Last week, after beating the official Covid-19 narrative drum for more than two years, the Centers for Disease Control announced a “drastic” overhaul of the agency after admitting to failures in its management of the Covid-19 pandemic. The following day, The Wall Street Journal published the article below, reporting a doubling down on the failed Covid-19 response in the form of admissions by both CDC Director Rochelle Walensky as well as the, up until now, unscrupulous driver of the official narrative, Dr Anthony Fauci. The article goes on to refer to measures such as mask mandates and border closures, condemning them as unscientific and irrational mistakes – a reality that mainstream media has failed to report on.
Subsequently, The Defender published an article (see article below WSJ article) chastising the WSJ for its inexcusably belated arrival at the party and criticising the media giant for being one of the “galactically incompetent parties in this global tragedy”. For a publication that has consistently toed the line throughout the pandemic and denigrated those dissident individuals and groups who voiced those concerns outlined in the article from the very beginning, the WSJ’s drastic departure from the official narrative is telling. As the author of The Defender article put it, “It’s fairly obvious that despite this attempt to reclaim your journalistic integrity, you are still muzzled.” Is the WSJ trying to save face by getting ahead of the collapse of the official narrative? – Nadya Swart
Fauci and Walensky Double Down on Failed Covid Response
Lockdowns were oppressive and deadly. But U.S. and WHO officials plan worse for the next pandemic.
By John Tierney*
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention belatedly admitted failure this week. “For 75 years, CDC and public health have been preparing for Covid-19, and in our big moment, our performance did not reliably meet expectations,” Director Rochelle Walensky said. She vowed to establish an “action-oriented culture.”
Lockdowns and mask mandates were the most radical experiment in the history of public health, but Dr. Walensky isn’t alone in thinking they failed because they didn’t go far enough. Anthony Fauci, chief medical adviser to the president, recently said there should have been “much, much more stringent restrictions” early in the pandemic. The World Health Organization is revising its official guidance to call for stricter lockdown measures in the next pandemic, and it is even seeking a new treaty that would compel nations to adopt them. The World Economic Forum hails the Covid lockdowns as the model for a “Great Reset” empowering technocrats to dictate policies world-wide.
Yet these oppressive measures were taken against the longstanding advice of public-health experts, who warned that they would lead to catastrophe and were proved right. For all the talk from officials like Dr. Fauci about following “the science,” these leaders ignored decades of research—as well as fresh data from the pandemic—when they set strict Covid regulations. The burden of proof was on them to justify their dangerous experiment, yet they failed to conduct rigorous analyses, preferring to tout badly flawed studies while refusing to confront obvious evidence of the policies’ failure.
U.S. states with more-restrictive policies fared no better, on average, than states with less-restrictive policies. There’s still no convincing evidence that masks provided any significant benefits. When case rates throughout the pandemic are plotted on a graph, the trajectory in states with mask mandates is virtually identical to the trajectory in states without mandates. (The states without mandates actually had slightly fewer Covid deaths per capita.) International comparisons yield similar results. A Johns Hopkins University meta-analysis of studies around the world concluded that lockdown and mask restrictions have had “little to no effect on COVID-19 mortality.”
Florida and Sweden were accused of deadly folly for keeping schools and businesses open without masks, but their policies have been vindicated. In Florida the cumulative age-adjusted rate of Covid mortality is below the national average, and the rate of excess mortality is lower than in California, which endured one of the nation’s strictest lockdowns and worst spikes in unemployment. Sweden’s cumulative rate of excess mortality is one of the lowest in the world, and there’s one particularly dismal difference between it and the rest of Europe as well as America: the number of younger adults who died not from Covid but from the effects of lockdowns.
Even in 2020, Sweden’s worst year of the pandemic, the mortality rate remained normal among Swedes under 70. Meanwhile, the death rate surged among younger adults in the U.S., and a majority of them died from causes other than Covid. In Sweden, there have been no excess deaths from non-Covid causes during the pandemic, but in the U.S. there have been more than 170,000 of these excess deaths.
No one knows exactly how many of those deaths were caused by lockdowns, but the social disruptions, isolation, inactivity and economic havoc clearly exacted a toll. Medical treatments and screenings were delayed, and there were sharp increases in the rates of depression, anxiety, obesity, diabetes, fatal strokes and heart disease, and fatal abuse of alcohol and drugs.
These were the sorts of calamities foreseen long before 2020 by eminent epidemiologists such as Donald Henderson, who directed the successful international effort to eradicate smallpox. In 2006 he and colleagues at the University of Pittsburgh considered an array of proposed measures to deal with a virus as deadly as the 1918 Spanish flu.
