doctors publicized the positive results of their specific treatment protocols with HCQ. The study then completely changed the protocols that they were supposedly testing to confirm or refute effectiveness—every aspect was changed.
It is as though the initial doctors who found success in treating infections with penicillin used a treatment course of ten milligrams in saline solution delivered every twelve hours, as soon as possible after infection is detected. But then these findings were “tested” by researchers delivering five hundred milligrams of penicillin in a glucose solution every four hours and only in cases where the patients already had advanced systemic infections. Surprise, surprise, there was no detectable benefit and some people even died from the penicillin alone.
IKR! I wanted to see if tylenol was good to use for pain, so I downed an entire bottle! It didn’t have any measureable effect on my pain, in fact I ended up DEAD. Why would it have a higher effect at low doses?
Exactly same with me, John.
Then thank the Lord that Rishi Sunak then Chancellor persuaded Johnson and the Cabinet who was in awe of the Scientists not to start another lockdown when the Omicron strain appeared. Sunak researched the new South African strain and noted it was much weaker in efficacy than the Delta strain whereas Johnson was the nodding dog of the scientists.
Was Bunter in awe of the ‘scientists’ or just happy to hide behind them?
I find that I’ve had to adopt the form ‘scientists’, since what they did was a long way from scientific and entailed abandonment of all their previous methods.
Indeed.
I can accept the difference of opinion (just about). It’s the silencing, criminalization of dissent and gross authoritarianism to accomplish these goals that I cannot.
It was never an honest debate, it was totalitarian technocrats jack-booting the rest into submission.
This I think seems to be the key point here. This most certainly was NOT a difference of opinion and it was straight totalitarianism. The number of people who simply can’t process that is utterly terrifying.
Think of it this way – had we had these scientific communities and these politicians and these social media in the early 1980s what would the response to AIDS have looked like?
Granted, the media (social and old) did give a number of people a wildly disporportionate profile and that is a very modern thing and that perhaps is an interesting aside.
What I think made it all the worse was how institutions supposed to be there ‘for us’ just bounced off each other. Once China, then Italy started down this path everyone else had to follow. I feel that the ‘herding’ is a rather understated aspect of the pandemic.
We are forgetting that there WAS a pandemic of sorts after the age of AIDS. It was BSE. And it was a terrible car crash. The same scientists with the same erroneous predictions. The same panicked reaction of dumb ignorant Executive. Lots of cows shot burnt and farmers ruined.v So we perhaps should have been better prepared when the danger moved to people. Some of the same dynamics returned. But Covid added too many new more powerful toxic elements to the brew. SM. An unacknowledged Leninist urge in the Remainiac ruling classes to use the pandemic to break and destroy the baby Brexit State. The frankly evil complicity of their Ministries of Propaganda – the BBC and the Health Industrial Complex in inducing panic and hysteria via lies and distortions. And the utter corruption, prostitution and meek groupthink of ‘Science’ as illustrated by their ongoing Climate Hysteria. This ongoing crisis again aided and abetted by the broadcasters who pride themselves in being champions, not interrogators, of that panic. No amnesty for the Net Zero/Climate catastrophists either.
‘Herding’ is a rather understated aspect of most issues, including science in general. Most humans are hard wired towards social conformity, and they don’t even begin to comprehend how it compromises their thinking. It operates at the individual level and every ascending level of organizational complexity magnifies those effects. Having Asperger’s myself, my social perceptions, queues, and instincts are underdeveloped. I’m not totally immune to ‘herding’, but I’m far less influenced by it than most people and I can perceive its influence a lot better than most. The amount of ‘herding’ in the modern world is truly staggering. Its effects are incomprehensibly massive and reach to about every aspect of human endeavor. That’s expected for a social species, and not very troubling by itself. What troubles me is that it’s gotten appreciably worse during my lifetime and it’s pushing civilization in some dangerous directions. The road to a totalitarianism is much shorter than most people realize. The Germans of the 1930’s didn’t wake up one morning and decide to kill six million Jews and start a war that would engulf the entire world. They just went along with the ‘herd’, a little bit at a time.
I cant help remembering Einstein’s quip on a regular basis these days “the only things that i know that are infinite are – the size of the universe, and the depth of human stupidity – and I am not 100% sure about the former ” ……………..
Yes. I have been saying the same thing since this whole fiasco with covid and the so called, âwoke,â regime, which is a social but equally noxious virus, along with the biology bending wormholes we are being forced down began. The world is sideways and mad men are running itâŠ
Absolutely – I should have read your post before I posted above as you have basically written what my opinion is – just with more fluency!
”Safe And Effective: A Second Opinion (2022 Oracle Films COVID-19 Documentary)’‘
A Must Watch video on the vaccine – British made, really interesting:
https://rumble.com/v1mc9z0-safe-and-effective-a-second-opinion-2022-oracle-films-covid-19-documentary.html
âSafe and Effectiveâ is a brilliant documentary. Also worth watching is the Canadian documentary by Matador Films, which came out about a month before the above.
Well worth watching (though first 3 mins or so is an irritating story line that should have been left on the cutting room floor):
https://librti.com
/view-video/uninformed-consent
Spare a thought for the people in China. They are going through seemingly never-ending hell right now. Shame on the corrupt CCP, dictator Xi Jinping and his followers!
Believe it or not, in the state of Rhode Island (USA) we are still under a state of emergency (https://governor.ri.gov/sites/g/files/xkgbur236/files/2022-10/Executive-Order-22-34.pdf). Apparently we are never going to be out from under the thumb of an executive order for reasons nobody understands.
I find this a very interesting discussion. I find it interesting because everyone seems to have the same feeling even though they lived through different experiences in different countries with different consequences. I’ve been reading recently about Carl Schmitt’s theory of a State of Exception and how it can be justified to suspend the rule of law. The thing I find so fascinating is how easily you can create fear and how quickly that fear disables a society from challenging huge abuses of the democratic form of government we believe we hold so dear. I ask myself nearly every day, what did I do to try to debate or challenge the status quo. Very early on, I stopped feeling fearful about the virus for a variety of reasons but I still felt fearful about challenging the state. In Italy they liberally used the Decree to establish temporary but potentially endlessly renewable regulations. They were widespread and Draconian. But at a certain point people learned that no one who was fined was being taken to court if they refused to pay the fine. The state was fearful (what a turn around) that a successful legal challenge to the regulations was very likely and would then blow the whole thing apart. This led to a two level society – those who walked around and did what they liked with minimal fear or restriction and those who did the opposite (and paid their fines if they were ever rebellious enough to deserve one). I think it’s beholden on each of us to stop challenging the state or A N Other group that we think we have identified for the hardships that were forced upon us but ask ourselves honestly what we did to resist them ourselves. We might find this is where some of that trauma lies.
The emergency has to remain in place for the Emergency use authorization and its liability protections to hold. Once the product is on the childhood schedule ( which is in process) the protections will no longer require an EUA.
Correct. And lets ask – where was our bulwark against tyranny and authoritarian rule. Law. Justice?? We were assured – the lumpen European human rights codes would defend us all, not just islamists.
Just wait and see. It would stop.Corbyn siezing our houses! Wait and see…Well we waited. And what we saw was the our legal system is a dud, utterly corrupted poisoned and paralysed by the sick credos of the entitled illberal progressives. They did nothing. Nothing. In many East European states, the legislation was challenged. But not here. As with the BBC, Blob, NHS and Groupthink Science itself, we have seen them in a true light. A very harsh unforgiving damning light. No amnesty for any of these charlatans.
