“It’s time for the scientific community to admit we were wrong about Covid and it cost lives”.

Yes. Bravo. Is this the beginnings of sobering admissions and humility or is there more to it?

Kevin Bass wrote this and although I don’t know him or much about him, it seems sincere enough. Within his Op Ed, he makes some bold claims and some significant misses. I’ll highlight just a few for my readers as this is my 2nd substack publication in one day and I don’t want to inundate anyone with too much.

“I was wrong. We in the scientific community were wrong. And it cost lives.”

Kudos to Mr. Brass for starting out owning when he is wrong and admitting to the public for his participation. It’s exactly what the world needs - honest scientists, doctors, officials who take responsibility for owning their errors and the consequences of those errors no matter the professional or economic fall out. I believe this is the best step forward to rebuilding trust and I applaud him for his actions.

He goes on to state:

“But perhaps more important than any individual error was how inherently flawed the overall approach of the scientific community was, and continues to be. It was flawed in a way that undermined its efficacy and resulted in thousands if not millions of preventable deaths.”

Importantly, he recognizes the harms are still ongoing and they are indeed. My patients, my family, my community I all have palpable distress and suffering from this ongoing fiasco to oppress and remove any physician who challenged the now admittedly wrong approach. One of my first questions in 2020 was “to what end” and I asked it almost every day.

Mr. Bass goes on to outline how much of the public was not considered in policy making, particularly the already most vulnerable groups in our communities. Of course they suffered more at the hands of colonialist power hungry elites who found ways to “other” and dehumanize them even more. Pointedly, Mr. Bass did not mention the elderly as one of the disempowered groups who suffered equally as badly from policies that removed their last wishes, care needs, dignity and comfort. So I’ll just ensure my readers understand their elderly loved ones are not forgotten and I will continue to speak out about the cruelty the medical industrial complex inflicted upon them unnecessarily and unjustifiably.

I appreciate the acknowledgement of the politically driven emotional reaction by the masses of scientists, physicians, nurses, and public health officials. Mr. Bass hit the nail on the head in this moment. Fear and panic caused by the political elites was absolutely not the best approach. As an analogy, imagine you or your loved one is brought in by ems to an emergency department and instead of a calm, rational, organized and systematic action required in a crisis to save your life, the doctor in charge started running around in circles calling out for random irrelevant objects that will be of no use in saving your life. Although the timeframe is condensed in this example, it really is akin to the emotionally captured and driven response from the beginning until now that we have all suffered through.

Mr. Bass groups strong talented dissident scientists and professionals in the same sentence as former president Trump. I’m sure it was an oversight but it’s worth mentioning for its rhetorical texture.

A healthy level of skepticism at all times is like being on your toes and ready to spot a wizard. I could go on about his use of labelling and undertones of arrogance. But, I’ll stop here and accept this in the good faith it appears to be on the surface.

I was just reading the updated newly published Cochran systematic review on masks and other non-pharmacological interventions related to Covid/influenza. I’ll likely share my thoughts on this soon. If interested here is the link so you can review it yourself. Systematic review is the best quality medical or scientific evidence. https://www.cochranelibrary.com/cdsr/doi/10.1002/14651858.CD006207.pub6/full

Goodnight, ya’ll.