Scott Atlas: The Last Word
It is always a great pleasure, and an important part of my job, to speak to students. It is essential for students to hear ideas from many sources, especially ideas they may not agree with. That is a key part of learning how to think critically – and critical thinking is the most important lesson to learn in college, in my opinion.
The coronavirus pandemic has been a great tragedy, there can be no doubt about that. But it has also exposed profound issues in America that now threaten the very principles of freedom and order that we Americans often take for granted.
First, I have been shocked at the enormous power of the government, to unilaterally decree, to simply close businesses and schools by edict, restrict personal movement, mandate behavior, and eliminate our most basic freedoms, without any end and little accountability.
Second, I remain surprised at the acceptance by the American people of draconian rules, restrictions, and unprecedented mandates, even those that are arbitrary, destructive, and wholly unscientific.
This crisis has also exposed what we all have known existed, but we have tolerated for years: the overt bias of the media, the lack of diverse viewpoints on campuses, the absence of neutrality in big tech controlling social media, and now more visibly than ever, the intrusion of politics into science. Ultimately, the freedom to seek and state the truth is at risk here in the United States.
First, we all acknowledge that the consequences of the SARS2 coronavirus pandemic and its management have been enormous. Over half million American deaths have been attributed to the virus; more will certainly follow. Even after almost a year, the pandemic still paralyzes much of our country. And despite all efforts, there was an undeniable failure to stop cases from rapidly escalating and prevent hospitalizations and death.
Here’s the unacknowledged reality: almost all states and major cities, with a handful of exceptions, have implemented severe restrictions for many months, including closures of businesses and in-person school, mobility restrictions and curfews, quarantines, limits on group gatherings, and mask mandates dating back to at least the summer.
And let’s clear up the myths about the behavior of Americans – social mobility tracking of Americans and data from Gallup, YouGov, the COVID-19 Consortium, and the CDC have shown significant reductions of movement as well as a consistently high percentage of mask wearing since the late summer, similar to Western European countries and approaching those in Asia.
All legitimate policy scholars should, today, be openly reexamining policies that severely harmed America’s families and children, while failing to save the elderly. Studies, including one in January from Stanford University’s infectious disease scientists and epidemiologists Bendavid, Oh, Bhattacharya, and Ioannidis, have shown the mitigating impact of the extraordinary measures was small at best and according to the study’s senior author Ioannidis, “usually harmful” – in his words, “pro-contagion.” President Biden openly admitted their lack of efficacy in his speech to the nation on January 22, when he said, “there is nothing we can do to change the trajectory of the pandemic in the next several months.”
Bizarrely, though, many want to blame those who opposed lockdowns and mandates for the failure of the very lockdowns and mandates that were widely implemented.
Separate from their limited value in containing the virus — efficacy that has often been “grossly exaggerated” in scientific journals, as documented by epidemiologists and biostatisticians Chin, Ioannidis, Tanner, and Cripps – lockdown policies have been extraordinarily harmful. The harms to children of closing in-person schooling are dramatic, including poor learning, increased school dropouts, and social isolation, most of which are far worse for lower income groups.
A recent study confirms that up to 78% of cancers were never detected due to missed screening over three months. If one extrapolates to the entire country, up to a million new cases or more over nine months will have gone undetected. That health disaster adds to missed critical surgeries, chemotherapy, organ transplants, presentations of pediatric illnesses, heart attack and stroke patients too afraid to call emergency services, and others, all well documented.
Beyond hospital care, CDC reported four-fold increases in depression, three-fold increases in anxiety symptoms, and a doubling of suicidal ideation, particularly among young adults – college age – after the first few months of lockdowns, echoing the AMA reports of drug overdoses and suicides. An explosion of insurance claims for these psychological harms in children just verified this, doubling nationally since last year; and in the strictly locked down Northeast, there was a more than 300% increase of teenagers visiting doctors for self-harm.
Domestic abuse and child abuse have been skyrocketing due to the isolation and specifically to the loss of jobs, particularly in the strictest lockdowns. Given that many in-person schools have been closed, hundreds of thousands of abuse cases are never reported, since schools are the number one agency where abuse is noticed.