The plan from the beginning. Robert Kennedy Jr and his team talked about this as soon after the vaccine roll out.
On the federal level, we are still under a state of emergency. Biden says he might end it next spring. He says the pandemic is over, but he’s not letting go of those emergency powers. Who knows what else he might do with them before they’re given up.
He accidentally announced it was over a couple weeks ago, then his handlers walked it back. Oops. The Democrats are in a mess going into elections because one can’t claim COVID is over with an emergency still in place, and one can’t waste an emergency, either, when there’s money to spend.
Odd when our old Governer high-tailed it our of our little state for a big role in the Biden administration that our little new govener did not quietly recind the order… A very bad sign indeed…
Me too. I have fallen out with members of my own family. I have been mocked as a sad, stupid old woman by acquaintances and friends for not getting the vax. They gas lit me. They isolated me. They branded me selfish and dangerous. They banned me from events. But worst of all, they made me doubt my own judgment and competence. I can’t forgive them. Especially as they still have no idea what they did.
Me too. I lost my best friend of 33 years for warning her that the vaccines were probably going to turn out to not be as safe as our govt was saying, and to take Vit D instead. She called me a right wing nut job, and said she “wouldn’t debate the science” with me. I hadn’t asked her to “debate the science” with me. It wouldn’t be possible for her to “debate the science” because she has no capacity to understand the science. She has a commerce degree and works in marketing, while I have 20 plus years nursing experience and a masters in nursing. I’m also a communist, as my family has been for four generations, while her family are all conservatives!
Agreed!
It is a sad place to be, but I still wonder about your attitude. Why not be proud that you have stood by your judgement, and paid the price? You decided to back your judgment and competence and, (in Persephone’s case) your nursing degree, against the collective wisdom of governments and medical researchers worldwide, on a matter where people close to you thought you were putting their health and lives at risk. You acted according to your beliefs – and the people around you acted according to their beliefs. What did you expect?
If I may quote Rudyard Kipling:
‘The refined man’ (WWI epitaph).
I was of delicate mind – I stepped aside for my needs,
Disdaining the common office – I was seen from afar and killed …
How is this matter for mirth? Let each man be judged by his deeds.
I have paid my price to live with myself on the terms that I willed!
In the middle of the night one day last week, I lay awake crying in the dark. Why did it suddenly hit me? I think it’s because I realised they’d never admit what they’d done. The fighting has passed and they’re all going to move on and pretend it didn’t happen. You can see them looking around for things to attribute the damage to.
Just to put it on record that there is one reader of Unherd who agreed with the lockdown and thinks it saved a lot of lives
Is he, she or it still alive may I ask?
Agree with lockdown? Sow the wind, reap the whirlwind. . .
Seconded
Angry is an understatement. In my case outrage surges into rage! I’m moving to the deep countryside now.
The most important lesson I hope people learn is that governments LIE. IF they lied about this what else have they been lying about? The first thing that pops to mind is Man Made Global Warming. All these failed prediction and canceling of people that disagree. Much of the EU faces a cold winter due to the failed green policy ideas Trump warned about and was laughed at for saying. There has not been one public debate on this topic because the priests of climate change refused to debate and a loyal press backed the spineless climate believers. Use this moment to seek out all the lies being pushed. Another would be no need for voter ID, There was no fraud in the 2020 election.
Oster seems to have been one of those covid cheerleaders who now worries about what her online record says about her.
Spot on. Kafkaesque authoritarianism, mass oppression, mass corruption, lies by government, the demonization of freedom lovers and free thinkers and a culture of police brutality and workplace persecution must never be forgotten or forgiven or they will return all too soon.
Can we forgive and forget when the paid Marxist/BLM/Eco rabble caused chaos across the West with the tacit approval of the police, whilst those who stood up for basic rights and freedoms such as bodily autonomy faced the full force of state sanctions?
Can we forget the great and brutal transfer of wealth from small businesses and the lower and middle classes to the international corporations and the billionaire class?
Especially when it is still going on thanks to the nonsense in Ukraine and many British people are sitting right now in cold houses thanks to the games of the international Billionaire class.
Globalism is dead and we need to stand up and say ‘Stuff the Great Reset’ – we need governance based first and foremost upon the actual needs and interests of the British people. No more nonsense.
Failure to forgive will affect you far more than any wrongdoers out there. It’s you choice but you will be the sole victim. I urge you to forgive purely for your own sake.
I concur with feelings of sadness and anger. The subject still fascinates me even though I am no longer identifiable as a social pariah. It has weaponised me somewhat as I believe that we can no longer control, influence or even take part in the narrative that leads the ‘Virtuals’ to impose a dystopian reality on us all. My vision of my own future has changed; I think I’m harder to convince than before. I have a wisdom & experience of hell on Earth that I didn’t expect to have. When it happens next time, I’ll be ready.
”But no âamnestyâ will be possible that doesnât acknowledge the class politics, the corruption of scientific process, the self-dealing, and the self-righteousness”
Oh, come on – this was a war against humanity, not a bunch of silly liberals trying to stop the plebs from killing granny; and overstepping the mark.
This was Murder, theft, corruption on a scale the world has never seen before, betraying every social convention from the USA Constitution to Nuremberg Trials laws on ‘Informed Consent’. This was destruction of business, jobs, education, mental health – and mostly, the seeds of the coming great depression looming. This is about to bring food poverty unseen in a century. Billions will slip from being poor, to full blown Poverty. This was the pensions of the working destroyed wile the .01% had their Wealth Double – and that all by the Governments saddling the future of all the working with that debt, debt which cannot be repaid, ever, so the currencies will be devalued by inflation to destroy that Government Debt – taking everyone’s savings with it.
And this was the attack on my personal freedoms, everyone’s,; an attack on the Religions, Family, society and the world of humanity its self. Watch a video on Sri Lanka – it is going to get a lot worse.
Sure, forgive and forget…After the full harms, and culpabilityï»ż have been assessed. Then after the guilt is shown, then it can be forgiven. This silly person you speak of is really saying – ‘Nothing to see here, move along, it is all OK, we just were doing our best….She wants NO accounting, and so she can be blameless…..
Agreed. They never said “oh this is a difficult problem and we’re going try this”. They not only failed to respond to criticism they actively suppressed it. And they remain in charge, without the slightest qualms about telling us what to do and spending our money.
The trouble with educated people is that they usually failed to learn the most important lesson and that is that education should teach you how much you don’t know.
You have a point here. In fact one conclusion I drew was the scientists are good for finding out things but less good at taking decisions under stress because we (I am ‘in science’ myself, like a waiter is ‘in the restaurant business’) tend to put too much faith in what we think we know. As it happens, my prime example of this is Tegnell and company in Sweden who were sure COVID was no different from the flu and never considered that they just might be wrong.
But, in fairness, it can take a very long time before you fully understand anything. In particle physics you just wait enough decades till the problem is sorted, but in public health you need to deal with the problem now, not in forty years. And in public health you need a high degree of compliance for any measures to work – and if you say ‘we do not know but let us try this’ no one will do anything. Worse, you can never convince everybody. The tobacco companies will never accept that we are really sure that smoking causes cancer, Donald Trrump will never accept that he lost the election, committed anti-vaxxers will never accept that vaccines save lives. There will always be criticism, and there will always be people who use that criticism as an argument for not believing the evidence. At some point you need to decide what is the best course of action given what we know, and then move on it.
When we do not yet know enough – but need to act – we should preferably come up not with a single answer, but with a number of alternative explanations and the probability of each. We should take all of them into consideration, but we should act, together, on what we find. Not leave to everyone to decide for himself that he believes most in those voices that lets him do what he wants to do.
