In 2020, we conducted the largest medical experiment on human subjects in world history,
without informed consent. That experiment failed. Thousands lost their livelihoods.
I myself was fired for refusing.
the vaccine. Social distancing encouraged citizens to view friends and neighbors as potential threats.
One-quarter of young adults in America contemplated suicide during lockdowns in June 2020 alone.
while anxiety disorders tripled
and depression disorders quadrupled.
Some would call that unprecedented.
Let's take a look at just three mistakes
in the public health response to the COVID pandemic.
Number one, lockdowns.
Lockdowns were never a part of conventional public health.
Confining entire populations doesn't work.
Yet this approach proceeded without debate.
The result? According to a Johns Hopkins review study, enormous economic and social costs and little to no effect on the spread of COVID.
Lockdowns significantly impacted blue-collar workers who were unable to work from home, resulting in supply chain disruptions.
30 million Americans filed for unemployment in the first two months of 2020.
By the end of May 2021, there were 40% fewer small businesses opened nationwide than at the start of 2020.
Homelessness rose as 11 million households owed $70 billion in back rent.
Lines to food banks stretched while incomes shrank.
In response, governments pumped trillions of relief dollars into their economies, resulting
in massive inflation and untold consequences that will last decades.
Mistake number two, vaccine mandates.
The narrative for vaccine mandates had three parts.
First, it was safe for everyone.
Second, it was necessary for everyone.
Third, and this point is key,
any hesitancy was a PR problem to be overcome.
Thus, if you questioned any part of this narrative,
you were banished both socially and professionally.
In many countries and states, vaccine passports were required to do things like travel,
eat in a restaurant, attend a public gathering, or even return to our own country.
Even some religious authorities adopted vaccine mandates and punished anyone as heretics
who questioned their open discrimination against those who, for reasons of conscience or otherwise, requested an accommodation.
In any other time, we would have immediately revolted
in response to these draconian measures.
But this was deemed okay, even necessary,
because we were told that enforced vaccines
were the only way back to a normal life.
Something that subsequent waves of the virus
and vaccine boosters made a perpetually moving target.
Throughout all of this,
we saw the most sinister mistake of all.
the deployment of fear.
Stoked by 24-7 news reports tracking case counts and COVID deaths,
the populace cowered at home in fear.
Meanwhile, private health insurance companies doubled their earnings
on money they had not spent on patient care.
And data that might reduce our fear of COVID was withheld by public health agencies like the CDC.
This led to broad distrust of the scientific community and of our public health leaders in general.
Americans were scared, alone, and angry.
And that's how it was engineered to be.
an entire population moved not by data or reason, but by psychological manipulation.
Free people acting together must clearly demonstrate that there are strict limits
to what citizens will accept under the rubric of a public health emergency.
In the wake of the COVID pandemic, re-establishing healthcare privacy, conscience rights, open scientific debate, and respect for alternative views must be a priority as we look to have essential and robust public discussions.
about these policy issues.
There are human and spiritual goods
that should never be surrendered,
especially under extraordinary circumstances.
When and if another pandemic happens, we must be ready.
not just with medicines and vaccines,
but with a humane approach to social, economic, and health policy
that is worthy of the people that these policies are supposed to protect.
I'm Dr. Aaron Cariotti, a physician and director of the Bioethics and American Democracy Program
at the Ethics and Public Policy Center for edify.