A blizzard of backtracking and revisionism from the architects of the covid restrictions has been underway for some time. NIAID Director Anthony Fauci admitting there was no science behind the 6 ft distancing rule and the harmful child-masking policy; Coronavirus Response Coordinator Deborah Birx acknowledging, in her book, that she pulled her recommended restrictions on lockdowns, size of gatherings, and distancing out of thin air; CDC Director Rochelle Walensky walking back her claim that vaccinated people don’t carry the virus… and an avalanche of articles from the deeply complicit media - New York Times, Washington Post, Atlantic, New York Magazine - on the disastrous effects of the prolonged school closures.
But these powerful actors could not, alone, have imposed the US covid response with its immense predictable, and predicted, collateral damage. They needed, and got, the eager assistance of an army of medical and public health professionals, who acted with total disregard for the lack of supporting evidence for their actions, for who was actually at risk, as well as for existing pandemic guidelines and long-standing public health ethical principles.
Their enthusiastic support – in the media, through public health professional groups, as expert witnesses in lawsuits – was vital to the imposition and continuation of the covid-restriction regimen.
Some were even willing to contradict their own prior scientific statements and publications in their stampede to support the official line. One example, from a California lawsuit, is illustrative of the power of the pervasive groupthink.
California’s repressive covid-restriction regime triggered many lawsuits. One such lawsuit, filed against the State of California and Santa Clara County, was Tandon vs Newsom.
Tandon was filed in September 2020. In their November 2020 response, the state and county filed a blizzard of opposing expert declarations from academics and public health professionals from across the country. They tended to be long on credentialism, and short on substantiating evidence for their support for ‘community restrictions,’ the favored euphemism for the destructive business shutdowns, extended school closures, and enforced isolation imposed on California residents.
One declaration stood out, for the wrong reasons – the sworn declaration from Harvard Professor of Epidemiology Marc Lipsitch.
It stood out because Lipsitch had previously published a scientific commentary in the journal Epidemiology that contradicted the positions he took in his Tandon court declaration.
Marc Lipsitch published the article in question in 2008, using the varicella virus to illustrate his positions, and made the following key assertion:
“Epidemic theory dictates that a reduction in the force of infection by a pathogen is associated with an increase in the average age at which individuals are exposed.”
His paper explains further:
“That reducing exposure and risk of infection with pathogens should alleviate morbidity (both for individuals and for communities) is self-evident.
But the link between limiting pathogen exposure and improving public health is not always so straightforward. Reducing the risk that each member of a community will be exposed to a pathogen has the attendant effect of increasing the average age at which infections occur.
For pathogens that inflict greater morbidity at older ages, interventions that reduce but do not eliminate exposure can paradoxically increase the number of cases of severe disease by shifting the burden of infection toward older individuals.”
This statement, as it turns out, was highly applicable to the covid pandemic, and to objective assessment of the desirability of the restrictions imposed.
Fast-forward to Dec 2020. By then, it was clear from the data that the SARS-COV2 virus and the public health response to it fit the characteristics in that excerpt from Lipsitch’s paper:
- nbsp; “Inflict greater morbidity at older ages” - The data showed covid had far greater morbidity at older ages
- nbsp; “Interventions that reduce but do not eliminate exposure” - The interventions imposed by Public Health clearly did not eliminate exposure for any population. Large infection waves were occurring seasonally, and vulnerable older Americans continued to be infected along the same seasonal curve as the general population, accounting for the overwhelming majority of deaths.
However, in his sworn Tandon declaration, Lipsitch argued in favor of California’s severe community restrictions, stating they were necessary for “reducing or eliminating community transmission.” And further, “without reducing community transmission, strategies focused on protecting vulnerable populations are unlikely to succeed.”
Apart from the fact that community transmission was very obviously not being eliminated by the restrictions in place, nor the vulnerable populations protected, this claim directly contradicted Lipsitch’s 2008 paper that warned that measures that did not eliminate exposure would merely increase the burden of disease by increasing the average age of exposure over time, with its attendant far higher morbidity.