I agree about scientists (generally) not being good at making decisions under stress, but it was not their job to do so during the pandemic, that was the job of polticians. All a scientist should (and can) say is “this is what we know at the moment”.
As far as what should have been done, I have come to a controversial conclusion – I don’t know. We certainly know what happened due to the decision made. but we don’t know what might have happened if any other decisions were made. I know that people will point to Sweden, but Sweden is very different from the UK (especially England) due to their demographics, international links and their households.
Exactly!
For the rest, I’d agree.
I am still convinced that vaccination was a very good thing to do.
Testing and quarantine still sound like a very good idea.
Masks? Well they do not cost much and might help, but how much is kind of unclear
I’d say that lockdowns, travel restrictions, reduced social contacts were definitely justified based on what was known at the start. To what extent they are good ideas in hindsight is extraordinarily hard to know, as you say.
As for assuming that the flu-based plan would do for COVID (as Tegnell did) I thought at the time that he might prove right, but he was taking an unacceptable risk. I still think so, but it is indeed hard to prove either way.
Masking is disgusting and weird.
More pertinently, it proved – rapidly, as it was probably known all along to be – epidemiologically pointless. It was just a ruling elite tool of social coercion.
Were there any serious data to prove that masking had any significant effect on the spread of the Covid variants? Particularly Omicron? The spread of Omicron and its swift displacement of earlier variants at a time that some people, at least, were still wearing masks, has made me very doubtful of their value.
We still have adverts on “Dragon Radio” from Cardiff talking about wearing masks in public places. I carry one of those blue things if I’m liable to be out on my trike after dark – some flying insects taste horrible when they are raw.
Clearly you have been on the side of Emily Oster for the whole of the pandemic, and you have been wrong on every single issue. For a scientist you clearly were never thought to think independently and critically. You have been consumed by institutionalism, and the authorities both in the US and UK were way off base and did an awful lot of damage. You have also consistently denied serious harms and adverse events of the Covid vaccine, despite all evidence to the contrary. Indeed, evidence that is personal for virtually everybody because everybody knows quite a number of people who had significant adverse events following vaccination, even if these didn’t require hospitalization. In truth you and your compadres have been part of the problem and not the solution.
Indeed. I refused the shot and havenât had so much as a sniffle since 2015. Those whom I know have submitted to the injection and its boosters have had WuFlu multiple times, and two now have serious heart conditions. We have no idea what will happen to these people as a result of this poison. What was done here is criminal, and the Oster plea is a public admission. Those clinging to the âbut we didnât know at the timeâ excuse conveniently forget the many experts who recommended effective, inexpensive, and readily available treatments. They also forget the whole thing was a man-made disaster cooked up for absolutely no good reason in a crummy, unsafe, ill-equipped Chinese lab and funded by the NIH. Forgive? No. Prosecutions, yes.
Agreed. I will never forgive them.
Only a scientist could be that smug
There were many Germans who later said they didn’t actually participate in the genocide, but stood by and did nothing to stop it.
Sounds like you’re the only voice of sanity here. Harrington’s article is claptrap.
When it comes to Covid measures pretty much everyone here sings from the same hymn sheet. They may be right, but there seems to be no acknowledgement that they may be wrong.
Totally agree
This is where the Hippocratic oath comes in. âFirst do no harmâ. It was developed for exactly this type of situation – where knowledge is incomplete and all available courses of action are based on best guesses. When the best guesses all involve doing terrible harms they are by definition unethical.
Not to mention illegal. In countries with constitutionally enshrined freedoms, the onus was on the state to prove the necessity of infringing rights. But nearly all of our courts effectively declared that the stateâs âbest guessâ was sufficient proof. In a short period for time, the very concept that a right was something the state could not arbitrarily take away was thrown into the dustbin of history. The damage these cowards have done has yet to be fully realized. But if you think you still have ârightsâ and live in a âfree countryâ, you have not been paying attention.
”Nuremberg Code Establishes the Principle of Informed Consent. Legal document. By: Nuremberg Military Tribunal Date: August 19, 1947 Source: Excerpt of the verdict in the case of U.S.A. v. Karl Brandt et al. (“Doctors Trial”), contained in Trials of War Criminals before the Nuremberg Military Tribunals under Control Council Law No. 10 (Washington, D.C., U.S. Government Printing Office, 1949 ‘‘
There was NO informed consent – just it is ‘Safe and effective”
It seems the “safe and effective” phrase is now gradually being replaced by the “sudden and unexplained” meme.
I thought that they changed the spelling, replacing the ‘a’ with an ‘i’
covid is highly treatable – only 15% of deaths were unavoidable, if early treatment was allowed. Doctors lost their license if they tried using off label medications – which they do for everything else. McCullough Protocol, will save 85% of covid patients who went on to die, if begun early – the most googled thing on covid in the world – Rasmus – search it yourself. The Vax did NOTHING but harm. Same as all the response.
https://covid19.onedaymd.com/2021/11/dr-peter-mccullough-early-treatment.html
From your link:
That tells me all I need to know. We have a doctor here who comes up with a drug cocktail (heavily based on vitamins) based on nothing but his intuition, publicises it as ‘The McCullough Protocol’, and claims, without the slightest evidence, that his protocol could cure everybody if only the authorities would use it. We know this story. Di Bella did something similar in Italy. Some people who do this are charlatans. Others get carried away by following their own intuition, wishful thinking (they do want their stuff to work for their patients) and the amazing ability of the human mind to see the pattern you want to see. It takes discipline and rigorous controls to avoid this trap – which McCullough preferred not to use. Meanwhile people like McCullough are believed by the gullible, the desperate, and those who want to believe him for political or ideological reasons.
If he was on to something, the way to show it would be to do a proper trial (as they have done for other drugs). But the beauty of these complex, multi-drug, have-to-be-given-immediately treatments is that no trial will ever be enough to disprove them. You can always claim that the trial failed because it was not given early enough, or the combination or quantity of the drugs was not exactly right, or the patients in the trial were too sick.
I’m curious about you, Mr. Fogh Are you a contrarian for 1). the sheer cheek of it (I love a good contrarian if he’s cogent; RIP Christopher Hitchens), 2). do you really believe the nonsense you spew? or 3), you’re an UnHerd employee with a red stapler promised a cubicle upstairs if you get enough people to click here. Cool cool if you’re any one of those, since it would be harder to stomach that you really think the stuff you post.
Sorry to say so: I really believe what I am saying.
I am am here because 1) I like a good debate; 2) I sometimes learn something or see some new ideas, the articles are often really interesting, and it is useful to understand how people think even if you disagree; 3) Having to argue my case helps understanding things better; 4) I think it could be useful to remind people that there are people who think differently and (hopefully) that such people can be reasonably coherent and sensible even if you disagree with them. It is not good to let rampant misinformation pass in complete silence 5) It is quite satisfying when you manage to establish some mutual respect and understanding between people with different opinions, be it that I respect them or they respect me.
I used to debate on the Guardian, but left when the debate (or I) moved so far that even few people who could sometimes be convinced that I had a point now rejected me as too far out.
As for the nonsense, I too think that there are some people here who belong in an asylum, metaphorically speaking. I do not think I am one of them, but there is no point in discussing who belongs on the list.
No need to apologise for saying what you believe in. People like Allison are in such total denial they simply cannot have a debate. The blinkerâs are superglued on.
Thanks for the support.
