COVID-19
COVID Is Over — But Did We Learn Anything From It?

From the Daily Caller News Foundation
By PETER ROFF
The lockdowns instituted during the COVID pandemic were only supposed to last a few days. Remember “14 days to flatten the curve” was all that was needed to keep hospitals from being overwhelmed by patients infected with the rapidly spreading novel coronavirus.
Two weeks turned into three, then months. Schools were closed. Businesses were shut down. Commercial activity in the world’s most powerful nation ground almost to a halt, but the virus kept killing, mutating and spreading.
States like California and Kentucky enforced the lockdowns with ruthless efficiency. The free exercise of worship and assembly was crushed on the altar of public health and safety.
Was it worth it? The Committee to Unleash Prosperity’s report, “COVID Lessons Learned: A Retrospective After Four Years,” says no. Its authors, who include the Hoover Institution’s Dr. Scott Atlas (who served as an adviser to the White House Coronavirus Task Force), Johns Hopkins University economist Steve Hanke and the University of Chicago’s Casey Mulligan conclude, by using publicly available data and peer-reviewed studies, that the lockdowns cost more lives than they saved.
Atlas, Hanke, Mulligan and Phil Kerpen, president of the Committee to Unleash Prosperity (CTUP) and the fourth and final co-author, conclude: “The ordered shutdown of our schools, churches, and businesses brought little health benefits while imposing multi-trillions of dollars of long-term societal costs.”
“We did not focus on theories or models. We looked at cold, hard facts,” Kerpen says. “The evidence is overwhelming. Lockdowns, school closures, and societal panic/disruption resulted in a staggering number of excess non-COVID deaths in the United States versus zero in non-lockdown Sweden.”
Kerpen estimates that the policies implemented during the lockdowns saved approximately 16,000 lives while causing about 400,000 extra deaths and imposing staggering economic costs, including the loss of 49 million jobs.
Other adverse consequences stemming from the lockdowns cited in the report include a $6 trillion increase in government debt, hundreds of thousands of business bankruptcies and hundreds of thousands of excess deaths from loneliness, depression, alcoholism, drug abuse and delayed hospital care in part due to the forced social isolation.
In the U.S., catastrophes like COVID are usually followed by the appointment of bi-partisan, blue-ribbon commissions to study everything and issue recommendations we’re told will prevent something similar from happening again.
That hasn’t been done this time, which reinforces the suspicion in some minds that COVID-era policymakers who are still in a position to influence the conversation are hiding something. Having made a hash of things, they just as soon allow it all to slide down the memory hole.
Even in China, where popular opinion doesn’t matter, the investigation into the origins of the virus hit a stonewall thanks to what news reports have called “bureaucratic infighting.”
Too many people think the lockdowns worked. They’re ignoring the data. The CTUP report shows them to be wrong. It’s a call for a further probe that searches for the truth, no matter how uncomfortable it might be. Without it, how can we be sure the public’s health and safety will be protected the next time, not to mention our civil liberties?
The CTUP report offers a few “lessons learned” that should inform policymakers’ decision-making in the next crisis. One is that “Leaders should calm public fears, not stoke them.”
“Conventional wisdom pre-COVID was that communities respond best to pandemics when the normal social functioning of the community is least disrupted,” the authors conclude. During the pandemic, responsible officials in the public eye “intentionally stoked and amplified fear, which overlaid enormous economic, social, educational, and health harms on top of the harms of the virus itself.”
As hard as it is to argue against that, it’s easy to suggest the crisis was used as a political club. What of it? Suppose public health officials, the media, and other policymakers deliberately ignored sound science and proven pandemic countermeasures to inflict political damage on a president they wished to see booted from office. Does that matter? The answer is yes, it does.
There’s more to be learned because there’s more to be studied. None of the nations that used lockdowns to prevent COVID from spreading can report that they worked as intended.
“The best-performing major country in the world was Sweden,” Kerpen says, “which did not employ mandatory lockdowns. Yet, to the extent that official and unofficial commissions in many countries have issued reports, they say the principal lesson to be learned from the pandemic is to lockdown harder and faster. The evidence doesn’t support that. It tells us that the lockdown policies must never be imposed again.”
If Kerpen is correct, and the evidence suggests he is, then policymakers are drawing the wrong conclusions. Lockdowns were a failure, not a success.
Other ways must be found to prevent a future outbreak from turning into a pandemic, hopefully, before the next crisis presents itself.
A former U.S. News & World Report columnist and United Press International senior political writer, Peter Roff is an acknowledged expert on U.S. politics and the policy process. His take on politics and policy appears frequently in print and on U.S. and international broadcasting outlets. Email him at RoffColumns AT gmail.com. Follow him on social media AT TheRoffDraft.
