Five years ago, the world went mad. We can't forget what really happened as the court historians scrub the record and continue their eternal campaign to make the political class into heroes. What was announced as two weeks to flatten the curve, or 15 days to slow the spread, became 30 days, then months, and in some states years of arbitrary restrictions and mandates.
We were assured our "leaders" were "following the science," but anyone who dared question those policies under any basis whatsoever was framed as a "science denier." The scientific method is about answering questions, not suppressing criticism. Now that time has passed, how well did those policies really work? Were they effective, or was it mere security theater to appease the masses?
I found an old post draft from 2021 that sparked some recollections. Way back then, a year into the US experience of the COVID pandemic, I started to write as follows.
So we're simultaneously so good at lockdown that seasonal flu is at record lows, yet also so bad at lockdown that we skeptics are the reason COVID is still an issue in our 51st week of "two weeks to flatten the curve?"
Something just didn't add up. I weighed the popular notions of the time as follows.
COVID-19 and SARS-CoV-2 don't actually exist.
I doubt this popular conspiracy theory. It often ties in with, "viruses don't cause illness," an assertion I also doubt. It is, of course, possible that a massive conspiracy involving thousands of scientists, physicians, media personalities, and politicians could create a lie and try to spread it around the world as part of a scheme to seize even more power and wealth, but the logistical hurdles of such a plan are astronomical, and the chance of a breach by whistleblowers is far too high. Of course, there are plenty of people on the internet claiming to be those whistleblowers, too, but their credibility is dubious.
I still doubt this line of argument. The folks making it are even less qualified than I am to support such assertions. There is considerable overlap between such claims and other (to put it politely) pseudoscience enclaves like flat earth believers.
SARS-CoV-2 is an engineered bioweapon
Here is a statement of substance, an assertion rather than a denial, but extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. There are lots of rumors of suspicious associations and convenient coincidences surrounding the Chinese outbreak in 2019, but these are difficult to substantiate at best. I have my doubts here as well.
I'm still not convinced it was a bioweapon, although evidence of gain-of-function research even in the US has emerged. Ties between Fauci and Chinese laboratories in the Wuhan region came to light years later in spite of countless denials. This doesn't prove it was an engineered bioweapon, but it adds a degree of credibility to such accusations.
SARS-CoV-2 is just the flu
I am not a virologist, but given the information available to the layman, I'd have to say no here. However, it may be possible that the flu is misdiagnosed as COVID-19 depending on the tests involved and the criteria used for diagnosis. This would obviously decrease flu diagnoses and inflate COVID-19 numbers. I simply do not know, though.
I still stand by the above statement. There's no need to claim certainty when so much remains uncertain, but it is essential to qualify claims with an honest assessment of how sure you are instead of just leaping to conclusions.
Never let a crisis go to waste
Here is where I tend to find my default position. SARS-CoV-2 is probably a real virus with a real danger, perhaps exaggerated by flawed tests and misdiagnoses, but definitely exploited by the political class as a power grab.
- Use fear to justify the usurpation of new power
- Impose economic controls, and decide who is "essential" from the top down.
- Ramp up the surveillance state with the justification of "contact tracing."
- Justify government monopoly healthcare as a response to the scare.
- Gain greater control over the economy and encourage further dependency on "stimulus money" and push for a guaranteed basic income scheme that drives further reliance on the State in the general populace.
- Destroy small businesses that compete with mega-corporations by forbidding them from operating at all, or under such strict restrictions that they cannot succeed.
And let's not forget "inflate the money supply to unprecedented levels, further distorting a market that had already been showing signs of recession." I know I mentioned that elsewhere, including this post from February 2022. The COVID vaccination push should also have raised more red flags than it did, but by late 2020, the American Left started to abandon its distrust in Big Pharma for blind faith in their savior, the jab. Demands for vaccine passports were seen as a virtuous safety measure by the masses and the media, adding new authoritarian overtones with sayings like, "no jab, no job.".