I agree 100%
The positivity of the vaccine far outweighed the negativity of it. Just like the Penicillin vaccine, or Polio vaccine, some people had allergic reactions to the drugs. In those days they didnât shout self righteously from the rooftops or try to claim compensation.
The Swedes are people too first and foremost and share the same physiology as the rest of us. Donât dismiss what happened there out of hand but examine it more carefully. I have yet to see a comparison of how they got on with how we got on. Not as statistical evidence but how people felt and got on with their lives.
I have a better answer as a springboard of what could have been done. Young healthy people who weren’t afraid of catching it should have continued to work – choosing to mask or not. Protecting at-risk people by quarantining them (rather than locking down healthy people) and supporting them with food deliveries, etc. Kids should have stayed in school. Some level of natural immunity would then exist in the population, protecting the vulnerable until a vaccine was available that was OPTIONAL to take.Each country should have assessed their demographic and health status as a nation and made individual decisions. The example of Sweden having a much healthier population than the US is fair to compare. All countries should not have followed the same protocols.
I could live with that it if it is followed by a “we really didn’t get it right and we badly overreached, but we found ourselves in n a tunnel and couldn’t find a way out.” Instead I can see zero self reflection.
You can plead ignorance for the first few weeks in 2020, NOT for 2 years.
Just tried to uptick you but it increased your downticks by 2 to 13! Sorry.
One of the most sensible comments I have ever read, Rasmus on this forever contentious subject.
We do have one living experiment in the UK of what happened when people acted on their own beliefs and that was January 2021.
In early December 2020 while the UK was recovering from its September / October wave there was plenty of messaging about âthink carefully about what you are going to do this Christmasâ â very Swedish style until Hancock, somewhat late to the game, applied Tier 3 restrictions to over half of England on December 17th.
Clearly, very few people took this on board because the NHS almost but didnât quite fall over on January 11th 2021, even with all its extra surge capacity in place and a yearâs worth of experience of dealing with the virus.
Remember, this virus can only transmit if people meet….over Christmas lunch for instance.
I attended a Christmas Party in the Alps in 2020. A âsuper spreaderâ was present and we all got it ! (100% chop rate).
Everyone was ON the slopes the following morning, nobody died (although quite a few are well, past their sell by date).
Survival of the fittest perhaps?
It’s called luck, Charles.
âFortunaâ.
Austria? Some families I know too.
Gosh, you’re not very popular! Actually, I have a lot sympathy for your view. Decisions are often made under great pressure with many unknown unknowns. As you said, the Swedish view could have been disastrously wrong.
But, it seemed to me at the time that it was evident quickly that the virus would kill the elderly and infirm who of course deserve protection but not without considering the costs on others.
Putting it callously the number of months of lives saved by locked is probably not so great.
There was a terrific arrogance by the scientists during this period. They should have realised how great were the costs and changed tack. They didn’t care of the harms less obvious than death.
It went on. To have considered forcing vaccines on people was outrageous. Frankly, inhumane. In the States, schools were forcing children to wear masks; cruel and useless.
I disagree – each individual should have been allowed to make their own well considered choices – to vax or isolate etc. Those who could not make choices due to health, dementia etc should have had very expensive isolation practices thrown around them – – still a bargain price compared to lockdown. People are either adults or they are large children – ALL were treated like large children (and most are) – and the adults were attacked. People need to be challenged to step up and think rather than be dumbed down – SURELY this is the basis of true democracy. Only the Swedes appear to have treated their citizens as adults – the rest of us were infanticized – is that not what ‘we know best’ fascist regimes do……………………………….
Wow! Did Karine Jean-Pierre write that for you?
Thank goodness someone speaking sense at last.
Agreed. There can never be an amnesty for what amounts to a criminal conspiracy. They knew what they were doing. The union mad dogs were baying for a lockdown of the children in their charge before covid had been arrived. They and many in the Blob and Leftist public health bureaucracy were at peak stage anti Brexit derangement. Like any good Leninist they WILLED the destruction of an Order they despised. One could feel it. Then all of the ghastly credos that drive the progressive Left and the liberal propetocratic metro classes coalesced to form a perfect storm; worship of a broken Socialist Monolith; instinctive anti capitalism (shown in their utter indifference to the fate of SMEs and private enterprise) and – often ignored – the Equality mania which led them to reject all proposals to protect the minority at risk – this was branded ‘eugenic’. They rejoiced in seeing the State activate the whatever it takes magic money tree, altering and corrupting forever public attitudes toward individual responsibility versus State authority and control. They can bleat – oh it was a panic situation!! But we know they are lying. They switched off the economy for two long years, enriched themselves with wfh. They think they have got away with it because the do not read Unherd. Dissent is still buried.
Even the truth that the virus leaked from Wuhan goes ignored by our MSM – despite 7 million deaths. Incredible But the deep class fissures they have carved and the mountains of excess deaths they are causing and the inflation and Great Depression they have conjured will all come to haunt them. They will escape justice for sure. They run the System. But this was a deadly criminal sabotage. We can never ever trust in their warped twisted Newspeak Science, the venal Blob, a legal system that turned its back on us in our time of need and the wicked evangelical propagandist BBC who to this day masks these bitter truths and its culpability. Never Ever Forget.
Absolutely correct, particularly the bit about willful destruction of a social order they despised.
Education doesn’t make you smarter – Alexander Solzhenitsyn
Spot on! it was the biggest transfer of wealth ever. whole thing was a scam.
Whatever the root cause of it, it is impossible to âforgive and forgetâ while it is still going on – that would be like forgiving your wife for an affair while she is busy perfuming herself for a dirty weekend away with your next door neighbour!
The WHO is right now hashing out a âlegally bindingâ treaty and amendments to the International Health Regulations that will empower, at least on paper, its Communist leader to impose exactly the same kind of policies that have harmed people across the world. The one person who dared speak out against this at the WHOâs governing body, the World Health Assembly (Bolsonaro), has just lost an election. Big Pharma is ALL OVER it – theyâve been invited into subgroup meetings of the technocrats drafting the provisions and they go to the new big closed doors meetings 4 to 6 weeks before the World Health Assembly meets. The WHOâs âethics committeeâ suggests that mandatory vaccinations might be justified on the grounds that not introducing them could do more harm than good. They have literally thrown the inviolability of basic human rights to bodily autonomy and conscience out of the window in the name of the âcommon goodâ. They have amnestied memories of the horrors of the Second World War.
In particular no-one seems able to even begin to acknowledge the gross harms that pharmaceutical interventions have done to *some* (not all, or even a very large proportion) of the people who were bullied into taking them against their own preference by the hysterical mob that drove government policies and societal norms. No-one wants to try and explain why excess deaths amongst the working age population across the western world remain elevated, and still little to try and do something about that. No-one wants to try and explain why the helpful, co-operative scientists working for a Chinese Communist regime that has a stated ambition to wreak revenge on the West for their âcentury of humiliationâ over 100 years ago would hand the sequence for the Sars-Cov 2 spike protein to the West and then not inject it into their own population. No-one seems able to explain why a âpandemicâ in which millions died of a pneumonia induced by a coronavirus simultaneously caused a precipitous, unprecedented and approximately offsetting drop in the numbers dying of pneumonia induced by influenza viruses. No-one wants to know why the WHO and other authorises pushed, and continue to push, tests for âcovidâ based on a protocol (eg cycle thresholds of up to 45) known to be fraudulent and certainly useless for the purpose of diagnostics. And letâs not even get started on the human and environmental harms done by the mass production and wearing of countless billions of masks.
