What would you have done?
Recently, an interviewer sympathetic to the Great Barrington Declaration (GBD) listened to my criticisms of it and asked me: What would you have done? That question has me bothered me ever since.
Unlike the doctors I critique, I never claimed to be a pandemic guru with all the answers, and what I actually did is exactly what I would have done. There is no alternate version of me where I was the was mayor of NYC or the dictator of some country. What I actually did is much more interesting than fantasies about what I would have done. I worked in a hospital. I was in a vaccine trial. I corrected doctors’ misinformation. Moreover, just because someone says they would have done something doesn’t mean they actually would have done it. It’s trivially easy to write the words “I would have kept schools open” or “I would have protected the vulnerable.” Anyone can do it.
While obviously anyone can voice their opinion on how we could have better handled the pandemic, and it’s vital that we do that. However, the question “what would you have done?” conjures a parallel universe where words become reality, and both the virus and the public can be bent to one’s will.
Nonetheless, imagination time is fun, so here’s my answer:
I never would have let SAR-CoV-2 into the country. The moment the virus emerged in China, I would have sealed the border. If any COVID cases snuck in, I would isolate them before the virus could spread. I’d launch a massively successful vaccination campaign and ventilate indoor spaces. I’d create a culture where people stayed home when they were sick and where mask-wearing was not unusual. By keeping the virus out of the country, society could function normally, and people would remain healthy.
A reasonable person would not be impressed by this. They’d expect to see a detailed plan to keep COVID out of the country, and even then they would spot its many flaws.
Yet, many people did not demand such a plan from the GBD, although their proposal was as absurd as mine. They wanted 2/3 of the country live in a world of pure COVID and 1/3 of the country live in a world of zero COVID. They said this would end the pandemic in 3-6 months. Although though the virus shuttered schools and killed a record number of people when they ran the show in Florida, they claim that if only we had listened to them, everything would have been just fine.
Measles Surge in Southwest Is Now the Largest Single Outbreak Since 2000
While my plan of keeping the U.S. COVID-free is obviously superior to the GBD’s, I will receive zero credit for it. In contrast, the authors of the GBD and like-minded doctors received many accolades for merely saying what they would have done. However, recent events reveal just how absurd this adoration was.
Doctors who became celebrities for saying what they would have done, parlayed that game of make-believe into high positions in the Trump administration. They are the Medical Establishment now, and they no longer get to say what they would have done on Twitter and Fox News. They have real-world responsibility, and it’s a mess all around.
I don’t need to repeat all of the headlines of censorship and purges they are generating, but one thing they are doing is letting children suffer and die from vaccine-preventable diseases. Under our current Medical Establishment, the headlines read Measles Surge in Southwest Is Now the Largest Single Outbreak Since 2000, Texas Announces Second Measles Death in Unvaccinated Child, Texas Measles Outbreak Surpasses 600 Cases With Most Among Children, Teens, Two Infants Die of Whooping Cough in Louisiana as Cases Climb Nationally, and ‘Fighting to Breathe’: Whooping Cough Surges as Vaccination Rate Falters. We are just getting started. Another recent headline declared Millions of U.S. Measles Cases Forecast Over 25 Years if Shots Decline.
Despite these suffering children and the potential for many more to come, the Medical Establishment is focused on other topics. The article Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to Launch Autism Registry Using Private Health Records provides a preview of their creepy intentions, and in this unhinged screed, RFK Jr. says we need healthy kids for the military. What could go wrong?
Our Medical Establishment is trying to pull the COVID vaccine for children- FDA Commissioner Says Pulling COVID Vaccine For Children Will be ‘Welcomed’ Dr. Jay Bhattacharya wants to get rid of mRNA technology all together. They are also focused on fertility and testosterone levels in teenage boys. At this moment, these are their priorities.
Yes, measles is still the most contagious virus there is, but it should be easy to handle compared to COVID. We have a near-perfect vaccine, and most parents want it. Anti-vaxx disinformation is the only reason we are having measles outbreaks today, and explained by the article Measles Misinformation Is on the Rise — and Americans Are Hearing It, things are heading in the wrong direction. Allaying the fears of vaccine-hesitant parents should be a top priority for our Medical Establishment. That’s not happening.
The doctors who claimed they would have solved COVID are flailing with measles- amongst other things. Not only are the failing to correct anti-vaccine disinformation, they are making things worse. In one recent interview, Dr. Marty Makary, flanked by the Food Babe(!), twice refused to answer “YES!” when asked if parents should vaccinate their children against measles. In the video below, he said the bare minimum about the MMR. However, while saying “we have to be honest,” he minimized children dying of measles with the same noxious myths he used with COVID.
He said only vulnerable children are at risk of measles, he ignored its non-fatal outcomes, and absurdly implied parents are not given any choice regarding vaccines. He said that measles outbreaks are not unusual. He spread misinformation about the hepatitis B vaccine for no reason. He said that RFK Jr. had no responsibility for the current outbreak. He instead blamed “migrant communities” and unspecified “government misinformation” about COVID, even though the people who died of measles should have been vaccinated before the pandemic. This is yet another example of our FDA director endorsing time travel.
It’s also an example of deflection. The current Medical Establishment doesn’t want to take responsibility for what is happening under their leadership. Dr. Makary doesn’t want to acknowledge the obvious truth about his boss, a crank who lied about vaccines for 20-years and predictably botched this measles outbreak. While the current Medical Establishment got famous by blasting the previous Medical Establishment for their supposed dishonesty, they now seek to protect themselves above all else and distract from their ineptitude with odd ramblings on teenage hormones.
Stanford Doctor Jay Bhattacharya Calls Dr. Fauci ‘Number One Anti Vaxxer’
Despite their grand pronouncements, our current Medical Establishment wouldn’t have opened schools or protected the vulnerable when COVID was raging. Those were empty boasts. Right now, they are demonstrating their complete inability to keep people safe from a dangerous pathogens.
Yet, the problem isn’t just their incompetence, it’s their apathy. Our current Medical Establishment does not care about keeping people safe from dangerous viruses, though this is hardly breaking news. However, the strategy that catapulted them to their current positions, downplaying COVID on Fox News, isn’t going to work now that they are in charge. The media is paying attention to these interviews now and will scrutinize their false claims- FDA Head Falsely Claims no Scientists Laid Off, as Agency Shutters Food Safety Labs– something they were generally spared previously. They can’t just wish measles away. Even Megyn Kelly is asking about it. They will continue to be blamed for bad headlines about is meals, which is appropriate. It’s their job now to stop it, and the only way to do that is with vaccines.
Those of us on the outside have every right to treat our current Medical Establishment as harshly as they treated public health officials regarding COVID. Drs. Bhattacharya and Makary mocked them and depicted them as dishonest imbeciles for not saying that COVID vaccines were a perfect panacea or that natural immunity was this wonderful, powerful thing. We also have every right to hold them the highest standards. After all, they set high expectations by telling us all the amazing, incredible, wonderful things they would have done with COVID.
Obviously, our Medical Establishment does not deserve credit for these imagined “accomplishments”. Rather, they deserve to be judged for the real-world consequences of pandemic misinformation and everything that’s actually happening right now. Those of us who paid attention to their COVID fantasies are not the least bit surprised that they shrug as measles kills and injures children under their watch.
In contrast, I deserve praise and glory. Unlike our inept, bumbling Medical Establishment, I would have prevented this.