Should schools be closed? Should everyone wear face masks in public places? Should those exposed to an infection be required to quarantine at home? Should public-health officials rely on computer models of viral spread to impose strict limitations on people’s movements? In each case, the answer was no, because there was no evidence these measures would make a significant difference.
“Experience has shown,” Henderson’s team concluded, “that communities faced with epidemics or other adverse events respond best and with the least anxiety when the normal social functioning of the community is least disrupted.” The researchers specifically advised leaders not to be guided by computer models, because no model could reliably predict the effects of the measures or take into account the “devastating” collateral damage. If leaders overreacted and panicked the public, “a manageable epidemic could move toward catastrophe.”
This advice was subsequently heeded in the pre-Covid pandemic plans prepared by the CDC and other public-health agencies. The WHO’s review of the scientific literature concluded that there was “no evidence” that universal masking “is effective in reducing transmission.” The CDC’s pre-2020 planning scenarios didn’t recommend universal masking or extended school and business closures even during a pandemic as severe as the 1918 Spanish flu. Neither did the U.K.’s 2011 plan, which urged “those who are well to carry on with their normal daily lives” and flatly declared, “It will not be possible to halt the spread of a new pandemic influenza virus, and it would be a waste of public health resources and capacity to attempt to do so.”
But those plans were abruptly discarded in March 2020, when computer modelers in England announced that a lockdown like China’s was the only way to avert doomsday. As Henderson had warned, the computer model’s projections—such as 30 Covid patients for every available bed in intensive-care units—proved to be absurdly wrong. Just as the British planners had predicted, it was impossible to halt the virus. A few isolated places managed to keep out the virus with border closures and draconian lockdowns, but the virus spread quickly once they opened up. China’s hopeless fantasy of “Zero Covid” became a humanitarian nightmare.
It was bad enough that Dr. Fauci, the CDC and the WHO ignored the best scientific advice at the start of this pandemic. It’s sociopathic for them to promote a worse catastrophe for future outbreaks. If a drug company behaved this way, ignoring evidence while marketing an ineffective treatment with fatal side effects, its executives would be facing lawsuits, bankruptcy and probably criminal charges. Dr. Fauci and his fellow public officials can’t easily be sued, but they need to be put out of business long before the next pandemic.
- Mr. Tierney is a contributing editor to City Journal and a co-author of “The Power of Bad: How the Negativity Effect Rules Us and How We Can Rule It.”
Too Little Too Late: WSJ Tries to Save Face on Failed COVID Policies
Now that our public health agencies’ leaders have admitted failure when it comes to their COVID-19 policies, the Wall Street Journal suddenly has the “courage” to offer a stiff critique.
The Wall Street Journal last week published an opinion piece, “Fauci and Walensky Double Down on Failed Covid Response,” with this subhead: “Lockdowns were oppressive and deadly. But U.S. and WHO officials plan worse for the next pandemic.”
The article begins:
“The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC] belatedly admitted failure this week. ‘For 75 years, CDC and public health have been preparing for Covid-19, and in our big moment, our performance did not reliably meet expectations,’ Director Rochelle Walensky said. She vowed to establish an ‘action-oriented culture.’”
Yes, you read that correctly. Dr. Anthony Fauci and Walensky admitted they failed. They learned their lesson.
As John Tierney, author of the op-ed, wrote:
“Lockdowns and mask mandates were the most radical experiment in the history of public health, but Dr. Walensky isn’t alone in thinking they failed because they didn’t go far enough. Anthony Fauci, chief medical adviser to the president, recently said there should have been ‘much, much more stringent restrictions’ early in the pandemic.”
They believe that they didn’t go far enough? There should have been “much, much more stringent restrictions?”
That’s what they learned from the destruction their public health policies wreaked upon this nation and the others that followed their lead?
To his credit, Tierney pointed out the absurdity of Walensky’s and Fauci’s stance on their own incompetence.
Tierney also dropped a series of “truth bombs,” including:
- “Their oppressive measures were taken against the longstanding advice of public-health experts, who warned that they would lead to catastrophe and were proved right.”
- “For all the talk from officials like Dr. Fauci about following ‘the science,’ these leaders ignored decades of research — as well as fresh data from the pandemic — when they set strict Covid regulations.”
- “The burden of proof was on them to justify their dangerous experiment, yet they failed to conduct rigorous analyses, preferring to tout badly flawed studies while refusing to confront obvious evidence of the policies’ failure.”