Finally, the unemployment “shock” from lockdowns, according to a recent NBER study, translates into what they called a “staggering” 890,000 additional U.S. deaths over the next 15 years from the lockdowns, disproportionately affecting minorities and women.
We know we have not yet seen the full extent of the damage from lockdowns, because it will last for years, even decades. Perhaps that is why lockdowns were not recommended in previous pandemic analyses, even for infections with far higher lethality.
To manage such a crisis, shouldn’t policymakers objectively consider both the virus harms and the totality of impact of policies? That’s the importance of health policy experts – my field – with a broader scope of expertise than that of epidemiologists and basic scientists. And that’s exactly why I was called to the White House – there were zero health policy scholars on the Task Force; no one with a medical background who also considered the impacts of the policies was advising the White House.
To determine the best path forward necessarily means admitting that social lockdowns and significant restrictions on individuals are deadly and extraordinarily harmful, especially on the working class, minorities, and the poor.
In his book “Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds,” Charles Mackay wrote: “of all the offspring of Time, Error is the most ancient, and is so old and familiar an acquaintance, that Truth, when discovered, comes upon most of us like an intruder, and meets the intruder’s welcome.”
Optimistically, we should be seeing the light at the end of the long tunnel with the rollout of vaccines. I believe that we are. But, using logic that would put the Mad Hatter to shame, we now hear some claim that all children must be tested and vaccinated, even though they have extremely low risk from this infection and are proven to not be significant spreaders to adults? Or that all teachers must be vaccinated before they teach in-person, even though schools are one of the lowest risk environments and the vast majority of teachers are not high risk?
Worse, we hear the same faces on TV once again stressing uncertainty, and issuing new warnings – that social distancing, masks, and other restrictions will still be necessary after vaccination and until 2022. Is there no intention of those who control the narrative – the often proclaimed “consensus” – to allow Americans to live normally, to live freely, without fear, again?
Just as in Galileo’s time, one real problem is the experts and “vested academic interests.” Faculty members of many universities, America’s centers for critical thinking, have overtly intimidated views contrary to their own, likely out of political reasons, leaving many afraid to speak up. That intimidation has been effective – I know, I have received hundreds of emails from scientists and policy scholars all over the country, all over the world, telling me to never give up, but they are afraid to come forward. And yes, even a number of infectious disease experts right here at Stanford are afraid to step forward publicly and say the truth.
It is commendable that Stanford’s President and Provost, former Provost Etchemendy, and a few other distinguished members of the academic community here spoke in defense of academic freedom at a recent Faculty Senate meeting. But it is not only the matter of academic freedom that needs comment.
Instead of rethinking failed policies and admitting their errors, some have chosen to employ smears in opinion pieces and through organized rebukes against those of us who disagreed with what was implemented and who dared to help the country under a President they despised – apparently, the ultimate transgression.
Straw-man arguments and out-of-context distortions to defame people are not acceptable in civilized society, let alone in our great universities. There has been an attempt to silence and delegitimize me using falsifications and misrepresentations. This dishonors Stanford’s code of conduct, damages the Stanford name, and most importantly, it abuses the trust parents and society place in them to influence America’s children, our next generation of leaders.
It is understandable that most Stanford professors are not experts in health policy – that is my field, my lane – and understandable that most Stanford professors are ignorant of the data about the pandemic. But it is not acceptable to claim that I made recommendations that were “falsehoods and misrepresentations of science.” That is a lie. No matter how often a lie is repeated, and regardless of how often those lies are echoed in biased media, lies do not transform into truths.
We should all remember the phrase attributed to Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels – “A lie told once remains a lie, but a lie told a thousand times becomes the truth” – and pray to God that it never becomes true in these United States of America.
