How Much Personal Restriction Are People Willing to Accept?

History shows that people are willing to put up with severe restrictions on their personal freedom as long as they believe those restrictions have merit (i.e., will keep them safe or keep them alive).  This was clearly demonstrated from 1918 -1920 as the pandemic known as "the Spanish flu" killed 50 million people worldwide.  Until then, the United States had never seen such all-encompassing restrictions including closure of schools, churches, bars, and other businesses. Severe fines were imposed by "the influenza police" for coughing, sneezing, or even talking or playing outdoors.  Initially everyone was told to wear masks to stop the spread of the influenza 

Face masks: what the Spanish flu can teach us about making them compulsory

However, there was soon serious debate about the effectiveness of cloth masks due to a scientific discovery by French bacteriologist Charles Nicolle in October 1918 showing that the influenza "germ" was smaller than any other known bacterium.  (I'm using the word germ because the distinction between bacteria and virus was not fully understood at this time.) In other words, because the germ was so small, it meant that wearing a cloth mask was not going to stop transmission of this devastating flu.   In the meantime, more governmental authorities worldwide were making masking mandatory.  However, "the only American state to make masks mandatory was (briefly) California, while on the east coast and in other countries including the UK they were merely recommended."  (Face masks: what the Spanish flu can teach us about making them compulsory)  When the COVID-19 pandemic first came on the healthcare radar in early 2020, many people were attempting to compare it to the Spanish flu in terms of severity of illness and death toll.  When faced with something this serious, it makes sense to try to discern if anything like this has ever happened before, and study how it was handled.  However, there is a big difference between how these two influenzas manifested.  For example, the average age of death for the Spanish flu was 29 years of age, but the average age of death for COVID is 80 years of age.  This means that transmission rates, personal vulnerabilities, and mechanisms of action were very different.   In listening to a recent interview of American statistician Justin Hart that was conducted by Josh Phillips on Cross Roads, an online program sponsored by The Epoch Times, I learned that one of the reasons it was difficult to fully understand the lethality of COVID-19 in the United States was due to "the lags" in our medical reporting systems. United States medical institutions utilize several different types of patient medical reporting systems, which makes it difficult to have data flow easily or consistently into just one major reporting site, whereas countries like Japan or the United Kingdom have one central medical reporting system that provides more consistent and timely data.  The lack of consistency in medical reporting in the United States also caused some data to be misinterpreted or not even considered.   

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Misstating facts also allowed Big Pharm and the U.S. government to continue to advertise the vaccines as safe and effective, maintain the lockdowns

For example, in a conversation that Robert Kennedy, Jr. had on October 27, 2022, with Megyn Kelly, former FOX News host, Kennedy explained that the CDC's official data on COVID-19 does not count individuals as "vaccinated" until two weeks after the second shot, so deaths that occur prior to that are attributed and/or categorized as "unvaccinated."  This is a serious misattribution that allowed the CDC, other health authorities, and the mainstream media to push the narrative that the number of deaths of "unvaccinated" individuals was significantly higher than the number of deaths of vaccinated individuals.  Misstating these facts also allowed Big Pharm and the U.S. government to continue to advertise the vaccines as safe and effective, maintain the lockdowns, and exert extraordinary control over American citizens. Even the World Economic Forum is now openly admitting the pandemic was "a test case" to see how much people were willing to "give up."  What the average person didn't understand is that they weren't just giving up their daily routine for a couple of  weeks "to flatten the curve."  They were giving up their personal freedom and liberty on a grand scale, while also doing damage to their physical and mental health by constantly wearing masks and maintaining social isolation.  But let's return to the recent interview of Justin Hart. Hart's expertise in statistical analysis stems from his personal work in the fields of data management and marketing, and he says he does not consider himself particularly political.  However, as statistical data about the pandemic was made public, Hart began noticing some data and/or interpretations of data that didn't make sense to him, and he began investigating how the data was being gathered and presented. Finally, in 2022, he published his book titled Gone Viral to show "how fear drove people insane" during the COVID-19 pandemic, and how the manipulation and presentation of data provided to the public helped drive that fear and keep it alive for far longer than it should have.  

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Giving up our personal freedom, especially the freedom of choice, has consequences that can last a lifetime and beyond

Without having the correct data, it is impossible for anyone – world leader, medical professional, or private citizen -- to make life and death decisions, especially in the middle of a world pandemic.  The bottom line is that we can learn from history only if we have accurate data and a clear understanding of what the data means.  If the American public had really understood the longterm ramifications of taking an experimental drug (which means it was released without the normal testing), or the ramifications of locking down our society, keeping children out of school, and wearing masks even when outdoors, I do not believe we would have been willing to give up so many of our personal freedoms and liberties so easily during the COVID pandemic. Giving up our personal freedom, especially the freedom of choice, has consequences that can last a lifetime and beyond.  But take heart.  Americans have a new opportunity to exercise their freedom of choice on November 8, so please go to the polls to cast your vote for America's future.