So no, it is not time to forgive and forget. Itâs time to stop, reflect, discuss, and try and really get to the whole truth of what went on, and why, so that we can reform our national and international institutions with the aim of never, ever, letting this happen again.
The liberal media in both America and the UK are so woke – so deeply corrupted politically – they still refuse to interrogate the origins of this, the greatest mass killing since the Nazi genocide. To their eternal shame, they still cling to the notion that this is a Trumpian conspiracy and so refuse to investigate it. Partygate? A leaving do; possibly tens of thousands hours across six months BBC. Wuhan Leak – maybe 10. Shut. It. Down.
So here’s a wild idea, and I really mean that, we are talking conspiracy here no proof just hunch, so this is just an idea. Our DEEP states American, Chinese, Russian, European conspired to cause the covid panic maybe deliberately released it (whatever) and shut society down, we know all sorts of money went into that Wuhan lab. They know they are gearing up for a big old fight over the global order, but they also need control of the populace while they wage this war. So they stress test everything, how people cope/ comply, how services, economies, markets etc. cope when society has to shut down on a global scale. If these things go to shit everyone looses government wise. So they needed a practice run. Because now we are facing an enormous energy crisis, we are facing black outs, supply chain crisis, covid narrative is now war narrative. Ukraine, Taiwan, Iran, North Korea are all powder kegs waiting to blow. China and Russia are about to launch their own gold back to directly compete with the dollar. They are going after America and they will not back down, its not going to be pretty. China will go for Taiwan. Warfare can be economic, cyber, infrastructure, resources. This time you’ll be stuck at home, but with no power. Schools won’t be able to open with no power. Shops will struggle to supply, keep freezers going etc. Big ques for shops, just like covid we will say. Covid got us used to the experience of the removal of the things we, in the west have taken for granted for the last 50 years or so, travel anywhere, buy anything, plenty of everything. Feels to me a bit like covid was a massive fire drill for what is to come. Part psyop to condition people into getting used to the removal of the services and freedoms we often take for granted, not because some sinister lizard King wants us enslaved or anything but because that is what this war with Ukraine and Russia is resulting in at the moment, and what a global war would inevitably result in, a severe curtailment of freedoms and plenty for everyone. Governments everywhere will need control to keep some form of society functioning as a whole. Whether you agree with the war or not, once we’re in it, we are in it, and if we want to win we will have to pull together and resist the urge to divide ourselves. Unrest at home will make us weak on the world stage, finding common ground is more important than ever. Or stopping the war now but that’s another kettle of fish, and looking less and less likely, russia accusing the UK of the nord stream is a dangerous change of rhetoric.
So cheer up guys covid could look like a picnic, take it as a lesson in preparation for what could be coming, and keep calm and carry on.
Feel free to tell me I’m a nutter, this is purely hypothesis. I could be way off the money?
not a nutter, you are right, this was a trial run, that went WAAAAAY better than any of them could have imagined. Those that now want an amnesty are those that abetted this superb trial run, As per the memes very early on in the pandemic: “now you know what you would have done in N**i Germany.”
I won’t phone the guys in white coats just yet then đ
That hypothesis could well be approximately right. Itâs unlikely though that there is a complete alignment of interests at the very âhighestâ (if you see what I mean) political levels. Rather there is a bunch individuals with enormous egos, some of whom have a nationalistic chip on their shoulder (eg Xi), others – and that describes many in the Western sphere – have a saviour complex. Think Trudeau, Carney, or Gates. Some in that crowd think they know whatâs best for the world but think that if they told everyone what the plan is their grand designs wouldnât work so they donât spill the beans, for their perception of the âcommon goodâ and to maintain order over chaos. Itâs a modern version of the nineteenth century âwhite manâs burdenâ. Like the imperialists of the nineteenth century, many of them must be increasingly scared about what happens to them personally if the whole show comes crashing down.
Such a toxic combination of worldly means and power, glory-seeking, weaponised compassion, false senses of both responsibility and of impunity, and base, physical fear can make humans do crazy, harmful things. Bear in mind that in the early 1960s, the very top of the CIA signed off plans to terrorise and even murder Americans on their own soil in false flag operations in order to attempt to engineer regime change in Cuba (and this is a documented historical fact revealed in official papers – not a theory or a hypothesis). That was in an immediate post-war era in which a world, reeling from the horrors of totalitarianism and mass murder perpetrated by governments against their own people, drew up human rights declarations that sought to protect the sanctity of the individual human. Do we think the CIA and their ilk have become more or less ethical in this crazy multi-polar, post-modern, topsy-turvy, inverted world of our ours, where utilitarianism reigns and nothing, including facts and human lives, is sacred? Is it possible that they might conclude that doing something, or co-operating with or taking advantage of something, along the lines that you describe would serve their perceived interests? And if they could do it, would they do it?
First up thanks for the reply again, really appreciate it. Some really good points. And yes to all those questions đ So. I’m going to try to take it little further then. Further hypothesis based on UK. Your point that it is unlikely there is complete agreement and complicity at the top I agree with completely, this is very important and that forms part of the next theory. Which I will attempt to hash out as best I can based on my own observations of the progression of covid. First, important distinction here between the deep state/ corporate elite and our elected officials. Obviously bear in mind one can corrupt the other, deep state/ elite are probably more powerful than elected officials right, they have more money and/ or hold their positions for much longer, stick with me. So at the start Boris was reluctant to lock down, but lots of mps were calling for it, media scares the shit out everyone, he walks the fine line between resisting lockdown and getting lynched for not locking down. Someone (deep state related) hits boris with a massive dose of covid to scare him into perpetuating the lockdown. Remember we had the fastest roll out, our lockdowns in the UK were actually much more liberal than parts of Europe I’m inclined to think that actually he didn’t do too badly considering the choices he was faced with, and globally everyone is promoting lock down. Also remember the media and the markets have not been on the side of our elected government, whether it was brexit, the budget etc. With boris and Angela rayner uk politics was starting to look like it should do again, Conservative posh kid, working class kid, meeting in the middle for the good of all. Brexit proved to me anyway that despite the pressure of the media etc. our democracy was still working, at least to a reasonable extent. I watched a lot of the parliamentary debates on ukraine, there were many calling for all out war, Boris was calling for moderation at the start, some mps wanted every Russian kicked out the country and some of their rhetoric was quite extreme and escalatory. Now boris has been removed, followed by liz truss both of them trying to uphold the free market, low tax brexit model, Boris was quite pro china until the whole Huawei thing, and rayner is being kept out of the top position she deserves (whatever you think about her, or labour, she represents it much better than starmer), both boris and rayner capable of representing the popular vote. The popular vote does not want war. Trump was also resistant to the covid hype narrative, and I think boris and trump are the kind of guys to do what they think is right (for better or worse) rather than be bullied by deep state officials into taking their line. You could perhaps make the observation that the media and deep state went after them both. I’d put money on rayner being the same stubborn breed.
I would like to think that there’s an almighty war going on in Westminster at the moment between these two factions, the elected mps that think for themselves and genuinely have uk interests at heart and the deep staters, desperate to let loose the military industrial complex for the benefit of their shareholders, and this is where we must be careful, everyone reading, because if we loose faith in our democratic system and see everyone as deep state conspirators and everything as an engineered conspiracy we will throw the baby out with the bath water. Remember there are people working for good too. And every leader faced with covid had to make the toughest of choices. I’m afraid no one will know what really happened for many years, and I urge caution on all hypothesis, especially this one.