COVID-19
10 Shocking Stories the Media Buried This Week

Measles, Fauci, Politics and Public Education. This is a fascinating read
#10 – ‘Measles Death’ of 6-Year-Old Girl Exposed as a Media HOAX
The media claimed a 6-year-old girl died of measles, but “she did not die of measles by any stretch of the imagination,” Dr. Pierre Kory says.
“In fact, she died of pneumonia. But it gets worse than that because she didn’t really die of pneumonia. She died of a MEDICAL ERROR.”
Let that sink in.
What happened was a complete breakdown in basic medical care. The hospital failed to give her the appropriate antibiotic regimen to treat her pneumonia. By the time they corrected their mistake, it was too late, and the girl died “catastrophically.”
“I mean, this is like medicine 101. You put them on two antibiotics to cover all the possibilities. It’s a grievous error, and it’s an error which led to her death,” Dr. Kory attested.
Not only did Covenant Children’s Hospital fail to provide the appropriate antibiotic, but when they noticed their error, they dragged their feet and took another 10 hours to administer it.
“By that time, she was already on a ventilator. And approximately 24 hours later—actually, less than 24 hours later—she died,” Dr. Kory explained.
And she did not pass away peacefully. According to Dr. Kory, “She died rather catastrophically.”
And while her family grieved, the media hijacked her death to stir fear and push the vaccine narrative. Just another “measles death” used as a political weapon.
This is a case Dr. Pierre Kory calls “absolutely enraging.”
And it is. Just another example of how the media will shamelessly twist the story of a grieving family’s loss to push Big Pharma’s agenda. That’s not just dishonest. That’s evil, plain and simple.
Follow @ChildrensHD for the full interview and more details on this enraging story.
(See 9 More Revealing Stories Below)
#9 – Bill Maher guest calls out Fauci’s ridiculous pardon, saying, “There’s a reason he was given a pardon back to 2014.”
“There is something very wrong going on here.”
“Everyone knew it [gain-of-function research] was dangerous a long time ago. You go back to 2015, you will find a big meeting in London where they say there’s one lab in the world most likely to have a problem with this—Wuhan. Do you know who was the biggest supporter of gain of function research for the last 30 years? Anthony Fauci.”
It turns out that in 2014, 300 scientists warned Anthony Fauci would start a global pandemic.
RFK Jr. previously explained that following the high-profile escape of three bugs from U.S. labs, these 300 scientists sent a letter to President Obama, urging him to shut down Anthony Fauci’s gain-of-function research.
Obama issued a moratorium and shut down 18 of the worst projects by Anthony Fauci. In the end, he really didn’t shut them down. Instead, Obama moved the research offshore to places like Ukraine, the former Soviet State of Georgia, and the Wuhan Institute of Virology in Wuhan, China.
Now, it is widely accepted that COVID-19 originated from that very lab in Wuhan, China. The 300 scientists were right when they said Anthony Fauci would start a global pandemic.
#8 – Kevin O’Leary delivers a harsh reality check to people burning Teslas: You’re going to “rot in hell in prison.”
“And frankly, as far as I’m concerned, that’s okay,” he said.
O’Leary left no room for debate, making it clear that there’s zero justification for the destruction:
“When you set a car on fire, you should go to jail. You’re a criminal. And I don’t think we have to talk about it in any other context.”
He also had a blunt message for those thinking they’ll get away with it:
“And all those cars have cameras in them, and those dealerships have cameras. You’re beyond being stupid when you do that… You’re going to spend five to 20 years in prison. If they get them on terrorism—which I think is a stretch—there will be no parole, no shortened sentence. They’ll rot in hell in prison for 20 years. And frankly, as far as I’m concerned, that’s okay.”
#7- Stephen A. Smith Rips his OWN STAFF while recording his show.
Smith grilled his staff’s loyalty to the Democratic Party after pitching this common-sense idea to Democrats: “Rather than telling us what we should vote against, maybe you should present us with options of what to vote for.”
“I mean, my God. Are you okay, Michael, with me suggesting that? Are you okay with me, Sherry, suggesting that?” Smith asked.
“Rashawn Galen and all of a bunch of leftists that’s under my umbrella trying to act like they’re independents when they’re full of it! I’m talking about my own damn staff,” he clarified.
“I’m a centrist. I think my man, Rashawn, is a centrist. The rest of these damn people working for me. I mean, what left-wing party are you associated with? I mean, you gotta believe this stuff.”
