Rattibha

THREAD – NYT Surrenders to Reality: Admits ‘Mask Mandates Did Nothing’
NYT’s admission is a promising step in the right direction. But NYT and other lockdown supporters have a very long way to go if they ever wish to fully atone for what they supported during COVID. 1/

In a show of capitulation, NYT deputized their top conservative columnist, Bret Stephens, to pen an article on the recent Cochrane review showing masks made “little to no difference” in preventing COVID or flu. Stephens’ article is blistering. 2/
nytimes.com

www.nytimes.com

Stephens minces no words in his criticism for the CDC and Director Rochelle Walensky, including a reference to Walensky’s awful testimony insisting the CDC’s guidance to mandate masks in schools would “not change with time” regardless of new evidence. 3/

Stephens blames the CDC’s performance during COVID for a growing distrust of science and of public institutions more generally, and takes a subtle swipe at those who looked to China as a legitimate model for a public health response. 4/

In light of all this, we get the closest to an outright mea culpa that we’ve seen from the New York Times since COVID began. “Occasionally censored” you say? 5/

Stephens’ article is a promising step in the right direction. Still, the lockdowns and mandates that NYT supported since COVID began were a policy catastrophe of unprecedented proportion. 6/

Globally, COVID lockdowns and mandates led to millions of deaths, pushed hundreds of millions into poverty, wrecked the mental health of billions, and transferred trillions of dollars in wealth from the world’s poorest to the richest, all for nothing. 7/
michaelpsenger.substack.com

michaelpsenger.substack.com

For evidence of the psychological destruction that’s been wrought by these policies, one need look no further than the comments to Stephens’ article, which read like they’ve come from a psych ward.
#commentsContainer" target="_blank" rel="noopener" onclick="event.stopPropagation()">nytimes.com 8/

www.nytimes.com

While a good psychiatrist never gives up on a patient, it also does no good for a doctor to blame themselves for those patients they couldn’t save. So we probably need to accept that many of these NYT commenters are broken beyond repair. 9/

NYT and other lockdown supporters thus have a very long way to go if they wish to make amends for what they supported during COVID. At an absolute minimum, below is a list of the terms that might be acceptable should the New York Times wish to fully atone. 10/

1. Unequivocal apology for all harm that was done by lockdowns and mandates. 11/

2. Endorsement of a comprehensive inquiry into the response to COVID, including a detailed accounting of the provenance and harm done by these policies. 12/

3. Full disclosure of all relationships and communications that led to NYT’s editorial decision to endorse lockdowns in early 2020. 13/

4. Full disclosure of all relationships and communications that led to NYT’s editorial decision to treat China’s COVID data as real and its COVID response as legitimate public health policy. 14/