It follows that unless a medical intervention became available at some point that changed the course of the disease, the community restrictions Lipsitch was advocating for would merely increase mortality by increasing the age of exposure.
A sterilizing vaccine could, hypothetically, be the means for such a change in disease trajectory. Lipsitch did indeed hold out this carrot and stated in his declaration that the restrictions were necessary “until an effective vaccine is available.”
But what would need to be the characteristics of an “effective vaccine” in order to change the disease trajectory? Lipsitch made his views on this crystal clear with a comparison to the immunity provided by recovery from infection from covid:
“….coronavirus immunity is notoriously short-lived and partial.
…As a result, widespread infection in the general population is unlikely to eliminate the disease, but will more likely result in a persistent problem until an effective vaccine is available and widely adopted.”
It follows that to avoid a “persistent problem” an “effective vaccine” would have to confer immunity significantly superior to the “notoriously short-lived and partial” immunity gained through recovery from covid.
But as a researcher heavily involved with vaccines overall, Lipsitch surely knew that:
- No sterilizing vaccine for a coronavirus had ever been developed.
- Vaccines usually provide LESS protection than prior infection. So, the “notoriously short-lived and partial” immunity he cited from covid recovery was unlikely to be improved upon by a vaccine.
- And, indeed, in multiple studies performed after their introduction, the covid vaccines then under development were demonstrated to have substantially less protective power than prior infection - an entirely predictable result.
So Lipsitch must have known that the covid vaccines would almost certainly confer no better immunity than the “notoriously short-lived and partial” immunity conferred by covid recovery. And therefore, it would not significantly change the disease dynamics.
Indeed, he had indicated as much in his 2008 paper, stating that for viruses with a “high basic reproductive number” that have vaccines of “moderate effectiveness,” “transmission is not eliminated even at relatively high levels of vaccine coverage.”
In summary, Lipsitch had to be well aware that his claims of substantial benefits from California’s covid restrictions, that could justify their enormous harm, were contradicted by his own earlier publication.
When contacted to explain the discrepancy between his statements in his journal article about viruses, their associated vaccines, and consequent disease trajectory vis-à-vis his declaration, Lipsitch did not do so, but deflected to a different example in his paper – a bacterium which had no vaccine. He claimed the covid scenario was therefore “entirely different” and there was “no contradiction” between his paper and his declaration.
A published paper is obviously meant to be a serious contribution to the knowledge base on a scientific topic. Equally obviously, a sworn court declaration is a serious commitment to the truth.
With that in mind, it is exceedingly difficult to reconcile Dr. Lipsitch’s published paper and his court declaration.
Unfortunately, Lipsitch is no isolated example.
Far too many influential professionals and even medical organizations eagerly rushed in with similarly questionable support for draconian restrictions whose societal harms were already very evident. The American Association of Pediatrics abandoned decades of studies on the importance of human faces for babies’ development. And, in July 2020, in a politicized 180 degree turn, the AAP also walked back its recommendation that schools re-open, despite the well-understood harms to children of school closures.
Collectively, these public health professionals own the disastrous consequences: the generation of children harmed, the epidemic of mental illness, the enormous economic harm, the deaths of despair – all while failing to save lives. National comparisons of age-standardized excess all-cause mortality over several years of the pandemic timeframe show that reviled Sweden, which followed the pre-2020 evidence-based pandemic guidelines, shines in comparison to peer EU countries that imposed draconian restrictions, and even compares favorably with most of its Nordic peers, while coming in a close second to Norway.
Public health also owns the cratering of trust in its profession, which failed us when it mattered most. Only forthright acknowledgement of the grave errors made, and a demonstrated commitment to evidence-based science in the future, can rebuild confidence in this formerly admired institution.
As for Tandon vs Newsom itself, one of its three claims made its way to the US Supreme Court. On April 9, 2021, the Court ruled in its favor.
Paulette Altmaier initiated and sponsored the Tandon et al vs Newsom federal court case. She is a retired Silicon Valley technology executive.