“Pay for performance. That’s what businesses do. There’s no reason we shouldn’t be running our public schools in the same way.”
Vivek announced that he plans for Ohio to become the first state in the nation to adopt merit-based pay for every teacher, principal, and administrator.
He says that performance reviews should go beyond standardized testing, incorporating peer reviews, parent feedback, and student outcomes—with a clear goal of rewarding the best educators.
“The best teachers in the country right now, sadly, are underpaid. We need to fix that—but fix it through meritocracy,” Vivek said. “Thanks to President Trump’s bold actions today, we can lead the way.”
While you’re here, don’t forget to follow me (@VigilantFox) for more weekly news roundups.
#5 – Tim Walz absurdly claims that Trump’s plan to dismantle the Department of Education could take America back to an era of racial segregation.
“And then it’s about the Civil Rights Department at the Department of Education that makes sure that we don’t have a situation where a Ruby Bridges is escorted to school with police. And so we’re back in an area where we can segregate,” Walz said.
Somehow, giving control back to the states means we’re suddenly back in 1960. This is why no one takes Democrats seriously anymore. All they do is cry wolf.
#4 – Bill Maher believes JFK wasn’t killed by a lone gunman—says a lot of people wanted Kennedy dead.
QUESTION: “Is it time to move on from this conspiracy theory?”
MAHER: “Well, I mean, do you think it’s a conspiracy theory? Plainly, there was not a single gunman, right?… But the magic bullet. There could not have been a bullet that went through a guy, went around him, came back, went through the other guy, got lunch at the diner, came back, shot him in the back of the head. I mean, it’s just. Come on, everybody heard a shot from the grassy knoll.”
“The idea that the CIA is going to now suddenly go, ‘You’re right, we had something to do with it.’ I’m not saying they did, but a lot of people wanted him [JFK] dead.”
“So you may think that the government computers all talk to each other. They synchronize, they add up what funds are going somewhere, and it’s coherent that the numbers, for example, that you’re presented as a senator, are actually the real numbers. They’re not,” Musk explained.
“They’re not totally wrong,” he continued. “They’re probably off by 5% or 10% in some cases. So I call it Magic Money Computer. Any computer which can just make money out of thin air. That’s Magic Money.”
“So how does that work?” Ted Cruz asked.
“It just issues payments,” Musk answered. “I think we found now 14 magic money computers. They just send money out of nothing.”
This raises a critical question: If the government’s books are off by 5% to 10% in some cases, leaving up to hundreds of billions of dollars unaccounted for, where is all that money actually going?
#2 – The New York Times finally ADMITS the “conspiracy theorists” were right about COVID and that Fauci and the “experts” misled the public.
“Perhaps we were misled on purpose.”
I can’t believe they actually printed this. Here’s what they’re finally admitting:
• Tony Fauci, Francis Collins, and Jeremy Farrar coordinated a media strategy to discredit lab leak discussions. Emails show they worked behind the scenes to smear and silence anyone who questioned the official narrative.
• The Biden administration and intelligence agencies pressured social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook to censor lab leak discussions and label them as “misinformation.”
• Kristian Andersen, Robert Garry, and other scientists knew the truth but covered it up. Behind closed doors, they admitted a lab escape was likely. In public, they dismissed it as a “conspiracy theory.”
• WHO’s Jeremy Farrar got a burner phone to secretly coordinate meetings with Fauci, Collins, and top scientists, ensuring their discussions stayed off the record.
• Kristian Andersen, Robert Garry, and Eddie Holmes strategized how to mislead New York Times reporter Donald McNeil Jr., making sure he didn’t dig too deep into the lab leak theory.
• The infamous Proximal Origin paper, authored by Andersen, Garry, Holmes, Andrew Rambaut, and W. Ian Lipkin, was a coordinated effort to mislead the public. Private Slack messages revealed they believed a lab escape was not only possible but likely—yet they publicly denied it.
• Peter Daszak and EcoHealth Alliance helped cover for the Wuhan Institute of Virology, despite knowing their risky gain-of-function research could have caused the outbreak.
• The Wuhan lab, run by Shi Zhengli (“Bat Woman”), had horrifyingly lax safety protocols—yet they expected the public to believe a leak was impossible.
And now, after years of smearing and slandering the “conspiracy theorists,” The New York Times is quietly admitting the so-called “conspiracy theorists” were right all along.
#1 – RFK Jr. Sounds the Alarm on Bird Flu Vaccines
The USDA plans to inject millions of chickens to stop the bird flu outbreak, but RFK Jr. says “leaky vaccines” could make things worse.