Yes it is right to be cautious on all hypotheses. The reality is almost invariably murkier, more complex, and more difficult to describe than any short, neat paragraph can possibly hope to achieve. But that doesnât mean itâs not worth trying to get oneâs head around it.
I think all MPs, like almost anyone really, want to do their best for the people they represent. Even Hancock (well, probably). But some of them are more captured, knowingly or not, by vested interests than others. Some are much more self-aware than others. Some are greedier, lazier, and more avaricious than others. But even the worst of them has some degree of goodness in them. A handful of them might even be half-aware that they, like the rest of us, are in Platoâs cave. Rayner and Boris (and Charles Walker and Corbyn and co) may be less in thrall to the globalist utopians than Starmer and Sunak seem to be. But they seem to be stuck in their own narratives in which they play a starring role – if youâre Rayner, the plucky working class woman from Salford fighting for the rights of the downtrodden common people; if youâre Sunak, the highly educated beacon of stability, prosperity, and responsible stakeholder capitalism who is gong to restore the UKâs international standing. Both are just stories that they tell themselves and the public to help them and us to make meaning.
I would agree that we just not lose faith in our institutions. But it is only by vigorous, honest scrutiny and challenge from the outside that they can be held to account. That means that we need to be set out and test out hypotheses like yours, even if they turn out to mostly or even entirely wrong. The danger is if the institutions – and by that I include the media, the tech firms etc as well as government – try and shut down or silence opposing or sceptical voices, citing âharmsâ or public safety. Thatâs when political leaders can get dangerously lost deep in their own narratives, whatever they might be, and when they can start really doing harmful things in the name of good, including because they have made themselves so suggestible to anyone who can feed their egos and support their narratives, especially where they donât (as many do not) have a deep religious faith through which they may order their moral universe. Thatâs what we saw with âlockdownsâ. We see it with the climate catastrophists, and we see with all of angst about social justice. People desperate to tell themselves simple stories about a complex reality that they canât control in which they are invariably on the side of the angels.
We all just need to let go a bit more, and let it be.
Indeed, agree with the let it go a bit more! Yes all good points, thank you. Would say what I’m trying to say about our politics is it works best when there is proper opposition, starmer did not oppose the lockdown or the aid for Ukraine if I remember correctly, proper opposition prevents one side going to far one way if you see what I mean?
I would like to add too, not to you directly Andrew but everyone that I see above on this same thread rasmus fogh is having a very hard time. His argument is just as valid as any on here, more so than mine for which I have no evidence, there’s so much information no one can say definitely this is what happened. Especially if this was a lab leak, we wouldn’t have been told for fear of inciting mass panic and if it was something out a lab not mass tested on humans they might not have had a clue what it could do and therefore the lock downs and vaccine may have been a good idea. Perfectly possible. Your point rasmus people will see patterns they want to see is a good one, I think keeping an open mind on this one is a good idea for now, we are only just coming out the other side of it.
OF COURSE they cry “amnesty!”. Chris Whitty is already howling “make Britain smoking-free by 2030”. Marxist agitator Susan Mitchie has been promoted beyond her wildest dreams.
Pretty much what I was going to say. I’ll be much more willing to forgive after I hear some mea culpas and “I advocated for this, now recognize the consequences made it a bad call, and offer these amends”.
Maybe we need a COVID Truth and Reconciliation commission to reflect on what happened.
Covid really highlighted who is and isnât principled in our society. I think a precondition to forgiveness is that you stop doing harm. So until they stop pushing these vaccines on young people â and start seriously discussing and studying vaccine injuries â then any pleas for understanding should be rebuffed.
Absolutely spot on. And the failure of governments and many in the medical community and public health (e.g. the CDC) to even fully investigate openly and honestly the serious adverse events resulting from the Covid vaccines is a total and utter moral and ethical disgrace. It is nothing short of criminal.
the stance of “we didn’t know, sorry sorry” doesn’t fly.
They knew, or knew that they didn’t know (which is almost the same), but still pushed for arbitrary limitations of freedom. You cannot ask for amnesty, and hope to be trusted ever again. nor, as far as i am concerned, forgiven.
No way.
It might have taken twenty years to know for sure (and there would still be poeple who refused to believe uncomfortable conclusions even then). Would you really have preferred that nobody should have done anything for the first twenty years?
We knew damn well what the damage to the economy would be (and therefore, by extension, every other area of life) but disregarded it entirely. The ridiculous notion that the economy is just about wealth was being pedaled to justify this.
Quality of life for a generation has been destroyed, the very real possibility of famine is here. All of this was effected on the say of a truly terrible computer model by an “expert” who is neither an epidemiologist or software engineer (funny how expert credentials are only required if arguing for a certain outcome) with a track record of forecasts being incorrect by several orders of magnitude.
And finally, doing nothing vs lockdown is a clear false dilemma that virtually no one was arguing except for disingenuous individuals attempting to undermine skepticism of the policies that were forced on the populace.
The justification for lockdown was to “flatten the curve” and prevent health services being overwhelmed*. That didn’t happen in Sweden, Florida or South Dakota. Meanwhile, I said we’d get inflation and resource scarcity – and boy have we got both (and yes, both were happening before Putin’s foray into Ukraine).
*looks at NHS waiting lists – good job!
And don’t forget that Ferguson was so afraid of the virus that he spent a whole weekend f****** his married girlfriend before sending her back to her husband and children.
Having âinfectedâ her?
People on your side of the argument should try to explain why NICE formula of spending ÂŁ30k per year of quality life on medical treatment, was not applied to 85 years old, obese, diabetics with many other medical conditions dying with covid?
Even if we assume that covid policy saved million lives, it is about ÂŁ400k per life saved.
There were definitely many better ways of spending ÂŁ400 billions.
An old comedy bit comes to mind as I read Oster’s article.
“Come on now, let’s not argue over who stabbed who!”
Another outstanding essay from Mary Harrington.
Somehow, I’m optimistic about the situation described in this article. As authors such as George Friedman, in his “The Storm Before the Calm”, have observed, the US, and by extension the West, is likely coming to the end of a social and economic era. These changes happen every fifty years or so (the last one being the Reagan revolution) and are marked by upheaval and the appearance of social disintegration. In Friedman’s optimistic view, a new order will emerge that better provides for the needs of ordinary people, although it’s impossible to know what that order will look like (it might not, for example, be current progressivism).
But the last days of the old order are brutal. In our present situation, the technocrats will desperately try to maintain their hold on power, such as through the censorship and moral posturing described in the current article. The harder they try, however, and more authoritarian they become, the stronger will be the counterreaction.
In Friedman’s telling, either the current US president, or the next one, will mark the last hurrah of the old order before a new one starts to emerge. But the new order will likely take a decade to establish itself. So the optimistic case appears to be upheaval for the next decade or so. I don’t allow myself to dwell on less optimistic scenarios.
If you’re right, it will be too late to be of much benefit to me, but for the sake of my little boy, I hope you’re on to something.
“The harder they try, however, and more authoritarian they become, the stronger will be the counterreaction.”
That is usually the outcome and my fear. In the U.S., the hard and swift left hand turn we took in 2020 might lead to an overcorrection in the other direction. But it will be caused by the lunacy that the left has imposed on us.
It took Carter to get Reagan elected. Hopefully, reasonable heads will prevail.
Much of this applies also to climate science.
It is a close parallel, yes. On one side we have people who try to find out what is happening and propose that we do something based on what they find. On the other side we have people who cannot accept having to do anything, and come with a ‘truth’ that justifies them doing what they wanted to do anyway.
