As with every crisis, there are the varying ideas of what is behind it all. Generally labeled “conspiracy theories,” these ideas affect people in three broad categories: true believers, non-believers, and those in the middle who aren’t sure what to believe.
After all, who in America, a nation founded on principles of individual freedom, wants to believe that government at the national, state, and local levels would impose these heavy restrictions for any reason other than because they are believed to be necessary?
Yet, many who are not conspiracy theorists do acknowledge the heaviness of these restrictions, and question their true value.
“First, I have been shocked at the unprecedented exertion of power by the government since last March — issuing unilateral decrees, ordering the closure of businesses, churches, and schools, restricting personal movement, mandating behavior, and suspending indefinitely basic freedoms. Second, I was and remain stunned — almost frightened — at the acquiescence of the American people to such destructive, arbitrary, and wholly unscientific rules, restrictions, and mandates.”
Are those the words of QAnon, a leading voice of conspiracy theories? No. They are the words of Dr. Scott Atlas, a medical doctor and former professor at Stanford University Medical Center, a fellow at the Hoover Institution, a member of the Nominating Committee for the Nobel Prize in Medicine and Physiology, a special advisor to former-President Donald Trump and member of the Coronavirus Task Force in 2020.
His comments at a Hillsdale College National Leadership Seminar this past February were published in Hillsdale’s monthly speech digest Imprimis.
He readily acknowledges the bad things: “Over 500,000 American deaths have been attributed to the virus; more will follow. Even after almost a year, the pandemic still paralyzes our country. And despite all efforts, there has been an undeniable failure to stop cases from escalating and to prevent hospitalizations and deaths,” Atlas stated.
But he also recognizes the damage done by government-imposed lockdowns. Perhaps with the best of intentions, the lockdowns “have been extraordinarily harmful,” he said, to children by suspending in-person schooling, including poor learning, school dropouts, social isolation, and suicidal thoughts, most of which are far worse for lower income groups.
Further, people who are afraid to go to see doctors has resulted in up to 78 percent of cancers that were never detected due to missed screenings over a three-month period. Atlas noted that “if one extrapolates to the entire country, 750,000 to over a million new cancer cases over a nine-month period will have gone undetected.”
Add to that circumstance the missed critical surgeries, delayed presentations of pediatric illnesses, heart attack and stroke patients, and the number of injuries resulting from the lockdowns grows even greater. And he said that these problems are all well documented.
“Beyond hospital care,” he said, “the CDC reported four-fold increases in depression, three-fold increases in anxiety symptoms, and a doubling of suicidal ideation, particularly among young adults after the first few months of lockdowns, echoing American Medical Association reports of drug overdoses and suicides. Domestic and child abuse have been skyrocketing due to the isolation and loss of jobs.”
He states that hundreds of thousands of abuse cases went unreported, as abuse is commonly discovered when abused children are at school.
And a study by the National Bureau of Economic Research shows that the lockdowns will generate a three percent increase in the mortality rate and a 0.5 percent drop in life expectancy over the next 15 years. This will disproportionately affect African-Americans and women, the Bureau study showed. Those effects translate into what the study refers to as a “staggering” 890,000 additional U.S. deaths.
To determine the best path forward, Atlas suggests that policymakers should objectively consider the impact both of the virus and the anti-virus policies to date. “This points to the importance of health policy, my own particular field, which requires a broader scope than that of epidemiologists and basic scientists. In the case of COVID, it requires taking into account the fact that lockdowns and other significant restrictions on individuals have been extraordinarily harmful — even deadly — especially for the working class and the poor,” he said.
We can see the benefit of not locking everything down by looking at how Florida has come through the virus to date. Florida remained largely open, and focused its vaccination program first on the oldest, most vulnerable population.
A Wall Street Journal op-ed stated that “a year after the virus hit the U.S., Mr. Cuomo’s luster has faded, and Mr. DeSantis can claim vindication. The Sunshine State appears to have weathered the pandemic better than others like New York and California, which stayed locked down harder and longer.”
“Between Nov. 1 and Feb. 28, there were 5.8 new cases per 100 people in New York, 6.4 in California, and only 5 in Florida, where businesses could stay open at full capacity,” the op-ed continued.
Not giving into fear and thoughtfully addressing the pandemic has paid large dividends for Florida. We should learn from this.
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