What America’s Post COVID-19 Response Means for Medical Scientists and Policy Experts
Authored by Scott Atlas, op-ed via Newsweek.com
Almost all of America’s leaders have gradually pulled back their COVID mandates, requirements, and closures – even in states like California, which had imposed the most stringent and longest-lasting restrictions on the public. At the same time, the media has been gradually acknowledging the ongoing release of studies that refute the purported reasons behind those restrictions.
This overt reversal is falsely portrayed as “learned” or “new evidence.” Little acknowledgement of error is to be found. There was no public apology for promulgating false information, or for the vilification and delegitimization of policy experts and medical scientists who spoke out correctly about data, standard knowledge about viral infections and pandemics, and fundamental biology.
More than 1 million American deaths have been attributed to that virus. Even after draconian measures, including school closures, stoppage of non-COVID medical care, business shutdowns, personal restrictions, and then the continuation of many restrictions and mandates in the presence of a vaccine, there was an undeniable failure—over two presidential administrations—to stop cases from rapidly escalating.
The tragic failure of reckless, unprecedented lockdowns that were contrary to established pandemic science, and the added massive harms of those policies on children, the elderly, and lower-income families, are indisputable and well-documented in numerous studies. This was the biggest, the most tragic, and the most unethical breakdown of public health leadership in modern history.
In a democracy, indeed in any ethical and free society, the truth is essential. The American people need to hear the truth—the facts, free from political distortions, misrepresentations, and censorship. The first step is to clearly state the harsh truth in the starkest possible terms. Lies were told. Those lies harmed the public. Those lies were directly contrary to the evidence, to decades of knowledge on viral pandemics, and long-established fundamental biology.
