No True Scotsman: Lockdown as social and political phenomenon
No True Scotsman: Lockdown as social and political phenomenon
101 commentators who urged harder Covid lockdowns
In Shanghai, China, millions of residents have been locked in their homes for weeks. Those who test positive for Covid are taken to detention camps and their pets are killed. Many face starvation, and there have been countless suicides. Despite all this—as is the case in every country that implemented them—these inhuman policies have failed to stop the virus.
This gruesome spectacle has been taken in with horror by international onlookers. Many who once supported lockdowns have gone silent. Indeed, these scenes are the logical conclusion of the Zero Covid cause, and serve as a grim reminder of the dystopia that could have been our own had they gotten their way.
Who gave life to this deadly ideology which culminated in such catastrophe? Below is a sample of 101 individuals and institutions with significant, public-facing credentials who advocated for “real” lockdowns—harder, longer, or earlier than those imposed across the world in March 2020—to control Covid.
As many have noted, journalists and health professionals are overrepresented in this group. Most lean to the political left. Even more telling is that, of all 101 individuals, not a single one appears to have been financially affected by the lockdowns they were advocating. Below is a telling example:
This indicates that many were aware lockdowns caused significant harm to others—even lethal harm—but were reassured by the fact that those harms did not affect them, personally. Many justified a “real” lockdown as being necessary to prevent further lockdowns. Presumably, this means that some may have stopped supporting lockdowns after seeing they’d failed. That said, all appear to live in states and countries that implemented strict lockdowns in March 2020, and that did not stop them from advocating stricter lockdowns, indicating that some may have advocated even stricter lockdowns in a “no true Scotsman” loop.
Lockdown had no history in the western world prior to Xi Jinping’s lockdown of Wuhan, China, and was not part of any western pandemic plan, but it’s unclear, in most cases, whether those in this sample were thinking of China when advocating for “real” lockdowns. Lockdown was a social phenomenon, and many likely promoted lockdown simply because they saw their peers promoting lockdown. Those who opposed lockdowns were often vilified and censored by powerful institutions; this may have led to an association of support for lockdowns with power, leading many to believe they need not examine the policy prior to advocating it.
To be sure, this is a very tiny sample of those who promoted lockdowns on social media. Additionally, for every person who publicly advocated lockdowns, countless others quietly acquiesced while playing no role in the debate. Tragically, these silent enablers included the leaders of our society’s highest governing bodies who, each in their own way, could have stopped the entire lockdown catastrophe; this stand-down by the stewards of our most revered institutions gave a veneer of legitimacy to the broad implementation of a Xi Jinping policy across the free world. Nonetheless, all the individuals in this sample publicly advocated policies that caused substantial harm to others in pursuit of a goal that—as Shanghai has so tragically demonstrated—was doomed ab initio.
Devi Sridhar, Public Health ProfessorTom Frieden, Former CDC Director
Jerome Adams, Former Surgeon General
Bill Gates, Software developer
Anthony Fauci, NIH Director
Rochelle Walensky, CDC Director
Eric Feigl-Ding
Michael Osterholm, Infectious Disease Professor
Ian Mackay, Virologist
Angela Rasmussen, Virologist
Ellie Murray, Epidemiology Professor
Lisa Iannattone, Dermatology Professor
David Fisman, Public Health Professor
Irfan Dhalla, Medical Professor
Christina Pagel, Operational Research Professor
Zoë Hyde, Epidemiologist
Isaac Bogoch, Infectious Disease Physician
Tomás Ryan, Neuroscientist
Susan Michie, Health Psychology Professor
Bruce Arthur, Toronto Star Columnist
Yaneer Bar-Yam, Physicist
Mike Gibbs, Ontario Ministry of Health
Deepti Gurdasani, Epidemiologist
Brian Goldman, ER MD
The New York Times Editorial Board
Jacobin Magazine
John Ross, China lobbyist
Chen Weihua, China Daily EU Bureau Chief
James Palmer, Foreign Policy Magazine Deputy Director
Peter Daou, Democratic Campaign Strategist
Erica Joy, CTO at Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee
Dr. Oz
Jason Silverstein, Medical Professor
Yoni Freedhoff, Medical Professor
Zubaida Haque, Equality Trust Director
Daniel Andrews, Premier of Victoria, Australia
Kevin Rudd, Former Prime Minister of Australia
Diane Abbott, MP
Timm Bruch, CTV Reporter
Shafi Ahmed, Medical Professor
Abe Oudshoorn, Nursing Professor
Ananyo Bhattacharya, Science Writer
Bloomberg Opinion
Brendan Crabb, Microbiologist
Luke Bailey, iPaper Editor
Paul Bongiorno, Saturday Paper Columnist
Dirk Devroey, Medical Professor
Emily Deans, Psychiatrist
Ximena González, Freelance Writer
Omar Ghraieb, Oxfam Policy and Campaigns Officer
Zoe Daniel, Australian Politician
Diederik Gommers, Chairman of the Dutch association for ICU doctors
Jay Beecher, Investigative Journalist
Femi Oluwole, Writer at The Independent
Jennifer Gunter, OB/GYN
Cheri DiNovo, Canadian Politician
Malgorzata Gasperowicz, Developmental Biologist
Andrew Gaffney, Sports Writer
Andreas Eenfeldt, CEO at Diet Doctor
Quentin Dempster, Journalist
Simon Houpt, Writer at Globe and Mail
Issa López, Film Director
Rhys Jones, Public Health Doctor
Emmett Macfarlane, Political Science Professor
Bartley Kives, CBC Reporter
Jane Merrick, iPaper Policy Editor
Virginia Heffernan, Wired Columnist
Brian Klaas, Global Politics Professor
Andrea Horwath, Canadian Politician
Judy Melinek, Forensic Pathologist
Chico Harlan, Washington Post Bureau Chief
Julien Mercille, Geography and Environment Policy Professor
Paul Mason, Journalist
Margaret Morgan, Filmmaker
Mary-Margaret McMahon, Canadian Politician
Steven Newman, Floriculture Professor
Don Moynihan, Public Policy Professor
Neel Kashkari, President at Minneapolis Federal Reserve
Kai Kupferschmidt, Science Journalist
Shannon Palus, Editor at Slate
Umbereen S Nehal, Founder at Nehal Group LLC
Jonathan S Perkins, UCLA Director of Race and Equity
Tyler Watt, Public Health Nurse
Tony Blakely, Epidemiologist at Melbourne University
Alfons López Tena, Spanish Politician
Tara C Smith, Infectious Disease Professor
André Picard, Globe and Mail Health Journalist
Ishaan Tharoor, Washington Post Columnist
Michael Schull, Medical Professor
Stefanie Leder, TV Writer/Producer
Diana Z Berrent, Founder at Survivor Corp
Asa Winstanley, Investigative Journalist
Jeff Sharlet, Author
Bell Ribeiro-Addy, UK Politician
Claudia Webbe, UK Politician
Bruce Hawker, Political Commentator
Alheli Picazo, Freelance Writer
Charlie Stross, Author
George Aylett, UK Politician
Jeremy Farrar, Director of the Wellcome Trust
Brianna Wu, Executive Director at Rebellion PAC
Keep these receipts so these lunatics are forever held accountable.
They are also the first ones to tell you that free speech has consequences.