All policy considerations I recommended to the President were designed to reduce both the spread of the virus to the most vulnerable and the structural harms of the policies to those impacted the most – the poor and working class of America. I was one of the first to push for increasing protections to those most at risk, particularly the elderly, because they were dying by the tens of thousands because the chosen policies implemented by states, recommended by other Task Force members, were failing to protect them. Almost a year ago, I recognized that we must also consider the enormous harms to physical health, mental health, and lives lost coming directly from the draconian policies that attempted to contain the infection. That is the most appropriate goal of public health policy: to minimize all harms, not simply to stop Covid-19 at all costs.
The claim in a recent JAMA opinion piece by three Stanford professors that “nearly all public health experts were concerned that [Atlas’s] recommendations could lead to tens of thousands (or more) of unnecessary deaths in the US alone” is patently false, absurd on its face. As pointed out on February 10 by Zinberg, the proposal called the Great Barrington Declaration, is “far closer to the one condemned in the JAMA article than anything [Atlas] said”. Yet, that policy declaration was co-authored by medical scientists and epidemiologists from Stanford, Harvard, and Oxford, and it has already been signed by over 50,000 medical and public-health practitioners.
When critics display such ignorance about the scope of views held by experts, it exposes their bias and wholly disqualifies their authority on these issues. Indeed, it is beyond parody that these same critics wrote “professionalism demands honesty about what they know and do not know.”
I have indeed explained the fact that younger people have little risk from this infection, and I explained the biological concept of herd immunity – protection arising when a large percentage of people acquire immunity – just like Harvard epidemiologists Katherine Yih and Martin Kulldorff, and some of the top scientists at Stanford, have explained. That is very different from proposing that people be deliberately exposed and infected by “allowing the virus to spread naturally” without mitigation efforts. I have not advised that.
Read more here: stanfordreview.org
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Charles Higley
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“Over half million American deaths have been attributed to the virus; more will certainly follow. ”
NO! You are misrepresenting the numbers because even you, Dr. Atlas, are falling for the propaganda. In all previous years, the flu season (pandemic of a salad of viruses) has been assessed from year to year, generally from September to March, thus allowing future year-to-year comparisons.
Suddenly, not only are almost all deaths attributed to Covid-19, but now they simply let the toll rise during year to year, to produce the 520,000 deaths for this pandemic, which, BTW, PANDEMICS DO END. Just because they have a nonspecific PCR test that picks up almost anything in the flu season viruses as Covid-19, does not mean that we are looking at illness and deaths. Notice the focus on “case” numbers and no mention of illness and deaths.
In fact, the new flu season has been quite mild, which is generally the pattern after a worse year. Overall, however, the fake Covid-19 (the flu season overall, in effect) was as strong as normal influenza, at least for the elderly, and more like 1/10th the strength. For all purposes, the flu season viruses were simply renamed “Covid-19” and we can actually look at it as just that.
What is going on its that there is no Covid-19 PCR test. The virus has never been isolated, cultured and described properly and, thus, no test of any kind or vaccine of any kind can be legally and honestly specific for a virus that effectively does not exist. (Ever wonder why the symptoms are so wide and varied? It’s because people can have various combinations of the viruses in a flu season.)
The only thing they have regarding the virus is a claimed and published genetic sequence of the supposed virus, starting with 37 bases and the other 30,000 bases filled in from a coronavirus genetic database. There is no real virus, just a paper construct, and anything based on this will perforce have to be based on general coronavirus sequences, which includes influenza, rhinovirus, and SARS, which are all coronaviruses along with the other 6 or 7 coronavirus species that human can contract.
This is why all references to the death toll are wrong. Pandemics end, but it has been given extended life by using the known-to-be crappy PCR test that allows the authorities to pretend the virus is still lurking around the community. This is junk science and simply unacceptable. [One should wonder why they have suddenly claimed that Covid-19 is much more infectious and now only causes a 24 to 48-hour flu.]
They have to claim the virus is still around, using the PCR test, but now it has mutated to a VERY infectious (Oh My!) form, which, in the real world, means that it is much less virulent and thus just a 24–48 hour bug. They want the public to focus on the MUCH MORE INFECTIOUS part and not the less virulent part, which is how we have known for a long time is how viruses work.