Except your so-called truth is actually untruth. When the climate cabal fails to look at the real data, plays games with data by continually correcting the data such that the resulting data bear no resemblance to reality, one ends up with total nonsense. But only somebody like you, who believes in institutionalism and the correctness and infallibility of authority fails to see this. This may see overly aggressive but you need to be called out once and for all.
It is even worse. The media and politicians routinely say things that are not even supported by the IPCC reports. For example blaming extreme weather events on climate change. The IPCC report does not support that. So even though they all claim to be following âThe Scienceâ – they routinely ignore it and contradict it.
Ditto the IPCC reports themselves do not always seem to be based upon what the real scientists are reporting.
We see the same sort of unfounded arrogance with climate science as we did with Covid. Take the bans on internal combustion engines. A popular measure by zealots who can claim that they are saving the world by following the science. But they do much more harm than good.
(I say this as someone who has worked on electric car technology for the past 20 years.)
There’s no need to provide credentials on this matter. One doesn’t have to be a scientist to understand the age of our plant, how it has changed over eons, and that human activity can’t be responsible for 99+% of that change.
You mean on one side we have people who are alarmists over data that has been collected for a minuscule percentage of time as compared to the age of our planet and have been completely wrong for decades. On the other side, we have people who are questioning what humans can really do to prevent the tectonic plates from shifting or changing the axis of the earth in order to change the global climate. Once we figure out a way to prevent an earthquake, volcano eruption or solar flare, then perhaps I’ll be more interested in “saving” the planet.
Keep going! Very much appreciate your efforts to keep this debate (these debates) grounded.
Exactly Rasmus.
Hence the Labour councils who used lockdown to introduce anti-car measures in cities. The middle class Labour councillors in Newcastle loved the fact that the working class locals were shut away on their estates, with the pubs and football ground closed, and the city centre reserved for cyclists from Heaton.
Exactly. That the world’s climate(s) is/are changing is irrefutable. But the theory that carbon dioxide is the only cause is just that – a theory. Correlation is not causation. Try inserting “heat” (the ultimate result of a change in any state of energy) instead of “carbon dioxide”. Heat – global warming. Geddit?. And anyway how do we explain the megadrought in eastern Asia between AD350 and AD370 which ultimately led to the invasion of, then overwhelming of the population in, Europe? Certainly not carbon dioxide. Nor, come to that, energy/heat. “Man fears most that which he cannot control”. Is that what really lies behind the holding of Cop 27?
And what about the movement of our continents over eons via the shifting of the tectonic plates? And the dinosaurs? And the ancient city of Alexandria being under water? And on and on and on. It’s sheer lunacy in a world where we can’t even prevent a rain shower during the World Cup!
Another fine article by Mary. It is certainly necessary for there to be an acknowledgment of the overreach involved in the whole lockdown saga by the laptop class before any amnesty. Truth and reconciliation in the post-apartheid fashion required an acknowledgment of the errors made and harm done. This will be difficult because this class still wishes to wield power and continue to push many unpopular policies that have scant scientific support. There is nothing scientific or kind in diversity discrimination and the promotion of the absurdity that intact males should be regarded for all purposes as women on their say so.These are only a few of the utterly unscientific ideological beliefs being imposed by the laptop class.
Some very disturbing observations from the Covid response:
Turns out basic human rights, liberty, freedom, freedom of speech, medical ethics and bodily autonomy don’t actually exist in many parts of the west, especially since they could so easily be removed by governments and technocrats declaring a “emergency”, without any legal protections for the public.
Mass hysteria driven by constant fear and propaganda could make people lose all reason and logic to go along with the narrative and inflict huge harms on society, themselves and others. Really does help explain how many ordinary people become complicit and involved in the worst atrocities in the 20th century.
Most of the MSM and Media are clearly now propaganda machines for the elites and Government and they now largely exist to help manufacturer consent for the prevailing narrative, not to question it.
It’s obvious we are entering a new era of Totalitarianism and the public have no real way to fight it legally or politically, short of a revolution. Does not bode well for the next declared emergency…
Very well put. However, the next declared emergencies are already here, and the Covid playbook is being refined and perfected to impose the required narratives on the Ukraine conflict and climate change.
Most of those who don’t read Unherd (i.e. 99.9% of the population) are still blissfully unaware of how they are being manipulated, so revolution in that sense does not seem on the cards. But when the combined consequences of these three emergencies have been visited on us this winter, and people do indeed have to choose between eating or freezing, we may well see some serious unrest.
Amen!
‘Unnecessary social contact’
There should be no amnesty for anyone who used that phrase.
The “Virtual creed” signs in our town in Kansas also have a line “Water is Life”.
I’ve toyed with the idea of an opposing yard sign which begins and ends the same way, but has very different import.
In this house we believe
Black lives matter,
Because all lives matter,
Even unborn lives.
Immigration should be regulated.
Science requires skepticism.
Eros is not agape.
Water is a commodity.
Kindness in everything.
That’s the best I’ve been able to come up with. I’d appreciate suggested improvements.
Eros is not agape? Explain…
Not an explanation, but a translation (of the Greek in question): “Unrestrained and thoughtless fulfilment of every passing whim just ‘because it felt right at the time’ and ‘because I can’ is not genuine, lasting community that offers future stability and long-term peaceable coexistence.” I admit you’d need a bigger lawn to get it on the sign.
From here in drought-ravaged California, I’d have to synthesize that Water is both Life and a Commodity. I find yard signs to be both vulgar and bullying. And sometimes one must be (apparently) cruel to be kind.
Do you think that ‘yard signs’ (blessedly rare if not unknown in the UK) are just an invitation which says “Please throw a brick through my window”
Which is precisely what I thought (and still think) when I see morons put a rainbow sign saying ‘protect the NHS’ in their window. The NHS is there to protect ME, not the other way round !!!!
Ask not what you can do for the NHS – ask what it can do for you. Because you are paying for it.
âThe NHS is there to protect ME, not the other way round !!!!â.
Perfectly put, and it is about time they remembered that and stopped whinging and whining.
Thank goodness that trashy Americanism isnât common in the UK. I agree. However considering the dedication of the underplayed doctors and nurses in the NHS offering altruistic services to people who consider themselves so self entitled. A small rainbow sticker is a tiny token of thanks that most Brits donât find offensive.
I would replace Science requires skepticism, although that is true with âFollow the scientific methodâ. There is really no such thing as science what has brought us great benefits is the application of the scientific method of properly testing hypotheses and replicating those tests to determine how valid they are.
Indeed, what is most sad is that the supposedly educated now mistake the scientific method with an almost religious liturgy, and SCIENCE (TM) falls under this.
I have added, “Lust is not love”
Is lust lovely?
Until life sentences are handed out I’m not forgiving anyone.
The finger that Mary has on the pulse can also be used to point, and as per usual, she does so with precision. One might call it apt in the digital age espoused by the Virtuals.
A highly pertinent example is her calling out of the “fact-checking” mentality, rife in mainstream media. The “facts” are, of course, highly selective, to fit an agenda but cloaked in a sanctimonious guise of scientific provenance and assumed authority.
These buzz-phrases such as “fact-checking” will be the downfall of the Virtuals. No such phraseology retains it’s cachet beyond a certain period of time. (Just think about how the term “right on” is used now.)
But what would “the downfall of the Virtuals” look like? Laptops (the tool of their trade) are neutral instruments of communication, and will only be replaced by even more efficient iterations.
Nor will the technocracy abrogate it’s power. What’s needed is a revolution from within, but which as yet is difficult to envisage. For now, we should celebrate those whose words and actions, such as Mary, such as JK Rowling, point the way.
