WALL STREET JOURNAL
Why Won’t the Media Listen to These Scientists?
by James Freeman
October 6, 2020

This week dozens of es­teemed med­ical ex­perts with blue-chip aca­d­e­mic cre­den­tials pub­lished a warn­ing about the de­struc­tive poli­cies adopted to ad­dress Covid-19. Since the Sun­day pub­li­ca­tion of this “Great Bar­ring­ton De­c­la­ra­tion” more than a thou­sand bi­o­log­i­cal sci­en­tists and more than 1,500 med­ical prac­ti­tion­ers have added their names to the pe­ti­tion. Yet it’s been al­most en­tirely ig­nored by the me­dia out­lets that spend much of their days pre­sent­ing them­selves as obe­di­ent to sci­ence. Maybe this is be­cause the ac­com­plished group of sci­en­tists be­hind the de­c­la­ra­tion is re­fus­ing to obey po­lit­i­cal nar­ra­tives. READ MORE

REAL CLEAR POLITICS Michael Barone: Lockdown Enthusiasts’ Risk Aversion Is Producing a More Unequal Society COVID-19 death rate per million is about one-fifth that of the 1957-58 Asian flu and one-third that of the 1968-70 Hong Kong flu. Yet these earlier pandemics had only “evanescent economic consequences” and did not “leave any deep, traumatic traces in memories” of the 350 million people who, like Smil (and me), were 10 or older during both. “Countries did not resort to any mass-scale economic lockdowns, enforce any long-lasting school closures, ban sports events, or cut flight schedules deeply”