How many Americans die every year anyhow? Something around 1.6–1.9 million. Wow, we need to ban hearts, lungs, livers, cancer, cars, and getting out of bed in the morning as it is not safe. Life is not safe and you ARE going to die.
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JaKo
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Well, Charles H,
You may be correct on all counts; however, there’s a saying: “Telling the truth is considered a treason in the Empire of Lies.”
We are already past that stage. E.g. In Ontario, Canada, there was an 8-week+ lockdown of 130000 people due to ONE APPERTMENT BUILDING having couple of dozen of “New Variants” of which two may have died of. That is all what is needed to be said about the utter nonsense response we live through.
I certainly hope I’ll live to the day all those bastards causing this plandemic will be convicted and jailed — even though I think that would be a way too mild a response.
BTW, we’re still not experiencing any economic depression yet; wait until the majority of population in US, EU etc. will become “vaccinated” — then the beast will roar! Unopposed!!
I certainly hope this not to happen.
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DdwielandDd
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Notice that Dr. Atlas said “deaths have been attributed to”. That’s an accurate statement and is quite different from saying the deaths were caused by the virus.
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Roger Higgs
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Thank you, Charles, that’s a superb comment; likewise your other comments below.
The virus non-science/nonsense is a parallel of the ‘man-made’ warming fraud. Both are engineered by the dishonest United Nations (IPCC and WHO), as a means to implement The Great Reset by spreading fear-porn, keeping the populace frightened.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/345778067_IPCC_Cover-up_of_Sun%27s_Obvious_Control_of_Climate
Please keep up the fight for truth.
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Charles Higley
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“Even after almost a year, the pandemic still paralyzes much of our country. And despite all efforts, there was an undeniable failure to stop cases from rapidly escalating and prevent hospitalizations and death.”
Too many generalizations and lack of examination here. Pandemics end. Why is no one mentioning this? Particularly with infectious viruses that move around the world with the seasons, we should understand this. A virus does not hang around and cause multiple surges and waves. If at all, they are diminishing waves and not growing waves. Where does the virus find all the new susceptible people? It is simply not realistic. What they did was drag the “pandemic” out to the next flu season and then pretend it was a new wave.
The pandemic has not paralyzed the country, It is the government and authorities who have learned the thrill of Draconian Power. And they are very unwilling to give up that power. It was not a hard call to know that, when things started getting better and the people wanted to return to normal, the authorities put on the brakes and said we had to be cautious and open up “safely,” which is the new word for “I am not giving up control” and “behave or I will clamp down again.”
The second point is that any reference to case numbers rising or falling is pandering to and recognizing the crappy nonspecific PCR test as it it was meaningful, which, after the advent of a new flu season, patently has to be 100% false positives. It is simply a nonstarter.
That is the problem with the Pandemic mess they have created, there are so many ways that an intelligent person can fall into the numbers and biases of the propaganda.
1 – There never was a specific Covid-19 virus that was ever properly isolated and described.
2 – The PCR and antibody tests are bogus because they are based on general coronaviruses.
3 – The vaccines, which are not vaccines by any real definition, cannot be based on a virus that does not exist and not in hand.
4 – “Cases” of Covid-19 are bogus unless one is sick as well with flu-like symptoms. But, then, we have to remember is that all the PCR test really indicates is that one has a flu season virus. Thus, the PCR test is completely useless and should be abandoned. Treat the symptoms.
[Many areas of medicine treats symptoms and not the cause, which has garnered a lot of criticism. However, in the case of very infections flu season viruses, it is easier and better to treat the symptoms. Attacking the cause, an RNA virus with an mRNA “vaccine” that is highly experimental and clearly not dafe is a true mistake as the symptoms are not critical unless left untreated.]
5 – Hospitalizations have been over used at several levels. Initially, they panicked and hospitalized too many, used ventilators wrongly, thus killing many, and made caretakers fearful of caring for the patients. They panicked and sent whole hospital floors of staff home based on one positive PCR test, which we now know is crappy. The death toll in hospitals can be largely placed on policy, medical, and healthcare abuses. Meanwhile, therapeutics were largely ignored, as bad or ineffective, in the face of thousands of real life cures, mainly because cheap therapeutics do not make a lot of money. Heaven forbid we have a cheap cure.
