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An article in today’s East Bay Times reflects on the fifth anniversary of the historic news conference held in San Jose on March 16, 2020. Health officers from six Bay Area counties (standing six feet apart from each other, naturally) announced the nation’s first and strictest stay-at-home order. It was supposed to last for 3 weeks — we all know how that turned out.
So looking back now, with the full benefit of hindsight, would Dr. Sara Cody steer a different course?
“I’ve thought a lot about this,” Cody said in an interview last week. “And honestly, I would do it again.”
There are the typical laments about the “loss in trust” in the public health establishment, without any clear admission that said establishment did anything to damage that trust. Dr. Matt Willis comes the closest to conceding they may have been a tad overzealous in restricting social gatherings:
“I think we could have been more tolerant of certain forms of gatherings earlier on if we had recognized the benefits of those things.”
Ah, if only public health officials had known about the benefits of “those things!” Presumably the requisite peer-reviewed double-blind studies hadn’t been completed yet. Who could possibly have foreseen that ordering Americans to cut off all social contact might have unforeseen adverse consequences?
But ultimately there’s more to life than cold calculus, weighing lives saved against economic costs and poor student test scores. Dr. Cody boils down the core issue rather succinctly:
“At the end of the day, I value life, so that was really animating a lot of the decisions that I made,” Cody said. “But a couple years out, and certainly with what’s happening now, that’s not the value that everyone holds. Some people value liberty over life.”
Indeed, some of us do. I can only respond with the immortal words of Patrick Henry:
“Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty, or give me death!"
Discussion (18)
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Or at least, what, a .01% chance of death?
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He should have been more tolerant?!
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“Life” in enforced isolated confinement does not seem like a real life to me.* I even think setting up “life” and “liberty” as opposed to one another or even distinct from one another is creating a false dichotomy.
Public health officials in 2020 decided “life” meant stopping one virus. They became mono-focused on that one item. All other aspects of real life were “collateral” and thus unimportant.
reason.com
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I recall Dr. Fauci at the time (2020) explaining that his only concern was stopping the spread of the Covid-19 virus, and that any other issues, such as child development and education, psychological health, community social health, even other physical health issues (such as physical exercise to maintain health, and screening for diseases like cancer and heart disease) were “collateral” and not of his concern.
Dr. Collins (former head of the National Institutes of Health) seems to have realized public health officials may have made some mistakes, but I haven’t seen very much “mea culpa”-ing by public health officials. So, no, they don't seem to have learned anything.
*I know, some prisoners find a rewarding life in prison, but all the ones I know about do so in community. Yes, some people find a rewarding life in isolation, but isolation by their choice, not enforced by others.
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The "experts" opted for maximum interventionist policy to maximize the role and importance of the experts.
There was never a scientific basis for the silly six-foot rule.
"Flattening the curve" lockdowns can only work if implemented before wider spread and if the bug is mostly spread by sick-healthy transmission and even then it would merely delay many infections. The costs exceed benefits within 10 days even if there are any benefits which there were not.
EVERY RTC involving the efficacy of masks showed they would have no measurable effect. (Aside from some garbage studies, studies showing mask efficacy tended to be among medical professionals which strongly suggest that masks are useful as part of a broader strategy to protect a specific place or facility which is much more consistent with the Great Barrington Declaration approach than with the "expert" approach. Compare Sweden with maybe a 10% mask use to Germany -90% and mandatory N95--no cloth or paper-- in several states. Completely identical infection rates.
The nation's leading pediatrics group expressly stated (in May 2020) that kids were are minimal risk and lousy transmitters and that it would be wrong to close schools. The "experts" did it anyway.
The so-called "breakthrough" infections among the vaccinated appeared within weeks thus smashing the myth that the vaccines prevented infection or spread. The mandates persisted.
This was a test run of the pernicious idea that credentialed people get to rule even when they are not following the science they claim justifies their rule--and they may not be held accountable for following their personal preferences however damaging.
Any expert who has failed to adjust his/her position about the COVID handling clearly has not done the requisite empirical research in the abundant, overwhelming and uniform proof that those policies were wrong. Those credential should be revoked or have an asterisk attached everywhere the expert appears in print. (*This individual does not believe that data matters in health policy)
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Actually 1.03% Cases worldwide = 682,630,000 Fatalities = 7,010,000. Thats 1.03%
In the US ... total resolved cases 111,820,000. Fatalities = 1,219,000. That's 1.09%
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