Berenson

There seems to be only one antidote to the mindless hysteria sown by the lies, distortions, and purposeful omissions of Team Apocalypse—Alex Berenson. In his best-selling e-book, Unreported Truths about COVID-19 and Lockdowns: Part 1 & Part 2 (available on Amazon, but only after pressure), Berenson does what few other journalists have done—he researches, he synthesizes, he reports unvarnished publicly available data and facts, he cites actual scientific research, he questions the strategies proposed by "experts,", he dissects the panicky decisions made by political leaders and public health experts, and he shows the absolute folly of our shutdown approach to SARS-Cov-2. 

But most importantly, he demonstrates the abject incompetence, bias, and dishonesty of a main stream media whose sole objective during these difficult times was to encourage fear, uncertainty, and doubt among the public to achieve political ends.

He begins by noting that the CDC had developed a scale for the severity of any pandemic similar to the five point scale used for hurricanes (another natural phenomenon). On the CDC scale, the conventional flu (killing 40,000 to 90,000 people each year) would be rated a level-1 event, and a catastrophic pandemic like the 1918 Spanish Flu (that killed 20 million people) would be rated a level-5 event. By the CDC's own metrics, SARS-Cov-2 is rated a level-2 event. The CDC further recommended (for many years before COVID-19) that no economic shutdowns or long-term school closures need be implemented for a level-2 pandemic. Why is it that not a single main stream media source mentions this scale or discusses why long-standing CDC recommendations were disregarded?

In part 2 of his book, Berenson begins by providing clear citations from major public health organizations (e.g., the CDC, WHO, The Institute of Medicine, Johns Hopkins University) that all concluded that large scale shutdowns are counter-productive and would not effectively stop the spread of a level-2 pandemic. He tries to understand why, despite the long-standing recommendations against a shutdown, that government shut down the economy in this case. He writes:

But the most likely explanation is the simplest. Faced with a risk of hundreds of thousands or millions of deaths [projected by flawed predictive models], the public health experts who for decades had counseled patience and caution flinched. They found they could not live with acknowledging how little control they or any of us had over the spread of an easily transmissible respiratory virus. They had to do something–even if they had been warning for decades that what they were about to do would not work and might have terrible secondary consequences.

The resultant decisions they made did more harm that good.  In conjunction with Team Apocalypse's propaganda campaign, the mandated shutdown heightened public hysteria. People panicked, and one of the results was this:

“In New York, emergency room visits for respiratory and flu-like symptoms rose from about 1,700 a day at the beginning of March to more than 4,000 by the middle of the month. Some people already had coronavirus or the flu. Others were simply afraid. For them, emergency rooms were an ideal ground to pick up or trade the virus. They also increased the risk of passing the virus to the physicians and medical staff who treat them–who in turn can spread it to patients who are already hospitalized.”

It gets worse: 

At the same time, lockdowns force people to stay inside. (Obviously. That’s the point of lockdowns.) Unfortunately, coronavirus spreads most efficiently inside, especially in households living in poorly ventilated apartments or small houses, their windows closed against winter cold or summer heat. On March 30, Dr. Mike Ryan, the Irish surgeon who leads the World Health Organization’s COVID containment and treatment program, warned at a WHO press conference: "At the moment, in most parts of the world, due to lockdown, most of the [virus] transmission that's actually happening in many countries now was is happening in the household at family level. In some senses, transmission has been taken off the streets and pushback into family units."

But, but, but, what about all the concern about keeping "non-essential" stores and restaurants closed?

The researchers—all public health experts—found that:

... 80 percent [of respiratory virus transmission] took place in homes or apartments. Another 34 percent occurred on public transportation (some outbreaks occurred in more than one place, or could not be placed at a single venue). All other venues, including stores and restaurants, accounted for less than 20 percent of infections combined. “Sharing indoor space is a major SARS-CoV-2 infection risk,” the researchers wrote.

So by all means, keep people closeted in their small homes and apartments, where 80 percent of transmission happens. 

Clear and irrefutable evidence indicates that between 40 and  50 percent of all SARS-Cov-2 deaths occurred in nursing homes. The problem is that broad shut-downs do nothing to prevent that.

Long-term care facilities are uniquely vulnerable to the coronavirus because their patients are both medically fragile and live close together. Fewer than 0.5 percent of Americans live in nursing homes–fewer than 1 in 200 people. But in both the United States and Europe, nursing home residents have accounted for 40 to 50 percent of all Covid deaths, well over 100,000 in all.

As deaths attributed to COVID-19 started dropping precipitously in June and July, Team Apocalypse pivoted to "cases." Their intent, abetted by the Team's trained hamsters in the media, was to continue to encourage people to be afraid, very afraid. Of course, 50 percent of the "cases" exhibited no symptoms whatsoever and their transmissibility is in question. Ninety percent of the remaining cases exhibited symptoms that are no different than the common cold, requiring no professional medical care at all. Berenson notes:

Six months into the epidemic, the data are clear: the overall number of people infected with Sars-Cov-2 is less relevant to the number of people who die than which people are infected. Only when nursing home and hospital outbreaks burn out do deaths decrease.

It's reasonable to fear death, but it's a sign of hysteria when you live in fear of something that has a statistically tiny probability of leading to death.

But in places with Democratic or politically progressive leadership, Team Apocalypse has won. Many, locales continue to mandate masks outside—an insane and wholly ineffective dictate that is pure theater. Schools remain closed despite the clear evidence of the damage that closure does to children. Petty tyrants who run some cities and states, continue to keep places of worship closed, while punishing businesses for trying to reopen, and citing or arresting young people for gathering. The power to do these things must be intoxicating for Dem leaders, hence they're doing them—using "safety" as an excuse.As a consequence, an irrational fear continues to grip a significant percentage of the populace, stoked by non-stop media propaganda.

Berenson and others like him will ultimately prevail in getting the truth out, but not until catastrophic damage has been done to children, adults, and businesses of all kinds.

The Hippocratic oath warns "... first do no harm." I can only wish that our political leaders and health care experts had followed that advice. They. Did. Not.