He breaks it down here. This is the must-read thread of the week:
Originals
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RFK Jr. Issues Grave Vaccination Warning |
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The USDA wants to vaccinate millions of chickens to stop the bird flu. They claim it’s the ultimate solution, but not everyone’s convinced. RFK Jr., for one, is sounding the alarm.
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While you’re here, don’t forget to follow me (@VigilantFox) for more weekly news roundups.
COVID-19
Mark Carney was an early supporter of government crackdown against Freedom Convoy

From LifeSiteNews
It is difficult not to conclude that he was publicly building the case for what Trudeau would ultimately do: freeze bank accounts, invoke the Emergencies Act, and launch a crackdown. Ironically, a federal justice would conclude, based on a mountain of evidence, that the government crackdown Carney appeared to be advocating did precisely what he accused the convoy protesters of doing: violating the fundamental rights of Canadians.
The Freedom Convoy arrived in Ottawa on January 29, 2022. Two weeks later, on February 14, Justin Trudeau declared the Emergencies Act (which replaced the War Measures Act in 1988); his Public Safety Minister, Marco Mendicino, insisted that law enforcement had requested the measure. Police from all over the country began arriving in Ottawa, and on February 18, they were sent to clear the streets — including a contingent on horseback. I was in Ottawa for the crackdown, and some of the scenes were surreal.
On January 23, 2024, Federal Court Justice Richard Mosley ruled that Trudeau’s decision to invoke the Emergencies Act was both “unreasonable” and a violation of the rights of Canadians as guaranteed by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. He found that the invocation of the act lacked “justification, transparency, and intelligibility,” infringed on freedom of expression, and violated protection against “unreasonable search and seizure” due to the freezing of bank accounts and suppression of protests.
The Trudeau government is appealing this decision, insisting — against all evidence — that the Emergencies Act was essential to restoring peace despite the fact that there was not a single incident of documented violence during the Freedom Convoy. Further to that, Royal Canadian Mounted Police commissioner Brenda Lucki directly contradicted the claims made by Mendicino, stating that law enforcement had not requested the Emergencies Act, a key aspect of the government’s justification for invocation. “There was never a question of requesting the Emergencies Act,” Lucki told the Public Order Emergency Commission bluntly.
Interestingly, one of the early advocates of a crackdown on the Freedom Convoy was … now-Prime Minister Mark Carney. On February 7, a mere week into the protests, Carney penned a furious editorial in the Globe and Mail titled “This is sedition—and it’s time to put an end to it in Ottawa.” He claimed that people were being “terrorized”; that women were “fleeing abuse”; he stated, bluntly, “This is sedition. That’s a word I never thought I’d use in Canada. It means ‘incitement of resistance to or insurrection against lawful authority.’”
Carney went further, writing that although the protest might have been initially peaceful, “by now anyone sending money to the convoy should be in no doubt: You are funding sedition,” and called on the government to “identify those who are prolonging this manufactured crisis and punish them to the full extent of the law.” He opined that donating to the Freedom Convoy amounted to supporting an insurrection, concluding:
It’s time to end the sedition in Ottawa by enforcing the law and following the money … Decisive action must be taken to protect Canadians and our democracy. Our Constitution is based on peace, order and good government. We must live up to this founding principle in order to protect all our freedoms.”
Carney was already a key figure in Trudeau’s circle at this point, and it is difficult not to conclude that he was publicly building the case for what Trudeau would ultimately do: freeze bank accounts, invoke the Emergencies Act, and launch a crackdown. Ironically, a federal justice would conclude, based on a mountain of evidence, that the government crackdown Carney appeared to be advocating did precisely what he accused the convoy protesters of doing: violating the fundamental rights of Canadians.
Carney has kept understandably mum on all this since his leadership race and subsequent victory, although presumably he will be continuing the Trudeau government’s ongoing appeal to overturn the federal ruling that they violated the rights of Canadians. Indeed, for his Chief of Staff, Carney chose … Marco Mendicino, the very cabinet minister who appears to have blatantly lied about law enforcement requesting the Emergencies Act. Ironically, Carney also selected Chrystia Freeland, the minister directly responsible for freezing (at minimum) the bank accounts of hundreds of Canadians, as Minister of Transport.
To state that the Trudeau government violated the fundamental rights of Canadians in cracking down on protesters often rendered desperate by their vaccine mandate policies — which they cynically used as a wedge issue in a (failed) attempted to secure a second majority government — is not a right-wing conspiracy theory. It is the considered opinion of a federal judge that, to date, has not been overturned. Carney appears to be cut from precisely the same cloth — and has surrounded himself with those who carried out the crackdown.
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