German MSM on US Covid Policies: 'A Reckoning', Opines the FAZ
Thus the History™ of the WHO-declared, so-called 'Pandemic' is Re-Written Before our Eyes, Provided we Let 'Them' Get Away With it
This piece appeared in the conservative (in-name-only) daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung on 6 Oct. 2023; paywalled version here, the below is my translation (with emphases added); if you’d like to read the German original, I’ll gladly share my PDF version, provided you’ll drop me a line via email.
America Settles Scores with Covid Policy
America’s Covid policy is Under Scrutiny: in the Court, in Politics, and in Academia.
By Winand von Petersdorff, FAZ, 6 Oct. 2023
Three years ago, the three scientists Jay Bhattacharya, Sunetra Gupta, and Martin Kulldorff published a text entitled ‘The Great Barrington Declaration’. Published on 5 October 2020, the text caused an uproar, especially among experts, because it fundamentally criticised the political measures to contain the Covid-19 pandemic in the US and many other countries and opposed lockdowns in particular. The statement was less known to a broader public. One possible reason: the US government’s censorship campaign successfully prevented the text from gaining traction on social media.
The accusation of censorship does not come from a conspiracy fantasy. In July this year, a judge in Louisiana imposed a restraining order on government agencies, banning them from having any contact with social media, with a few exceptions. Two of the authors of the ‘Great Barrington Declaration’ and other plaintiffs had sued because they saw their freedom of expression curtailed by the the government. The order stated that top officials in the White House and other government agencies had coerced Twitter, Facebook, and other social media outlets to remove posts specifically about Covid policy from the web or curb their dissemination, occasionally threatening sanctions.
An appeals court upheld the finding of censorship. The judges concluded that the White House had suppressed unpopular opinions and turned social media from Twitter to Facebook to YouTube into enforcers of compliance. The White House has since appealed to the Supreme Court.
Distrust of Science and Politics
America is beginning to come to terms with Covid policies. Doubts are being raised that it was successful and appropriate, and that it had received the scientific legitimacy that the government had so vigorously promoted with the slogan ‘Follow the science’. The fruitful scientific exchange of different opinions had been demonstrably hampered by government agencies.
The moment when anxious uncertainty about the pandemic gave way to genuine panic among many came when the UK’s Imperial College published a model calculation on 16 March 2020 that, without restrictive government action or personal behavioural change, Covid would kill 510,000 people in the UK and 2.2 million people in the US. The study [sic, it was a ‘model calculation’] said draconian restrictions were the best way to deal with the virus. The [resultant] panic was not confined to Britain, where the government imposed exit and movement restrictions in a U-turn. The model calculation had been provided to the White House before publication and obviously had a decisive influence on government action.
Anthony Fauci, the US government’s central pandemic adviser, said in mid-June 2020 that the shutdown of public and, in some cases, private life ordered in most states had saved millions of lives. In the same interview, published in a Health Department podcast, Fauci complained about his compatriots: they did not believe science and did not believe government authorities.
How Effective were the Lockdowns?
From the get-go, the science was less clear than Fauci suggested [do tell]. By the end of January, the virus, which had started spreading in China, had reached Italy. By early March, there were already cases of infection in all parts of the country. The epidemic in Iran developed in a similar way. For Harvard professor Martin Kulldorff, at least, it quickly became clear that this epidemic could not be stopped with the classic methods of disease control: these consist of isolating the sick and tracing their contacts. But too many had already been infected for that. The virus would reach every corner of the world, was his assessment at the time. In this respect, according to Kulldorff, it was comparable to influenza waves. One could, however, protect particularly susceptible population groups, according to his thesis.
Kulldorff, unlike Fauci would later claim, was not an exotic fringe figure in medicine, but a public health expert. [Kulldorff] believes that lockdowns have not limited the spread of the disease, have not saved lives, have hardly affected vulnerable populations unduly, and have generally produced huge costs. This position was not only considered wrong by the US government’s leading advisors and officials, renowned scientists from all over the world, including Germany, vehemently disagreed with it.
The government action was so drastic that, according to researchers, it was central to quickly find out how deadly and contagious Covid was. Stanford professor Jay Bhattacharya, Kulldorff's co-author of the ‘Great Barrington Declaration’, made that attempt. With other researchers, he launched a field trial in Santa Clara, a California county with a population of two million. They wanted to use antibody tests to find out how many people had already had the virus. If a lot more people had already contracted and overcome the disease, it meant that the disease was less deadly than feared.
DeSantis’ ‘Let's Kill granny’ Plan
The result of the sample was that 2.5-4% of the population had already had Covid. Instead of the 1,000 cases identified by the authorities in the county, between 50,000 and 80,000 people had already had Covid, most without knowing it. Bhattacharya concluded that the mortality rate of the infection was 0.2%, which was later confirmed by other studies. Imperial College had calculated 0.9% [i.e., the lockdown über alles crew was only off by some 450%].