- “U.S. states with more-restrictive policies fared no better, on average, than states with less-restrictive policies.”
- “When case rates throughout the pandemic are plotted on a graph, the trajectory in states with mask mandates is virtually identical to the trajectory in states without mandates. (The states without mandates actually had slightly fewer COVID deaths per capita.)”
- A Johns Hopkins University meta-analysis of studies around the world concluded that lockdown and mask restrictions have had “little to no effect on COVID-19 mortality.”
- Florida’s and Sweden’s open policies have been vindicated based upon their lower levels of excess mortality compared to other regions.
- “It was bad enough that Fauci, the CDC and the World Health Organization ignored the best scientific advice at the start of this pandemic. It’s sociopathic for them to promote a worse catastrophe for future outbreaks.”
I take no issue with Tierney’s list. The problem here is with the Wall Street Journal.
Every single point this opinion piece offered could — and should — have been made months or years ago.
There was longstanding advice from public health experts that predicted Fauci and Walensky’s failures? Why didn’t you say so in 2020?
Fauci and Walensky ignored decades of research? They touted flawed studies while ignoring the obvious failures unfolding in front of them, month after month?
The successes of Sweden and Florida were apparent in 2020.
Where were the articles in your publication that could have brought light to these issues over the last two years?
The Johns Hopkins University analysis on mask restrictions was published nearly nine months ago. Why didn’t you cover it?
Why did it take so long to run this kind of piece when the evidence was around for so long?
Do you really expect us to look the other way because you now have the temerity to call Anthony Fauci sociopathic?
You had ample opportunity to give voice to the dissenters who were pleading for a voice, a conversation and a debate based on the very same evidence you are mentioning now.
You failed your readership. You failed the public.
The CDC’s policies were so devastating because you did not challenge them. Not once.
As a media platform, you were no less negligent than the public health officials you see fit to denigrate now — after untold damage has occurred, at their hands and yours.
Perhaps you’ve caused your loyal readers to finally scratch their heads and reconsider their perspective after 28 months of mercilessly attacking those of us who were asking you and other mainstream platforms to do your job.
Why are you holding Fauci and Walensky accountable now? Is it because they are finally admitting they blew it?
They are not the only galactically incompetent parties in this global tragedy. You are, too. And we all know it.
Interestingly, your scathing attack on our public health agencies still hasn’t gone nearly far enough.
One of their biggest “blunders” was not around lockdown measures. It was the dismissal of powerful, early treatment regimens, including ivermectin, that could have saved thousands of lives or more.
Instead, the public was forced to wait for a largely ineffective and harmful vaccine that has since exacted an incalculable level of damage on humanity.
Nevertheless, more than a year after Dr. Pierre Kory gave impassioned congressional testimony demanding that an official expert panel be convened to examine the mountains of evidence coming from all corners of the globe demonstrating the significant benefits of ivermectin in treating and preventing COVID-19, you had the audacity to print this hit piece on the safe and effective medicine that would have obviated the need to inject poorly tested mRNA technology into the bodies of several billion human beings.
Beyond being irresponsible, the article was silly, citing a single, small and yet-to-be-published study (at the time) that purportedly showed no benefit as proof that ivermectin cannot prevent COVID-19 hospitalizations.
The study underdosed the participants and was too small to detect statistically significant benefits, despite reduced incidence of hospitalization in most cohorts that got the medicine. (Read a full critique of the study here).
The study didn’t prove anything — other than that it was designed to fail from its inception.
Talk about touting a “badly flawed” study.
More importantly, your article on the study missed the real story: the scuttling of ivermectin by an unseen hand that was, it seems, in the pockets of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation through Unitaid, a quasi-governmental advocacy organization the foundation funds (full story here).
Have your editors lost their sense of smell from repeated bouts of COVID-19? Or were you never able to sniff out where the real stories are?
It’s fairly obvious that despite this attempt to reclaim your journalistic integrity you are still muzzled. Any story that even intimates that the highly profitable COVID-19 vaccine was not only unnecessary but also a stark failure, is still off-limits.
Your silence on this continues to deafen us.
The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of Children’s Health Defense.
© [08/23/22] Children’s Health Defense, Inc. This work is reproduced and distributed with the permission of Children’s Health Defense, Inc. Want to learn more from Children’s Health Defense? Sign up for free news and updates from Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and the Children’s Health Defense. Your donation will help to support us in our efforts.
- Madhava Setty, M.D. is senior science editor for The Defender.
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