I agree about fact-checking. It started out as a positive apolitical idea. However, the fact checking has become selective and politicised.
Did you know that only once out of thirteen occasions did a Labour Prime Minister attend COP or that UK PM’s have only attended on 3 occasions?
You would think that Sunak’s non-attendance was the exception.
You mean Rishi Sunak’s now non-non-attendance?
Good article. Didnât even need to touch on the infantile phrasing of the catchphrase, or the bizarre idea that science – whatever it is – can even be called âreal.â What do they mean by science? Do they mean the facts that scientists test for and discover? Do they mean the process? The scientific institutions? Itâs cringe-worthy.
I’ve noticed a significant rise in public displays of scientism from my right-on FB friends since 2020.
E.g. “Isn’t sciene wonderful!” (above some astronomical images)
As if ‘science’ is some sort or deity. What they should have said was, “Aren’t humans, employing the scientific method, wonderful.”
If I had a lawn sign, it might be something along the lines of:-
SCIENCE IS THE TESTING OF HYPOTHESES
Indeed. What we should be admiring is not Science which is a mere abstract but the scientific method. Semmelweis rather than the scientific establishment of the time is the route to follow.
It is telling to me that some covid lockdown proponents claimed to be following âtheâ science. Note that with abstractions in English we donât generally use an article, whether definite or indefinite. To use an article with an abstraction indicates something. In this case I believe it implies a narrow use of the noun so that it no longer refers to the general findings or activity that we call âscience,â but instead to a specific position which is cloaked with the status generally accorded to science as a broad activity. With this rhetorical ploy, a single position can be defended as part of a larger concept that is beyond criticism. I donât recall hearing about âtheâ science until covid came along.
How about keep off the grass?
âLawn sign priesthoodâ – that is excellent – and an excellent article. Covid really highlighted who is and isnât principled in our society. I think a precondition to forgiveness is that you stop doing harm. So until they stop pushing these vaccines on young people – and start seriously discussing and studying vaccine injuries – then any pleas for understanding should be rebuffed.
Thankfully we have a governor here in Florida who is refusing the CDCâs âguidanceâ on adding Covid jabs to childhood vaccination requirements for school attendance. He has instructed the state of Florida Department of Health not to add that requirement. We love our gov.
De Santis is a rare beacon of hope in the corrupt wasteland of US politics.
The Covid response has been an interesting lesson in the arrogance of the tertiary education establishment and the graduate class.
Forecasting models have been treated as fact and not open for discussion. The outcomes of these models have been used to influence decision making almost to the point of blackmail with press leaks and shadow committees. In particular, the performance of ‘Ferguson’ forecasts in previous public health should have been considered.
It was known very early on that the risk of death was principally in the elderly and those under 30 were at low risk. Why was a blanket ban imposed rather than self-isolation of those at severe risk? Why were the elderly moved from hospitals to care homes without testing?
It was absolutely despicable that public debate was shut down.
Were vaccines misunderstood by the decision makers? Did they think they would stop transmission when, in reality, they have only ameliorated the seriousness of the illness.
The WHO statistics have been massaged when it appeared that the UK had a better outcome than Germany – ‘the algorithm has been changed to reflect prior year data’. It should be noted that the UK also had negative excess deaths in 2019 – there was an element of catch up in the UK as well.
Forecasting is not science in the true sense. Common sense indicated that some of the projections being made were totally unrealistic given the facts.
Commentators on social media were suggesting that the infection rates would naturally peak but were ignored. When lockdowns were imposed the acceleration rate of cases was already in decline.
Today Covid is still rampant in our society but the latest mutations are less likely to kill us. The latest wave has naturally peaked and is now declining.
The present generation of tertiary educators do not believe in history and that is greatly to their disadvantage. Previous lessons learnt in the Spanish Flu and the 1950’s US influenza outbreak would have formed a useful basis for planning. They may, in fact, have been considered in the pandemic plans developed for the UK but ripped up and only implemented by Sweden!
COVID was low risk to anyone under 70 who was in general good health.
Not 30 years old.
Correct. But worse. Anyone under 30 has had more chance of dying from the jab than the disease. As was proven months ago but some governments still pushing for CHILDREN to be “vaccinated”. As someone wrote above: no thought of forgiveness until life sentences start getting handed down to those responsible.
As far as I’m concerned; Emily Oster’s essay is nothing more than an attempt to give a (“Oh S**T, it may be time to pay the pipper for what WE did, but I don’t wanna”) meaningless BS “mea culpa”, and see if the unwashed buy it. Throwing crap on the wall and see if it sticks.
That’s one of the tactics many political operatives were trained on: Do things to get your way, and if it backfires, ask for forgiveness.
The problem here is that the damage has been way to great for this to work. There were PLENTY of highly qualified voices with infinite more knowledge of the science than she’ll ever have, that were demonized, censored and cancelled, by people just like her, for having a position that was NOT the “official” one. The sacred bond between Dr and patient was thrown out the window, when Drs were PROHIBITED from prescribing ANYTHING they thought could help treat the symptoms. Even pharmacists took it upon themselves to refuse to fill prescriptions. The directive from the “authorities” was “if you get sick, wait until you find it difficult to breathe, then go to the ER.” We all know how that worked out.
People DEMAND answers and accountability for ALL of the misery, economic devastation, untreated health conditions, emotional damage they were subjected to, even when plenty of data was available for things to be done differently. A “sorry, and let’s move on” won’t do.
Am I angry? You bet. Haven’t seen my daughters since 2020 because of this. Why? Because I chose NOT to be vaccinated. Forgive and forget?
Hell will freeze over first.
Why would anyone downvote this poster ?
For a series of events as (if not more) catastrophic as 9/11, we adopt a mantra first heard after the Towers came down â and as appropriate in the post-pandemic era as in 2001:
“We Will Never forget.”
Yes, we will never forget the totalitarian subterfuge of the CDC, WHO, NIH and their acolytes and what it cost us all.
No, we will never forgive-and-forget actions which were as nasty as they were intentional. And deadly.
If it killed anything, Covid most certainly killed the Public Trust in persons and institutions of higher learning, technology, medicine, “science” and political “benevolence.”
We. Will. Never. Forget.
Period.
The Tory-hating, Boris-loathing MSM have a great deal to answer for. Johnson started on the right track but the media hysteria (“Are you a mass murderer, Prime Minister?” at the daily press conferences) made the first lockdown politically unavoidable.
The media were determined that everything the Government did would be decreed to be wrong and therefore, once they had decided that lockdowns were the thing (cos, after all, that’s what the EU was doing), however much we locked down it could be never be enough.
The Deputy CMO said masks were not needed by the public but, because there weren’t enough to go round, which was thus a reason to criticise the Government, the media decided they were essential and eventually the Government caved in.
The MSM didn’t stop to ponder whether their political objectives might need to be parked during a national emergency and for that they should – but won’t – feel thoroughly ashamed.
Spot on. The savage and uneducated self-interest of the print and TV media destroys political common sense on a daily basis. No need for any deep state or conspiracy, just let the journos loose.
The Virtuals most certainly do not believe that âwomenâs rights are human rightsâ. They believe that âtrans rights are human rightsâ and that believing that a woman is a female human being is a âhate crimeâ.
They don’t “believe” anything.
As an ‘Old Deplorable’ I am still amazed that some of our (UK) senior politicians still can’t utter that simple fact – a woman is an adult human being. There – who, on Unherd, is going to call me a hate criminal.