The conflict over whether the shutdown of public life, the economy, and the severe restriction of private life were justified is now playing out at the political level: Ron DeSantis has established himself as the most prominent lockdown opponent. The Republican governor of Florida with presidential ambitions had reopened schools, shops and pubs faster than elsewhere after initial closure orders. He had brought in Kulldorff and Bhattacharya, among others, as advisors for the opening. The contrast is California, with Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom, who had pursued a comparatively rigorous closure policy [here it is revealed whose side the FAZ is on].
About three and a half years after the onset of the crisis, a comparison can be made. At first glance, California is ahead in this rather obscure competition [check the above illustration again: how or by what metric?]. The state in the West records significantly fewer covid deaths per inhabitant than Florida. However, if one takes into account that the population in Florida is significantly older than in young California, the ratios turn. Adjusted for age, 13% fewer Floridians died of Covid than the American average; California was only 12% better despite the lockdowns. DeSantis' decision to open schools contrasted with what most states and countries were practising. His Covid strategy was described by political opponents as a ‘let’s kill grandma’ plan.
‘Lockdowns are a Political Disaster’
Profound experience with the rhetoric that deviants from the mainstream reap came from Sweden. The country was called a ‘pariah state’ in the NYT and insulted by the British health minister for deciding not to impose lockdowns. Schools remained open, as did pubs, offices, museums, and sports facilities [in spring 2020, what happened later is a different matter]. The government largely confined itself to recommendations rather than mandating lockdowns [yeah, this is because non-Nordics don’t understand that a ‘recommendation’ in Scandinavia is the same as an order, but it is expressed more nicely]. State epidemiologist Anders Tegnell said in April 2020 that Sweden had looked for analyses in EU countries that underpinned lockdowns. They found none. There was no scientific basis for lockdowns, according to his account [there is none to this day, but nevermind the fake history spun here].
Now it turns out that Sweden has fewer Covid deaths per inhabitant than most southern European countries, the USA or England, but more than Germany and Scandinavian neighbours. Animated by the Swedish example, Steve Hanke, an economist at Johns Hopkins University, and a Swedish colleague undertook a meta-analysis of studies that had examined the effects of government constraints and restrictions.
The result: government restrictions including lockdowns had only a small effect on the risk of dying from Covid. The government measures would have saved between 6,000 and 23,000 lives in Europe and 4,000 to 6,000 lives in the USA. That sounds like a lot, but they pale compared to flu deaths tolerated every year without shutting down public life. ‘Lockdowns are a political disaster’, said Hanke, who is founder and co-director of the Institute for Applied Economics and Global Health at Johns Hopkins University. [remember: this is gaslighting, as they are talking ‘Covid-associated deaths’, which is an entirely fake category that is unique in a special way: it conflates dying of Covid and dying with a ‘positive’ Covid test result, i.e., no other cause of death is recorded like this—please disregard these two paragraphs as they don’t matter]
Drastic Negative Consequences of School Closures
From a public health perspective, the question of whether government lockdown orders helped prevent Covid deaths is highly relevant [see above, it is, but only if the cause of death is actually correct, as opposed to it being—faked]. At the same time, however, it is one-dimensional. The mandates produced immense costs and also cost lives [remember: a broken clock is also correct twice a day].
Economists Casey Mulligan and Rob Arnott presented a study last year in which they examined excess mortality for the years 2020 and 2021 in the USA. Excess mortality describes mortality above the normal trend. Mulligan was interested in excess mortality beyond Covid cases and extracted from official statistics that in 2020 and 2021, nearly 100,000 people in America each fell into the ‘excess mortality but not from Covid’ category. Deaths from drug overdoses, from car accidents, from violence, or as a result of alcohol abuse were all well above the trend lines, according to the study. More people died from diseases associated with diabetes and obesity. There were also significantly more deaths from hypertension and heart disease. More young people were also killing themselves than usual, the National Institute for Mental Health reported in May this year. This does not establish causality, but little else comes to mind. The math gets even longer: record sales of alcohol and cigarettes suggest that a wave of disease is heading for the health system. Numerous hospitals registered that people came less often for cancer screenings.
In the long run, school closures weigh heavily. Based on her own studies, economist Emily Oster [lol, what a genius] comes to the following conclusion: in the pandemic years, student performance as measured by test scores in maths, English, and other disciplines ‘dropped tremendously’ [mind you, this does not include the devastation wrought by ‘woke’ morons working overtime to do away with scores or grades; if in doubt, use a search engine of your choice and look for ‘ungradind’]. This decline, she says, is due in significant part to school closures. Oster's research [ahem] also shows that schooling poses little risk of Covid infectivity. Studies from Italy, for example, come to different conclusions. But young people in developing and emerging countries are even worse off [too bad none of this appears to trouble the minds of ‘our’ ‘experts™’]. The World Bank sounded the alarm in February [2023, that is, better late than never, I suppose…] and warned of a lost generation. Almost one billion children had lost at least one year of schooling, which could [can, in my opinion] only be insufficiently compensated for by online distance learning, and around 700 million had even lost one and a half years. When schools reopened, fewer children were enrolled than before.
