Another Covid mea culpa: 'We were wrong . . . and it cost lives'

FPI / February 1, 2023

In a Jan. 30 op-ed for Newsweek, Kevin Bass (MS MD/PHD Student, Medical School) says that "it's time for the scientific community to admit we were wrong about COVID and it cost lives..."

Bass writes: "I can see now that the scientific community from the CDC to the WHO to the FDA and their representatives, repeatedly overstated the evidence and misled the public about its own views and policies, including on natural vs. artificial immunity, school closures and disease transmission, aerosol spread, mask mandates, and vaccine effectiveness and safety, especially among the young. All of these were scientific mistakes at the time, not in hindsight. Amazingly, some of these obfuscations continue to the present day.

"But perhaps more important than any individual error was how inherently flawed the overall approach of the scientific community was, and continues to be. It was flawed in a way that undermined its efficacy and resulted in thousands if not millions of preventable deaths."

Perhaps most illuminating is the admission by Bass that "Most of us did not speak up in support of alternative views, and many of us tried to suppress them."

WorldTribune.com was among several independent media outlets to have its reporting early during the pandemic suppressed by Google search, Facebook and other Big Tech censors. Such reports included:

• April 8, 2020: Epidemiologist: Ending lockdown is quickest way to ‘exterminate’ coronavirus
• Aug. 11, 2020: Back to school? For teachers unions, politics seem to matter most
• Aug. 25, 2020: ‘Massive disinformation campaign’: Yale epidemiologist slams Fauci, FDA
• Sept. 24, 2020: Twitter suspends author of WorldTribune article on hydroxychloroquine
• Oct. 5, 2020: 2019 flu study by WHO found ‘no evidence’ masks ‘effective in reducing transmission’
• Oct. 7, 2020: Public health scientists: End lockdowns, resume normal life while protecting the vulnerable
• April 21, 2021: Unreported: Stanford study finds masks don’t stop Covid transmission, can be harmful to health
• May 2, 2021: Politicized health? Teachers’ union heavily influenced CDC policy on reopening schools

In October, it was Emily Oster pleading for Covid amnesty in a piece in the Atlantic titled: “Let’s Declare a Pandemic Amnesty: We need to forgive one another for what we did and said when we were in the dark about COVID”.

Oster insisted: “Given the amount of uncertainty, almost every position was taken on every topic.”

Wrong.

As AJ Kay points out in an Oct. 31 substack post: "We were never facing a grabbag of completely disorienting situations and unknowable outcomes. Our positions were clear and fully aligned with this list of things we knew by or before March 2020":

• COVID has a clear risk-stratification skewing dramatically toward the elderly
• COVID is not nearly as deadly as once feared
• Panic, stigmatization, mandates, and politicization are anathema to public health
• We have immune systems, and natural immunity exists
• Missing school hurts kids, especially disadvantaged ones
• Isolation of anyone is cruel and harmful
• Loneliness kills
• The media profits off fear-mongering
• Health is not just about disease avoidance
• Masks don’t work + faces are important
• Forcing people to die alone is inhumane
• Lockdowns are human rights violations
• Informed consent is essential
• Bodily autonomy is paramount
• Incentives incentivize
• Shutting down manufacturing causes supply chain disruptions
• Supply chain disruptions threaten economic stability
• Science doesn’t advance by “following”
• Panicked people don’t make rational decisions

As Kay notes: "Acknowledging the truths above would’ve been enough to keep probably 90% of the harm from occurring. But not only were they ignored, they were suppressed, despite rational people screaming them from the rooftops. Perhaps Emily could imagine our surprise at hearing her now say that she didn’t know."

Zero Hedge wrote on Jan. 31: "The problem was not people's ignorance of the facts, it was the organized antagonism and censorship against anyone presenting data that was contradictory to the mandate agenda. This is setting aside proclamations like those from the LA Times, which argued that mocking the deaths of 'anti-vaxxers' might be necessary and justified. After two years of this type of arrogant nonsense it's hard to imagine people will be willing to pretend as if all is well.

"The active effort to shut down any opposing data is the root crime, though, and no, it can never be forgotten or forgiven."

Free Press International
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