A COVID Autopsy, Part 1: 'The Virus Can Be Stopped, but Only With Harsh Steps, Experts Say'

The indictment of a top aide to Dr. Anthony Fauci, formerly of the National Institutes of Health, for misleading the public on COVID has kicked off a renewed effort to hold the experts accountable for dishonesty and deceit about the virus. But do we really remember the start of the pandemic? What the experts and their handmaidens in the legacy media said was true, and what definitely – allegedly – wasn’t?

Those were heady days. Information about the virus and its danger were hazy; leaders and everyone else were scared about what was to come. It can feel uncharitable to look back critically at the pronouncements and decisions made at the time considering that.

But these were not forgivable missteps, or slightly missed calculations. The failures were era- and generation-defining.

There’s plenty of blame to go around. Governments and elected leaders were the decision makers, after all. But I feel like we’re in danger of letting the legacy press off the hook. The institution of the media has constitutionally enshrined protections precisely because they are supposed to hold government to account – and what could have been a more vital time to do so than when governments at all levels were wielding more power, limiting individual freedom more dramatically, than any time in recent history?