Our world has changed so much since the COVID-19 pandemic began that it can be hard to remember what life was like before. Nowadays, everyone has staked a position on masking, on vaccines, and on lockdowns, and not many people seem to budge.
The debates around masking and vaccinations have polarized the public and led to loads of controversy. From the attempted cancellation of Joe Rogan over heterodox opinions on COVID treatment to the Freedom Convoy and its movement against vaccine mandates, the discourse hasn’t always been friendly.
With certain elements of the pro-mask and pro-vax lobbies, there’s no sense of “live and let live” or “agree to disagree.” People who opt for the freedom not to don a mask or roll up their sleeves for a shot (or two, or three, or more) face ostracism and otherization from those in favor of masks and vaccines.
Have vaccine, masking, and lockdown policies done more harm than good? That’s the topic of a new study from a bevy of researchers from the U.S., Canada, and the UK. The paper was pre-published at the beginning of the month, and it hasn’t been peer-reviewed yet. But the study is generating some buzz already.
“Vaccination policies have shifted dramatically during COVID-19 with the rapid emergence of populationwide vaccine mandates, domestic vaccine passports, and differential restrictions based on vaccination status,” the abstract of the study begins. “These policies have prompted ethical, scientific, practical, and political controversy; however, there has been limited evaluation of their potential unintended consequences.”
Tara Henley, the journalist and producer who left her position at the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation over the CBC’s wokeness, interviewed researcher Kevin Bardosh for her Substack page, and the two primarily discussed what COVID policies have done to the public discourse.
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Bardosh explained the inspiration for the study.
“We saw this discourse on social media that’s very polarizing. It comes out of the lockdown discussions and it’s really cemented over the last two years,” he began. “Where you have, on the one hand, people who are very supportive of the vaccination mandates, saying horrible things, like, ‘If you are not vaccinated, you should lose your job.’ And: ‘We should maybe take kids away from their parents if their parents are not vaccinated.’ Very drastic statements.”
Bardosh also noted how the other side of the debate often fell by the wayside.
“Then on the other hand, people having what I would consider as pre-2020 public health norms: informed consent, the notion of proportionality [i.e. the benefits of a public health intervention should outweigh the harms], and putting human rights at the centre of public health,” he continued. “Which I think has really taken quite a nosedive during this pandemic, and I hope that we can build that up once the dust settles.”
Henley drilled down on a few of the specific issues that have led to the destruction of the public discourse, and Bardosh highlighted the about-face on vaccine mandates, questions concerning “efficacy of the vaccines on transmission,” and what he calls “this denial of acquired immunity, or natural immunity,” particularly in the U.S. and Canada.
Bardosh recalled his reaction to the assertion that the COVID vaccines would be a cure-all.
“I was looking at this data, and I was watching the news out of the U.S. mid 2021, where the CDC and the Biden administration are saying, ‘This is going to stop transmission. Once you get vaccinated, you don’t need to worry, you’re not going to get Covid,'” he remembered. “And I am like, ‘This is not true. And they must know it’s not true.’ But yet they are using this to increase vaccination rates. I have a problem with that. I have a problem with being dishonest, or telling white lies, or not being completely frank with the public, even if you think it’s better for them.”
Bardosh also noted that the “political psychology” surrounding vaccine propaganda has upended the perception of which parties are more interested in science in the U.S. and Canada alike.
“This is also what the pandemic I think, for me, has blown a hole in,” he admitted. “Which is this whole notion of the Liberals, and the Democrats, being a pro-science party. And the Conservatives, or the Republicans, being the anti-science party. For me personally, that was a narrative I grew up with. I’ve seen it blow up over the past two years.”
Henley and Bardosh also touched on the political rhetoric surrounding the push to vaccinate as many people as possible. When Henley asked him about “how political leaders have actively blamed the unvaccinated for the continuation of the pandemic,” Bardosh highlighted two particular world leaders.
“Justin Trudeau obviously had some pretty inflammatory statements along those lines,” he said. “Which is ironic, given his stance on supposedly supporting human rights, minority groups, the right to protest.”
“Emmanuel Macron in France very deliberately said, ‘Our approach is to piss off the unvaccinated,'” Bardosh continued. “That gets back to this notion of proportionality. If your goal in a public health program is to make people’s lives miserable, or difficult, is that informed consent? Is that an appropriate or ethical response? I wouldn’t think so. It’s draconian and coercive.”
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Henley then asked Bardosh about the political polarization surrounding pandemic policy, and he noted that even though the prevailing narrative is that the bulk of the resistance to vaccines and other mandates has come from the right, the truth is that advocates for medical freedom represent a “cross section of society.” He also expressed his concerns about the debate between health policy and liberty.
“We’ve created a normative biosecurity state response that’s very forceful,” he said. “I think there are some fundamental questions about the infringement on human rights and civil liberties that need to be talked about more truthfully.”
Henley and Bardosh concluded their discussion by talking about how the pre-published version of the study has stirred up more discussion on how governments are responding to the pandemic. Bardosh pointed out from his own experience that “typically progressive Liberals, or individuals who lost their job, who have been harmed by these policies” in Canada.
He concluded with a strong refutation of Justin Trudeau’s approach to the Freedom Convoy.
“The Emergencies Act has been invoked,” Bardosh said. “These people are protesting because of an infringement on their rights, because of emergency mandates. And then you are going to one-up them and call in a further state of emergency? I think it’s going to polarize the discussion even more.”
I wish I had the confidence that politicians would read this study and do everything they can to make sure conditions like these don’t happen again. But we know that the tyrants on the left will never admit that their draconian policies and silly promises contributed to this divide, so we can rest assured that they won’t learn from their mistakes.
