Jeffrey Tucker on measures to combat the coronavirus

All these measures were deployed in waves of controls.  It all began with event cancellations and school closures.  It continued with travel bans, most of which are still in place.  Sanitization and plexiglass were next.  Masks were rolled out and then mandated.  The principle of forced human separation governed social interactions.  Capacity limits indoors were a common feature.  The US example inspired many governments around the world to adopt these NPIs (non-pharmaceutical interventions) and take away the liberties of the people. 

At each stage of control, there were new claims that we’ve finally found the answer, the key technique that would finally slow and stop the spread of SARS-CoV-2.  Nothing worked, as the virus seemed to follow its own course regardless of all these measures.  Indeed there was no observable difference anywhere in the world based on whether and to what extent any of these measures were deployed. 

Finally came the pharmaceutical interventions, voluntary at first but gradually mandatory, just as with each previous protocol began as a recommendation until it was mandated. 

At no point in these 19 months have we seen a clear admission of failure on the part of government officials.  Indeed, it’s mostly been the opposite, as the agencies double down, claiming effectiveness while citing no data or studies, while social media companies backed it all by taking down contrarian posts and brazenly deleting accounts of people who dare cite dissenting science. 

The vaccine was the biggest gamble of all simply because the program was so expensive, so personal, and so wildly oversold.  Even those of us who opposed every other mandate had hopes that the vaccines would finally end the public panic and provide governments a way to back out of all the other strategies that had failed. 

That did not happen.

~ Jeffrey Tucker, "The Meaning of the FDA Resignations," Brownstone Institute, September 14, 2021