It's Time for the Scientific Community to Admit We Were Wrong About COVID and It Cost Lives

[XCR1250]

 

Newsweek:

As a medical student and researcher, I staunchly supported the efforts of the public health authorities when it came to COVID-19. I believed that the authorities responded to the largest public health crisis of our lives with compassion, diligence, and scientific expertise. I was with them when they called for lockdowns, vaccines, and boosters.

I was wrong. We in the scientific community were wrong. And it cost lives.

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.

 

What we did not properly appreciate is that preferences determine how scientific expertise is used, and that our preferences might be—indeed, our preferences were—very different from many of the people that we serve. We created policy based on our preferences, then justified it using data. And then we portrayed those opposing our efforts as misguided, ignorant, selfish, and evil.

We made science a team sport, and in so doing, we made it no longer science. It became us versus them, and "they" responded the only way anyone might expect them to: by resisting.

We excluded important parts of the population from policy development and castigated critics, which meant that we deployed a monolithic response across an exceptionally diverse nation, forged a society more fractured than ever, and exacerbated longstanding heath and economic disparities.

 

A students adjusts her facemask at St. Joseph Catholic School in La Puente, California on November 16, 2020, where pre-kindergarten to Second Grade students in need of special services returned to the classroom today for in-person instruction. - The campus is the second Catholic school in Los Angeles County to receive a waiver approval to reopen as the coronavirus pandemic rages on. The US surpassed 11 million coronavirus cases Sunday, adding one million new cases in less than a week, according to a tally by Johns Hopkins University.FREDERIC J. BROWN / AFP

 

Our emotional response and ingrained partisanship prevented us from seeing the full impact of our actions on the people we are supposed to serve. We systematically minimized the downsides of the interventions we imposed—imposed without the input, consent, and recognition of those forced to live with them. In so doing, we violated the autonomy of those who would be most negatively impacted by our policies: the poor, the working class, small business owners, Blacks and Latinos, and children. These populations were overlooked because they were made invisible to us by their systematic exclusion from the dominant, corporatized media machine that presumed omniscience.

Most of us did not speak up in support of alternative views, and many of us tried to suppress them. When strong scientific voices like world-renowned Stanford professors John Ioannidis, Jay Bhattacharya, and Scott Atlas, or University of California San Francisco professors Vinay Prasad and Monica Gandhi, sounded the alarm on behalf of vulnerable communities, they faced severe censure by relentless mobs of critics and detractors in the scientific community—often not on the basis of fact but solely on the basis of differences in scientific opinion.

When former President Trump pointed out the downsides of intervention, he was dismissed publicly as a buffoon. And when Dr. Antony Fauci opposed Trump and became the hero of the public health community, we gave him our support to do and say what he wanted, even when he was wrong.

Trump was not remotely perfect, nor were the academic critics of consensus policy. But the scorn that we laid on them was a disaster for public trust in the pandemic response. Our approach alienated large segments of the population from what should have been a national, collaborative project.

And we paid the price. The rage of the those marginalized by the expert class exploded onto and dominated social media. Lacking the scientific lexicon to express their disagreement, many dissidents turned to conspiracy theories and a cottage industry of scientific contortionists to make their case against the expert class consensus that dominated the pandemic mainstream. Labeling this speech "misinformation" and blaming it on "scientific illiteracy" and "ignorance," the government conspired with Big Tech to aggressively suppress it, erasing the valid political concerns of the government's opponents.

And this despite the fact that pandemic policy was created by a razor-thin sliver of American society who anointed themselves to preside over the working class—members of academia, government, medicine, journalism, tech, and public health, who are highly educated and privileged. From the comfort of their privilege, this elite prizes paternalism, as opposed to average Americans who laud self-reliance and whose daily lives routinely demand that they reckon with risk. That many of our leaders neglected to consider the lived experience of those across the class divide is unconscionable.

Incomprehensible to us due to this class divide, we severely judged lockdown critics as lazy, backwards, even evil. We dismissed as "grifters" those who represented their interests. We believed "misinformation" energized the ignorant, and we refused to accept that such people simply had a different, valid point of view.

We crafted policy for the people without consulting them. If our public health officials had led with less hubris, the course of the pandemic in the United States might have had a very different outcome, with far fewer lost lives.

