https://edition.cnn.com/2026/08/04/health/covid-19-what-we-know-now
Covid-19 has killed more than a million people in the United States, but in an interview with CNN’s Dana Bash on Sunday, US Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said that lockdowns were “the thing that did the most damage to our country.”
This assertion kicked off more than 20 minutes of contentious back-and-forth, in which Kennedy made a number of false and misleading statements about a range of topics including measles, autism and Lyme disease.
“It’s just fraught with misinformation. Lies,” said Dr. Jake Scott, an infectious disease physician at Stanford who has made it his personal mission to fight back against false claims about vaccines. “You could write a book about that whole interview.”
He's not completely wrong. In the initial panic there were many stupid mistakes made by politicians wanting to be seen as doing something by a frightened public.
ReplyDeleteHow else to explain that the little corner store had to close because if there were two people inside at the same time it would cause massive spread but big stores could stay open if they limited the number of people to 100?
How many surgeries were delayed leading to bad outcomes? Cancer screening ground to a halt causing morbidity. The teacher unions continues to keep schools closed long after the rest of the world opened. Do you know the mental health toll from that mistake?
And even as evidence accumulated from Sweden and Florida that lockdowns didn't actually work, those same governments and their media friends doubled down on it.
Bottom line: I remember Canada's chief public health officer (it was later revealed she was taking her marching orders from China) announcing "Two weeks to flatten the curve!" And it was a lie.
Wow so evidence based scientific/medical views sometimes change with more and better data?
DeleteAnd sometimes good rules produce inconsistent and illogical results when used in a mechanical manner?
Who would have thought this is possible! and this is proof that medical experts/scientists should never make major decisions and we should have dumb loyalists/proud ignoramuses instead?
Is that what you got from what I wrote?
DeleteYou want to know what we've learned from CoVID?
Nothing.
Because if China engineers other virus and releases it tomorrow, the same thing will happen again with the same results.
It's not about good rules producing inconsistent and illogical results. It's about bad rules being implemented and dissent being silenced when it's pointed out how bad they are. It's about politicians saying "Well I could do something that's for the good of society or I could use this situation to enhance my power. Hmmmm, which will it be?"
So you reject the minority of medical experts and believe the conspiracy theory?!
DeleteIs it a conspiracy theory to compare Florida (minimal lockdown) and New York (maximum lockdown) and note that Florida did way better with less illness and death? or comparing countries in Europe with maximum lockdowns with Sweden with minimal and note that it did way better?
DeleteI love how people shout "majority of experts said..."
A majority of experts in Nazi Germany said that Jews were subhuman. A majority of Soviet experts said that the Russian economy was more prosperous than the American one. And a majority of religious experts think that Judaism is an archaic religion long ago replaced by Chrisianity and Islam.
But by all means, listen to "the majority"
Wow the experts are always wrong as are the majority!
DeleteIt is total nonsense to question why doctors didn't know the end results
DeleteSweden didn't necessarily do better. It depends to whom you compare it to. It has a similar population to Israel, but a much larger landmass. Yet Israel had lockdowns and vaccines and had less than half the number of deaths.
DeleteSweden is very remote and not as busy as New York or London where millions of visitors travel on business and tourism.
London population alone has a similar number to the whole of Sweden or Israel.
So here's the counterpoints:
DeleteA good chunk of American and Canada are sparsely populated like Sweden and yet the draconian regulations were enforced everywhere equally. Did you live in a small village in the middle of nowhere with no CoVID cases in town? You still had to follow all the regulations.
Second, Israel is a highly disciplined society (other than the Chareidim). In the US and Canada, lockdowns were never more than partial. In Israel, when they locked down, it was solid allowing interruption of transmission.
Bottom line: Some very big ID specialists early on figured out how limited lockdowns would be just as effective and were treated like enemies of the world for doing it. Except they turned out to be right.
Sweden initially didn't lock down, and chose to go with herd immunity. Actually Boris Johnson in Britain said the same thing then backtracked about a week or two later.
DeleteOnce the genie - or in this case, the mutant virus created by Fauci's criminal misfeasance - is out of the lab, it's very hard to put it back in.