The Vindication of D.A. Henderson

"'We were going to invent pandemic planning.' 

Those were the words of Dr. Rajeev Venkayya in 2005 when he headed the White House bioterrorism study group under George W. Bush. 'We want to use all instruments of national power to confront this threat,' Venkayya told colleagues in the administration, as reported by Michael Lewis in his book The Premonition. 

That was the birth of the idea of national lockdown for pathogenic threat. To mainstream epidemiologists, the idea seemed crazy and potentially ruinous at the time, a fact that only emboldened its creators...

One can only marvel at the hubris that contradicted a century or more of public-health practice. But somehow the idea caught on and spread...

Many empirical studies, even from the summer of 2020, have demonstrated no systematic long-term relationship between policy stringency and virus mitigation. There is no eradication through social and economic controls. 

Venkayya and his friends might have invented 'pandemic planning' of this sort but it did not work. Instead it created mass suffering, demoralization, confusion, and public anger, not to mention having vastly expanded government power over the entire world. It is not an accident that censorship, ill-health, illiteracy, and now war are left in the wake of this fiasco. The lockdowns shattered what was called civilization, rooted in the rights and freedoms that 'pandemic planning' reduced to nothingness. 

We should remember the man who called out this crazed ideology back in 2006. He is Donald A. Henderson, the world’s most important epidemiologist at the time. He had worked with the World Health Organization and is given primary credit for the eradication of smallpox...

His 2006 article provided a comprehensive critique of lockdown ideology. The title is 'Disease Mitigation Measures in the Control of Pandemic Influenza.' He notes the new interest 'in a range of disease mitigation measures. Possible measures that have been proposed include: isolation of sick people in hospital or at home, use of antiviral medications, hand-washing and respiratory etiquette, large-scale or home quarantine of people believed to have been exposed, travel restrictions, prohibition of social gatherings, school closures, maintaining personal distance, and the use of masks.'

'We must ask,' he writes, 'whether any or all of the proposed measures are epidemiologically sound, logistically feasible, and politically viable. It is also critically important to consider possible secondary social and economic impacts of various mitigation measures.' Coming under special scrutiny here was the neologism 'social distancing.' He points out that it has been deployed to describe everything from simple actions to avoid exposure to covering full-scale closures and stay-at-home orders... 

He saves the best as the final flourish. Read it and see his prophecy in action:

Experience has shown that communities faced with epidemics or other adverse events respond best and with the least anxiety when the normal social functioning of the community is least disrupted. Strong political and public health leadership to provide reassurance and to ensure that needed medical care services are provided are critical elements. If either is seen to be less than optimal, a manageable epidemic could move toward catastrophe."