Instead, we have witnessed a massive and ongoing loss of life in America due to distrust of vaccines and the healthcare system; a massive concentration in wealth by already wealthy elites; a rise in suicides and gun violence especially among the poor; a near-doubling of the rate of depression and anxiety disorders especially among the young; a catastrophic loss of educational attainment among already disadvantaged children; and among those most vulnerable, a massive loss of trust in healthcare, science, scientific authorities, and political leaders more broadly.

 

My motivation for writing this is simple: It's clear to me that for public trust to be restored in science, scientists should publicly discuss what went right and what went wrong during the pandemic, and where we could have done better.

It's OK to be wrong and admit where one was wrong and what one learned. That's a central part of the way science works. Yet I fear that many are too entrenched in groupthink—and too afraid to publicly take responsibility—to do this.

Solving these problems in the long term requires a greater commitment to pluralism and tolerance in our institutions, including the inclusion of critical if unpopular voices.

Intellectual elitism, credentialism, and classism must end. Restoring trust in public health—and our democracy—depends on it.

Kevin Bass is an MD/PhD student at a medical school in Texas. He is in his 7th year.

[Steve753]

What cost lives was not shutting down international flights coming into the country at the beginning. Democrats are solely to blame for this.

[ArcticCrusher]

4 minutes ago, Steve753 said:

What cost lives was not shutting down international flights coming into the country at the beginning. Democrats are solely to blame for this.

Total bullshit.

 

The virus was already here months sooner.

[Steve753]

1 minute ago, ArcticCrusher said:

Total bullshit.

 

The virus was already here months sooner.

The fake virus according to you.

Really what you say doesn't hold much merit. Surprised you haven't figured that out yet.

[Rod]

10 minutes ago, Steve753 said:

What cost lives was not shutting down international flights coming into the country at the beginning. Democrats are solely to blame for this.

Can’t stop it. Can maybe postpone it a bit. Theres an argument that you could maybe slow it enough to get a vaccine out, however the collateral damage had a lot of consequences too

when Covid first hit they said it had a 3% death rate. And that’s alarming, but it was bullshit. It was more like the flu, maybe a little worse 

in the end Covid was just a “bad bug” and most of the stuff the government did to fight it was both unnecessary and arguably harmful in the long run 

[Steve753]

3 minutes ago, ACE said:

Can’t stop it. Can maybe postpone it a bit. Theres an argument that you could maybe slow it enough to get a vaccine out, however the collateral damage had a lot of consequences too

when Covid first hit they said it had a 3% death rate. And that’s alarming, but it was bullshit. It was more like the flu, maybe a little worse 

in the end Covid was just a “bad bug” and most of the stuff the government did to fight it was both unnecessary and arguably harmful in the long run 

Call it whatever you want. It killed some people. Should the world have been shut down, probably not, but that's what you get with liberals in charge, thinking with emotions. That can be seen in anything they do.

[Rod]

1 minute ago, Steve753 said:

Call it whatever you want. It killed some people. Should the world have been shut down, probably not, but that's what you get with liberals in charge, thinking with emotions. That can be seen in anything they do.

Eh I just think that’s politicians. They only base their decisions on public opinion polls. In the end politicians are simple creatures. They’ll do whatever they think will get them re elected. 

[ArcticCrusher]

19 minutes ago, ACE said:

Can’t stop it. Can maybe postpone it a bit. Theres an argument that you could maybe slow it enough to get a vaccine out, however the collateral damage had a lot of consequences too

when Covid first hit they said it had a 3% death rate. And that’s alarming, but it was bullshit. It was more like the flu, maybe a little worse 

in the end Covid was just a “bad bug” and most of the stuff the government did to fight it was both unnecessary and arguably harmful in the long run 

That argument was proven to be the worst plan.  But its not like the GBD didn't warn the masses.

 

[ArcticCrusher]

14 minutes ago, Steve753 said:

Call it whatever you want. It killed some people. Should the world have been shut down, probably not, but that's what you get with liberals in charge, thinking with emotions. That can be seen in anything they do.

The flu is more deadly than covid for the youth.  How did we even manage before.

 

[Rod]

3 minutes ago, ArcticCrusher said:

That argument was proven to be the worst plan.  But its not like the GBD didn't warn the masses.

 

In hindsight for sure. But as time went on it got proven to be more and more to be the wrong approach, but governments just got worse and worse about it 

[Steve753]

12 minutes ago, ArcticCrusher said:

The flu is more deadly than covid for the youth.  How did we even manage before.

