Some key quotes from the article.
"Instead, they proceeded to ignore their own plans as well as the basic principles of science and public health. Leaders of the CDC terrified the public with worst-case scenarios based on computer models—and then used those blatantly unrealistic projections to claim unprecedented powers and experiment with untested strategies. T
heir pre-Covid planning scenarios had rejected business and school closures even for a pandemic as deadly as the Spanish flu of 1918, but when the Covid-19 pandemic came, they imposed lockdowns without even pretending to weigh the hypothetical benefits against the tangible economic, medical, and social costs—not to mention the intangible costs in emotional hardship and lost liberty."
"
Randomized clinical trials conducted before the pandemic had repeatedly shown that masks did little or no good at preventing viral spread, but the CDC proclaimed them effective against Covid and promoted mask mandates nationwide. As the pandemic wore on, federal health officials looked for excuses to justify the lockdowns and mandates, hyping flawed studies and cherry-picked data, while failing to sponsor rigorous research testing their strategies."
"They stubbornly ignored the
hundreds of studies around the world showing that, except in a few isolated places, lockdowns
did not reduce Covid mortality and that mask mandates were
generally ineffective and
senselessly cruel in classrooms"
"When properly adjusted for the age of the population, the cumulative
Covid mortality rate in Florida has been below the national average. As of late March, Florida’s rate was the 19th lowest among the states, only a little higher than California’s, which was the 14th lowest. And by a more important indicator—the
rate of excess mortality, a measure of how many more deaths than normal from all causes occurred during the pandemic—Florida has fared slightly better overall than California, and notably better among the young. The rate of excess mortality among young adults has been consistently lower in Florida than in California, where the strict lockdowns presumably contributed to deaths from other causes. If California’s cumulative rate of excess mortality equaled Florida’s, about 5,000 fewer Californians would have died during the pandemic. And if California’s unemployment rate equaled Florida’s last year, 500,000 fewer Californians would have been out of work."
More than a century ago, Mark Twain identified two fundamental problems that would prove relevant to the Covid pandemic. “How easy it is to make people believe a lie,” he wrote, “and how hard it is to undo that work again!” No convincing evidence existed at the start of the pandemic that...
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