Renewed Hysteria Shows Why We Need A Commission For Covid Accountability
Helen Raleigh Visit on Twitter @HRaleighspeaks
Only through a national commission that would assign accountability for Covid failures can we ensure America won’t repeat the same mistakes.
One of the most disturbing images of the Covid-19 pandemic was when a teacher tried repeatedly to force a mask on a crying toddler, despite his visible distress.
In some ways, the U.S. government at all levels, especially among public health officials, treated all of us like toddlers, compelling us to endure draconian Covid measures from mask mandates to vaccine mandates despite many scientific studies showing none of them have stopped Covid from spreading in our society and infecting people. There has been no national reckoning on what went wrong in our pandemic response and who should be held accountable, and there are new signs those same ineffective and sometimes cruel Covid measures are coming back to dictate Americans’ lives this fall.
White House spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre announced this week that President Joe Biden would start wearing a mask again after his wife tested positive for Covid. The president and the first lady had received Covid vaccines and boosters before and were infected anyway. But the facts haven’t stopped President Biden from encouraging all Americans to get Covid booster shots this fall. Meanwhile, Rosemary Hills Elementary School in Maryland handed out KN95 masks to third graders because more than three students were infected with Covid. At the University of Michigan, students who test Covid-positive still have to leave their dorm (even if in a single room) and isolate themselves in a hotel for five days.
This renewed Covid hysteria is unwarranted because, three years after the coronavirus outbreak spread from China to the rest of the world, we have learned that many government measures have failed to prevent Covid’s spread while causing undue harm. For example, research from as early as fall 2021 showed that vaccines didn’t prevent the virus from transmitting, and natural immunity is at least as protective as vaccines. Yet the federal government, many state and local governments, and businesses imposed vaccine mandates on employees, and many people lost their jobs due to being unable or unwilling to meet the mandates. The media and tech companies shut down debates and vilified anyone who raised questions.
Similarly, research on the effectiveness of masks, including a study published by the Cochrane Library, which “analyzed 18 randomized controlled trials that aimed to measure the impact of surgical masks or N95 respirators on the transmission of respiratory viruses,” found that wearing a mask “probably makes little or no difference” in preventing transmission. Yet the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) told Americans that masks provided more protection against Covid than vaccines. Based on the CDC’s misleading recommendations, about 39 states imposed mask mandates, and some included children as young as 2 years old. However, research showed masking “impacts children’s ability to recognize faces and emotions.”