 

So covid is real again? This is getting tiresome. 

[Kivalo]

Finally, someone is acknowledging that the scientists are, as all humans, flawed and subject to human emotions like hubris and arrogance. If you pointed that out in the thick of things you got crucified for such heresy. 

[Stephen Hawking]

[Frostynuts]

That student has balls to start exposing the truth, and raises some interesting points. Hopefully he won,t be punished for it.

Not many in this world like him, willing to publicly fight the establishment.

This covid bullshit over the last few years has been the biggest global fukk-up I have ever witnessed, in my 74 years of being on this fukked up earth.

Total mismanagement on a global scale, nobody having the balls to ask just WTF is going on here. Several of the higher ups pushing this agenda should be severely punished, until they  die the most painful death ever, for killing so many innocent folks that would have been totally fine if they would of been able to choose for themselves exactly what course of action they wanted to take on an individual basis. Hopefully we never allow suck mass mis-direction and hysteria to ever happen again. 

Total gigantic world-wide fukk-up, on a grand scale. Many, many people should pay dearly for all the needless pain and suffering that has been caused for so many.

[Rod]

32 minutes ago, Kivalo said:

Finally, someone is acknowledging that the scientists are, as all humans, flawed and subject to human emotions like hubris and arrogance. If you pointed that out in the thick of things you got crucified for such heresy. 

Yes. And that’s my largest issue with all of this. Is let’s have a real discussion. But for almost two years we weren’t allowed to. What everyone says was “just obey” and why?? 
 

does nobody actually know anyone that is in the government? They’re basically manipulative idiots. Good at getting what they want but not good at doing what’s right 

[Steve753]

9 minutes ago, ACE said:

Yes. And that’s my largest issue with all of this. Is let’s have a real discussion. But for almost two years we weren’t allowed to. What everyone says was “just obey” and why?? 
 

does nobody actually know anyone that is in the government? They’re basically manipulative idiots. Good at getting what they want but not good at doing what’s right 

I'd say guys like Arctic derpo are just as bad as the government.  Both peddling bullshit and doesn't help anyone and only makes the people who just didn't want the vaccine because they didn't want it look like idiots.

[Mainecat]

Jesus I can’t believe I live among the morons who responded.

Fuck me.

[ArcticCrusher]

50 minutes ago, Steve753 said:

I'd say guys like Arctic derpo are just as bad as the government.  Both peddling bullshit and doesn't help anyone and only makes the people who just didn't want the vaccine because they didn't want it look like idiots.

It's a scam moron.

Time to wake the fuck up and smell the coffee.

I have nothing to gain with my position.  Now ask the ones pushing this bullshit.

Edited January 30, 2023 by ArcticCrusher

[Steve753]

12 minutes ago, ArcticCrusher said:

It's a scam moron.

Time to wake the fuck up and smell the coffee.

I have nothing to gain with my position.  Now ask the ones pushing this bullshit.

There are people like you who've made large pushing what you do. One can only imagine what your lawyer RENZ has taken it from donations.

[ArcticCrusher]

8 minutes ago, Steve753 said:

There are people like you who've made large pushing what you do. One can only imagine what your lawyer RENZ has taken it from donations.

You have got to fucking kidding me.

 

[Steve753]

Just now, ArcticCrusher said:

You have got to fucking kidding me.

 

Watch shadowland.

[ArcticCrusher]

1 minute ago, Steve753 said:

Watch shadowland.

Who watches the watchmen?

[Steve753]

Just now, ArcticCrusher said:

Who watches the watchmen?

Greg Locke is worth 129 million.

[ArcticCrusher]

Just now, Steve753 said:

Greg Locke is worth 129 million.

Its one big grift.

It also costs $$$$ to take it down.

Your government (uniparty) are being exposed as the biggest criminal grifters of all time while they create division and the pions fight amongst each other.

 

[Steve753]

1 minute ago, ArcticCrusher said:

Its one big grift.

It also costs $$$$ to take it down.

Your government (uniparty) are being exposed as the biggest criminal grifters of all time while they create division and the pions fight amongst each other.

 

You're OK with one side pushing bullshit but not the other. You and anyone like you are the problem.

Edited January 30, 2023 by Steve753