Is the mea culpa by former NIH director on government Covid policies good enough?

By LINDA BOYLE

Dr. Francis Collins, who managed the National Institute of Health from 2009 to 2021, recently admitted public health officials (like him) made a big mistake on Covid policy.

He said they failed to realize the major consequences of their decisions, such as shutting businesses, closing schools, and telling people to just stay home.  

Dr. Collins further commented these “public health people” made a “really unfortunate” mistake by ignoring the devastating side effects of the interventions they believed were necessary to curtail Covid transmission.  

“Collins also regrets that he and his colleagues paid insufficient attention to the ‘collateral damage’ caused by restrictions on social, economic and educational activity,” according to Jacob Sullum of the Orange County Register.

You remember that this idea of implementing these harsh guidelines was done to save grandma and grandpa. New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo at that time touted the importance of the grandma rationale. He said they needed to save lives no matter the cost.  

Then he sent 9,000 patients recovering from Covid back to nursing homes to free up hospital beds, even though other options were available to him. These options included the Jacob Javits Convention Center, which had been set up as a makeshift hospital, and the USS Comfort military hospital ship. Cuomo sent Covid patients back to the nursing homes even though the homes told him they were not equipped to care for these patients.

A group of expert epidemiologists published the Great Barrington Declaration in October 2020, stating lockdowns were a bad idea and focused protection would make more sense. The declaration advocated a strategy of focused protection on the elderly and vulnerable while letting younger people at lower risk continue with their lives. 

Dr. Collins immediately went into a defense mode as this idea did not fit the public health official’s agenda. He contacted Dr. Anthony Fauci, who worked for him, and said something needed to be done and done — now. They had to come up with a strategy to silence this voice to discredit their policies.

Here is the email Dr. Collins sent to Dr. Fauci which called the expert epidemiologists “fringe” people. Note the date of Oct. 8, 2020:  

Now Dr. Collins wants to say the powers-that-be just made a mistake.  

Dr. Collins’s mini-mea culpa doesn’t cut the mustard. He willingly ensured the voice of reason was not heard during a pandemic.  He failed science by not considering all alternative approaches to the pandemic.  

He and Fauci went out of their way to discredit the physicians who wrote the Great Barrington Declaration that advocated for using science instead of using fear to get us through.  They asked the government to consider focused protection of those vulnerable elderly and those who had major health issues.  They said let younger people who were at minimal risk continue with their lives.  

That whole concept did not compute for Collins, the NIH and the CDC. Nor did Collins, with his squishy “apology” apologize for working to censor other highly respected members of the medical community. What Collins seemed miffed about was these doctors chose to publish their declaration online without first talking with him. An obvious grave mistake in the world of politics. And for Collins to say now perhaps they should have allowed the debate is much more than priceless. 

In the Great Barrington Declaration, these physicians spoke of grave effects from a lockdown of this magnitude,  They stated there would be a decrease in children getting vaccinated, cardiovascular disease results would worsen with lack of treatment, fewer cancer screenings would be performed, and an increase in mental health problems. 

They believed these would have the greatest impact on the working class and young children.   

Kim Iverson did a report for the Hill’s “Rising” in 2021 to look back at what these doctors had stated in the Great Barrington Declaration, and to see if these doctors’ predictions were accurate. She stated these doctors were right in their predictions, especially with children who had little or no risk from Covid.   

Iverson also stated data showed people were coming to emergency departments sicker than they were before Covid with their diseases further advanced. It demonstrated these three GBD physicians who were “villainized’ by the NIH and CDC were right.  

Further, Iverson stated that a paper by Simon Fraser University evaluated 80 studies done worldwide on the effects of lockdowns.  Only 20 out of 80 concluded there was a positive effect—although minor.  Douglas Allen, who wrote that paper, determined such policies were possibly “one of the greatest peacetime policy failures.”

So, Dr. Collins you can keep your “mea culpa.”

At least Mr. Bass, who is a student at the University of Texas Medical School, had the gumption to state he was a “hardcore covidian” at the beginning of this pandemic. He believed those who preached the horrible devastation this disease would cause.  

Recognizing he was wrong, he posted on X (formerly Twitter) on Dec. 12, 2022, “I was wrong about the lockdowns and mandates.  I was wrong and the reason I was wrong was my tribalism, my emotions, and my distorted understanding of human nature and of the virus. It doesn’t matter much, but I wanted to apologize for being wrong.” 

The CDC, NIH, and mainstream media have no desire to apologize. They were just overzealous and now see it was a “mistake.” So much for accountability.  And now look—lockdowns are coming back in vogue.  

Lying is one thing, the coverup of lies is much worse.

We all should remember what author Stephen King said of liars:  “The trust of the innocent is the liar’s most useful tool.”

And you wonder why we are so tired of all the lies. 

Linda Boyle, RN, MSN, DM, was formerly the chief nurse for the 3rd Medical Group, JBER, and was the interim director of the Alaska VA. Most recently, she served as Director for Central Alabama VA Healthcare System. She is the director of the Alaska Covid Alliance.