A good argument can be made that most of the deaths we suffered during this horrendously (but purposely) botched pandemic (aka, criminal enterprise) could have been avoided. This is particularly interesting as we have now learned of a number of simple and cheap nutritional factors and therapeutics that make coronaviruses very survivable.
The whole ” being safe” meme is total bull droppings. Life is not safe and the idea that there is a virus out there lurking and waiting to pounce is simply ignorance and fear-mongering.
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Barry
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Thank you Mr Higley,I don’t think you missed anything. Keep up the good fact checking!
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Charles Higley
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I guess the main piece of propaganda that we need to learn to ignore the propaganda that there was a virus out there killing people right and left. There never was a single killer virus, but I have physician friends who remain convinced that people were dropping in the streets, having listened to the fear-mongering.
It is easy to keep falling back onto using this an a starting point. Just like the rate of hurricanes, we detect all hurricanes now rather than only the ones that made land fall in earlier years. If one keeps the proper perspective, land-falling hurricanes are the same or even decreased of late.
Similarly, if you leave out the care abuses from bad policies and fear-mongering, the elderly did what they always do—a portion of them die during flu season but not because of the flu but because of accumulating other issues that makes them critically weak.
The real numbers belie the idea of a killer virus. Most of the population was at little risk, except for those with undiagnosed critical issues, such as leukemia. The elderly take a large hit every flu season, and generally at a lower level during the rest of the year, from a flu bug complicated by bacterial pneumonia. This happens every year. The media and certain politicians made a real effort to inflate and even cause higher rates of death in the elderly. Cuomo aside, in northern Italy, a number of nursing homes lost most of their staff when the young caretakers fled home to Germany, scared of their elderly charges, thinking they would get sick from them. Dying of neglect is not dying from flu.
I must apologize here, but there are so many generalizations and lack of examination of assumptions that I had to comment more.
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Tom O
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Charles, I noticed you mentioned “rhinovirus” in that first post. Is that the virus that makes Republicans vote like they are Democrats? Just trying to add a touch of levity. I don’t need more depression.
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Artelia
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The virus is actually not active for too long.After about 8 days from onset of symptoms, the virus is dead but it is so toxic and there may be a LOT of dead virus, that the DEAD virus is causing inflammation and poisoning the body. At this stage Doctors think they should use immune suppressants such as methylprednisolone. We are hearing that inflammation is causing problems. We are hearing that the receptors of our immune system response is being attacked, going out of control and causing these problems and death. The proteins from the dead virus, in our bodies, once it is not replicating is causing the trouble. This means that anti virals should be used at onset of symptoms or after exposure or even as preventatives. We have to ensure that our immune response is behaving appropriately, during all parts of the covid cycle and that the appropriate medicines are used at each part of the cycle of the covid illness. The inability to breathe is occurring once the virus is dead. The proteins are working like biological POISONS. Just as GM seeds are PESTICIDES, they work like pesticides and they are toxic, so is the GM, man-made biological warfare agent called covid19. It contains HIV proteins too and these suppress proper immune system functioning. Vitamin D3, zinc with a zinc enabler like hydroxychloraquine or if we cannot get access to this, Quercetin. These are essential to prevent us from getting a bad case. IVERMECTIN works as a preventative as do the former and it also kills the virus. Intravenous vitamin C is one of the best things to use for helping us to clear out the dead virus and should be used on every patient, a few grams of ascorbic acid or ascorbate salts should added to the dextrose drip.
A healthy immune response, a small amount of infection and appropriate self care are probably causing us to fight back against this. Extra large amounts of exposure and a dampened immune response are factors in worse covid. Do NOT take paracetamol ./acetaminphen as this blocks our normal immune response, neither take anything which prevents a healthy temperature to help us fight off this biological agent which wars against the world’s people.
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