It was never about “following the science”
A cautionary tale about computer models and hidden agendas, and the ease with which tyranny steals liberty.
Even before the vaccines were introduced, we caused massive worldwide damage and heartache because of a virus only slightly worse than a bad flu, for which we never shut down anything. What were we thinking? Let’s revisit 2020, just a few months after the Wuhan virus boarded airplanes headed for all the major industrial centers of the world. In May of that year, Jeffrey Tucker traced the history of the disastrous idea called “lockdown”. (1)
In summary, a small group within CDC seized the moment in January of 2020 to gather support for a discredited idea, throw away our accumulated wisdom and experience in dealing with epidemics, and push their plan to become the CDC recommendation. Essentially, they ignored settled science in favor of shoddy computer modeling creating terrible projections based on lots of assumptions and no data. The media then demanded we “follow the science,” ironically, right off the cliff.
Here’s the longer version of what happened, as detailed in the articles referenced. This is worth reviewing, because there will be more viruses, and memory is short.
In 2006, Robert Glass used his daughter’s science fair project to experiment with “social distancing” to limit the spread of infection. He created a graph and sent it to the CDC, suggesting they consider the approach. In 2007, the Glass proposal was formally written up (3), but it was not implemented in the subsequent opportunities. Until 2020.
When Glass presented his ideas, the most successful epidemiologist of the time, Dr. Donald Henderson, warned that following all those ideas (which we then followed) would “move towards catastrophe”.
In January of 2020 Dr. Carter Mecher apparently saw the opportunity in the emerging crisis to pump up interest in the 2007 plan; he gathered a bunch of supporters and pressed it forward (5). For whatever reasons, Dr. Henderson’s thorough evaluation was ignored, and the time-tested wisdom of building immunities until vaccines were available was discarded. True science went out the window, along with centuries of accumulated wisdom. The group of “experts” prevailed, with disastrous results.
Dr. Henderson’s analysis, written in 2006, was detailed, thorough, and completely ignored by the CDC when it mattered. Dr. Henderson worked at the CDC, then led teams of epidemiologists at the W.H.O. and Johns Hopkins, and is credited with leading the elimination of smallpox. He explained in gracious, careful, and thorough detail why our subsequently adopted strategy was a mistake. He discussed isolation, quarantine, masks, therapeutic drugs, vaccines, multiple waves, social distancing, computer models, hand washing, school closures, alternative care sites, unintended consequences … all of the “lockdown” topics.
A summary commentary by Dr. Edward Peter Stringham on how we got into this situation (including a relevant perspective on the “freedom and rights” issue) and a brief introduction to Dr. Henderson are here (6), followed by Dr. Henderson’s entire paper and footnotes. I suggest to you that his evaluation is worth your time and consideration. It is quite readable.
That’s the story. (1) Thank you, Jeffrey Tucker, Dr. Stringham, and the American Institute for Economic Research.
As the lockdown began, many doctors warned immediately that if we continued this strategy, “millions of casualties of a continued shutdown will be hiding in plain sight, but they will be called alcoholism, homelessness, suicide, heart attack, stroke, or kidney failure. In youth it will be called financial instability, unemployment, despair, drug addiction, unplanned pregnancies, poverty, and abuse.”(8) Exactly right.
Michael Levitt, Nobel Laureate, spelled it out: “…the damage done by lockdowns will exceed any saving of lives by a huge factor.”(9)
After immediately destroying 36 million jobs (just in America) and pushing perhaps hundreds of millions around the world towards starvation, we continued hiding from a virus that barely affects those under 65, waiting for a miracle vaccine. Why? If we had been following the science, as Dr. Fauci insisted we must do, we would have let the virus “wash through the population”, in Dr. Knut Wittkowski ’s words (7), and build the herd immunity that would have let the quarantined ‘vulnerables’ get out of jail and return to whatever was left of their lives.
Some “lessons learned” come to mind, partly from experience as a computer programmer and partly from loving this country and the unique opportunity God has given us here to practice self-governance as a free people:
a) To paraphrase Dr. Thomas Sowell, decisions made by people who pay no price for being wrong can be the worst kind. No one at the CDC would expect to be held accountable for the damage they have done, and all actions downstream of them were just “following the science.”
b) Computer models are always wrong, for good reason. Examples of this abound. As they say about anesthesia, don’t make any serious decisions while under the effect of computer models.
c) Computer models built with un-reviewed code, wild assumptions, and no data … should not even be discussed, let alone presented as news and used to stoke panic. Shame on the media.
d) The mass media have a vested interest in panic. Fear drives attention, which drives ratings and inflates egos. Refuse the “fear porn.”
e) Your common sense is worth more in managing your own life than anything any expert says. Expertise is very narrow, by necessity, but your decisions about your own life consider ALL the factors, including their opinions but also all the possible side effects, historical context, impact on relationships, possible ‘collateral damage,’ costs, etc, all the things the “experts” cannot begin to know or understand, even if they were to care about them. Make your own decisions. Ask every expert, “Why do you believe that?”
f) When things don’t make sense, look for hidden agendas, and do not comply with tyranny.
Final notes on maintaining freedom:
The ‘freedom and rights’ side of the pandemic and vaccine discussions has never been trivial; please do not dismiss it as irrelevant or selfish. It was never a choice of “claiming your rights vs. loving your neighbor,” as a friend said.
And when the government began insisting that millions of us inject a quickly-developed, poorly-tested, liability-free, genetic manipulation experiment labeled as a “vaccine,” and an avalanche of damage and death reports flowed into the VAERS database, the importance of medical freedom became vividly apparent.
“Emergencies have always been the pretext on which the safeguards of individual liberty have been eroded — and once they are suspended it is not difficult for anyone who has assumed such emergency powers to see to it that the emergency will persist.”
— F. A. Hayek
Moving towards governmental tyranny is a one-way ratchet. To stay free, we must aggressively defend that freedom. One of our founders pointed the way:
“Every member of the State ought diligently to read and to study the constitution of his country and teach the rising generation to be free. By knowing their rights, they will sooner perceive when they are violated, and be the better prepared to defend and assert them.”
— John Jay, first Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. (10)
To learn and teach the Constitution, go to Patriot Academy, find a class, learn what they never taught you in school, then become a Constitution Coach to help teach our rising generations to be free!
Here’s a test: What authority does the federal government have to manage our healthcare industry and choices?
3. https://www.cdc.gov/flu/pandemic-resources/pdf/community_mitigation-sm.pdf
4. “Disease mitigation measures in the Control of Pandemic Influenza, February 2006, Biosecurity and Bioterrorism: Biodefense Strategy, Practice, and Science 4(4):366-75 DOI:10.1089/bsp.2006.4.366”
Now at https://www.liebertpub.com/doi/10.1089/bsp.2006.4.366
Reprinted in full as part of this article.
5. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/11/us/politics/coronavirus-red-dawn-emails-trump.html
10. John Jay, The Correspondence And Public Papers of John Jay, Henry P. Johnston, editor (G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1890), Vol I, pp 163-164.