This is by no means a conclusive list of all possibilities, but after an entire year of hell, questions are long overdue. Maybe the experts just know less than they care to admit about the virus, the economy, psychological effects of social distancing, and myriad other factors of the plans they arbitrarily imposed on us. At any rate, we are not served or protected by these bureaucrats. Maybe it is time for some disobedience, civil or otherwise.
Even before those announcements fine years ago, I was skeptical about official responses. Since the beginning, I have encouraged common-sense practical preparedness. In March 2021, I wrote What a Difference a Year Makes, followed in May with Coronavirus Reassessment: 62 Weeks of Flattening the Curve? I discussed the difference between risk and threats in October. A year after that, in late 2022, people were already realizing the authoritarians had erred, but instead of apologies, they demanded amnesty. I responded to that.
Now it is March 16th, 2025. Jay Bhattacharya, one of the authors of the Great Barrington Declaration has been nominated to run the National Institute of Health in spite of media and Wikipedia claims his idea is just a fringe notion without admitting they helped push science to the fringes of public discourse by de-platforming dissenters regardless of their arguments and qualifications.
Five years later, we still live in the shadow of COVID and the political response. Fauci and other NIH bureaucrats are being exposed for suspicious ties to pharmaceutical interests. We still do not know the long-term effects of novel MRNA "vaccines" launched in response to this novel coronavirus, and the political class dismisses any complaints out of hand as mere conspiracy theory. But we also know they dismissed the Wuhan lab story, critiques of mask policies, and other things they later admitted were true months after pressuring social media platforms to censor such reasonable ideas and questions when raised by the unapproved mundanes.
Our lesson 5 years later needs to be one of personal responsibility, willingness to question the official narrative (especially when it is unpopular), and a dedication to truth over ideology. Where do you stand? What is your foundation, liberty or blind obedience to authority? We have lived through a time of mass hysteria, and the people responsible are trying to push it behind them while avoiding accountability.
I keep hearing rumours of "another novel coronavirus" coming out of West Taiwan, and combined with the nonsense surrounding avian influenza, I would not be surprised if similar crisis is manufactured soon, because
heavengovernment forbid we have any peace. Such a thing will be accompanied by a literal revolution, not because people won't put up with the same measures again (FFS, some people are still walking around with masks), but because there are several radical revolutionary groups that have made it abundantly clear that they intend to take advantage of the situation.Stock up on ammo, better to have it and not need it.
I doubt the next catastrophe used to justify seizing power will be quite the same. I hesitate to guess what it might be. It could be war with Russia, Iran, or China. A re-emergence of Islamic extremist terrorism citing US association with Israel could happen. More fires and global warming accusations over the coming summer could lead to protests and power grabs. And there's no saying what Trump will do economically or what the consequences will be.
Of all the scary things from our early covid era years (it most certainly is not over), the mass blind obedience to authority is still the scariest of all. Will we do that again? Do many of us remember what we did and said, and regret any of it? Or will we again hear demands for the disobedient to be sent to concentration camps.
I didn't complay with any of the capricious and destructive regulations this past time, and I intend to not comply with any such regulations in the future.
I don't fault people who were scared at the start. It was a media firestorm of fearmongering. I do fault people who chose to cling to propaganda after facts to the contrary began coming to light. I fault the political entities actively censoring dissent. I fault pre-Musk Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, etc. for marching in lockstep with government dictates.
I fault everyone who did this. It baffles me that they cannot see the danger in their behavior, instead focusing their fears on mine.
Covid was used as an excuse to accelerate the process that was already underway. We saw everyone's wealth diminish, while the select few grew vastly richer.
The virus was real, obviously, but we burnt the house to kill the rat, and then had to rent the only one available- the house belonging to the arsonist.
Covid changed the world in many ways. Great post !!!
COVID? Not so much. Political responses to it? Devastating.
Covid was a screen for many misdeeds: political