How and Why Government Creates Disease Panic
Famed Johns Hopkins doctor Marty Makary recently wondered why “amid the dire Covid warnings, one crucial fact has been largely ignored: Cases are down 77% over the past six weeks.”
He points out that “If a medication slashed cases by 77%, we’d call it a miracle pill.” The number of cases is “plummeting much faster than experts predicted” because Makary writes, “natural immunity from prior infection is far more common than can be measured by testing.”
Makary has this good news: “Covid will be mostly gone by April, allowing Americans to resume normal life.”
Most Americans haven’t heard Makary’s forecast. While he was sharing good news, Anthony Fauci moved the goal line further back, saying it will not be until 2022 when life will “approximate the kind of normality we’ve been used to.”
Makary observes, “Many experts, along with politicians and journalists, are afraid to talk about herd immunity.” He rebukes those who mislead the public saying, “Scientists shouldn’t try to manipulate the public by hiding the truth.”
Efforts to hide the truth won’t end soon. It’s been almost one year since Covid-19 lockdowns began in America. Yet, many days still bring evidence of ongoing, out-of-proportion reactions to the virus. Teachers’ unions refuse to go back to work. Nursing homes extend cruel policies isolating elders from loved ones.
Like many of us, Don Boudreaux wants to know “What’s so special about this communicable and dangerous disease that causes humanity to treat it as differing categorically from the countless other communicable and dangerous diseases that we regard with utter blasé-ness?”
Philipp Bagus, José Antonio Peña-Ramos, and Antonio Sánchez-Bayón (subsequently referred to as Bagus) in their journal article “COVID-19 and the Political Economy of Mass Hysteria” provide comprehensive answers to Professor Boudreaux’s question. They argue that “people have been scared by SARS-CoV-2 to an extent not easily explainable by their own minuscule risk of death from it.” The article exposes causes of widespread “irrational behavior.”
Bagus considers “how the modern state influences the development and extension of mass hysteria” and creates “adverse consequences for public health.” It’s easy to manipulate risk perceptions, they write, “when risks are viewed as unfair, uncontrollable, unknown, frightening, potentially catastrophic, and impacting future generations.”
You don’t have to deny Covid-19 or its terrible consequences to consider why good news like Makary’s is largely ignored.
Read the rest of my latest essay, How and Why Government Creates Disease Panic at the American Institute for Economic Research.
You may find my book The Inner-Work of Leadership to be a valuable resource. The Kindle edition is only $3.99.