No One Seems to Have Thought of the Huge Costs Involved [speak for yourself]
The warning cry also shows that almost all countries followed the idea of shutting down public life with more or less drastic measures. One explanation is that the initial uncertainty suggested a policy of extra caution. Bhattacharya believes that a report by the World Health Organisation (WHO) from February 2020, in which it highlighted China's lockdown policy as a success, played a key role [look (almost) no further than the WHO if you ‘need’ a culprit here…]. In addition, there was the Imperial College study [here we may stop looking, and I humbly suggest to put both Tedros and his ilk, as well as Prof. Ferguson and his ilk, on trial], which was misguided in his eyes. ‘And once a few countries had shut down public life, it was almost impossible for politicians to resist the pressure to replicate that.’
François Balloux, one of the leading Covid experts [that would be ‘experts™’] in England, has a different interpretation. He believes that the ‘Great Barrington Declaration’ was damaging in its timing and choice of words, even if he would partly agree with its content. The choice of words put off many people at a time when they were looking for comfort and confidence. [speak for yourself, Mr. Balloux]. A violent backlash had been the result.
In Balloux's view, in the very early stages of the pandemic, a policy was understandable that attempted to contain the pandemic with lockdowns. However, the population was never properly informed about the enormous costs of such a policy. The American economist Steve Hanke goes even further: he does not believe that those responsible, at least in the American government, have given much thought to the costs of their covid policy. There is no sign that they had even the faintest idea about it.
Bottom Lines
This is where the FAZ piece stops (cold).
It is, I’d argue, one of the prime examples why there is (yet, hopefully) no reckoning or coming to terms: as long as legacy media does not state something like the following, there is little hope for betterment:
The government’s information, aided by spineless ‘experts™’ and abetted by bought-and-paid-for legacy media, was utterly misleading. Hence, the public’s misinformation, which led to many avoidable consequences.
We know how (pretended to be?) in charge back then—and why demand answers as to why these people are not in the dock right now!
There are many additional flaws in this piece, including the fake BS peddled about Sweden (see Hedda Henrik’s treatment for the best accounting):
Fact: Sweden's State Epidemiologist got almost everything right in the first half of the year regarding the spread of SARS-CoV-2, and this may well be the reason why in 2022 Sweden had a high excess mortality rate, but a lower one than in the rest of Europe. The government respected Anders Tegnell not because they were convinced he was right, but because Swedish authorities are very independent and a minister who tries to control their activities will be dismissed for ministerial mismanagement.
However, Anders Tegnell and the Public Health Agency failed completely to protect the elderly and frail, mainly because effective treatment (ivermectin, hydroxychloroquine, vitamin D, etc.) was basically banned. They also unnecessarily introduced distance learning in universities, probably worsening the mental health and future prospects of tens of thousands of university students.
From around October 2020, Anders Tegnell lost everything. Then a caravan of black security cars arrived from Arlanda airport, containing senior EU officials who, in a meeting with the government, demanded that Sweden "get its act together". Shortly thereafter, Sweden introduced restrictions as crazy as the rest of the world and from January 2021 the Public Health Agency of Sweden was nothing more than a megaphone for Big Pharma. They had basically become AI, as they completely stopped thinking independently and, like parrots, constantly repeated the mantra "safe and effective".
The last straw for Tegnell was when he claimed in the Swedish public service TV programme Skav on 26 April 2022 that not a single person had died from the vaccine. Anders Tegnell thus lost the very last of his credibility.
Apart from the self-serving nonsense peddled by invoking Emily Oster’s ‘mea culpa’ after some three years of cheerleading these insane policies. Shame on you, FAZ.
While we’re on the topic of shame, how extraordinarily German of the FAZ to ‘see the splinter in one’s brother’s eye’ but remain mum about the utter catastrophe that was (is) Germany’s Covid policies.
The final sentence of that absurd piece sums up the state of affairs:
There is no sign that they [gov’t, ‘experts™’, and legacy media] had even the faintest idea about it.
This also underwrites a core thesis of mine: Western (self-perceived) elites are utterly bankrupt, both intellectually and morally, to say nothing about their abject lack of honour, integrity, and, yes, shame.
As long as ‘we, the people’ are somehow ‘o.k.’ with that kind of (lack of) governance, I suppose ‘we’ also get what we deserve.
The alternative, as always, is clear (source, if you’d need one):
That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly, all experience hath shown, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.
Don’t tread on me.
Funny they didn’t comment on EU Digital Services Act when writing about censorship in the US
The piece about "recommendation" made me chuckle, I know people who regard governement recommendations as almost holy writ.
Legally speaking however, a recommendation is precisely that, not an order.