“Pandemic Amnesty”? It’s just more narrative reinforcement

Kit Knightly

A few days ago, on Halloween, the Atlantic ran this opinion piece by economist Emily Oster, headlined:

LET’S DECLARE A PANDEMIC AMNESTY

This, along with the sub-head…

We need to forgive one another for what we did and said when we were in the dark about COVID.

…have been doing the rounds on the internet.

The general perception has been that it is some kind of admission of defeat, perhaps a recognition that the “pandemic” was not real, and that those pushing the narrative had been in the wrong; a genuine plea for understanding or forgiveness.

But while the headline may appear to be suggesting that – and, indeed, was perhaps chosen carefully to create that impression – it’s actually nothing of the kind.

It’s not an apology, a backwards step or segue to our old pre-Covid reality.

It’s just more narrative reinforcement.

We’ve seen it all before.

In February this year, the Guardian ran an article supposedly about “scientists admitting their mistakes” over “covid”.

And what do you think those “mistakes” were?

Selling out and caving in and going along with the mass deployment of a potentially deadly and totally unnecessary “experimental” vax?

Not at all. They just didn’t trust the narrative enough.

I honestly didn’t think vaccines were going to work[…]So I was completely bowled over when those first trials came through in the run-up to Christmas 2020 and we got this wonderful gift. They were so much more effective than I’d hoped

Says one repentant scientist.

Masks worked better than I thought they would

…said another.

While framed as “admitting mistakes”, these thoughts are clearly nothing more than selling the familiar old official lie from a different angle.

It was nothing new, it was nothing honest. Just the modern equivalent of reformed sinners praising God for their conversion to the light.

The piece in the Atlantic is exactly the same.

“We wore cloth masks outside”, regrets Oster, revealing she now realises they wouldn’t do anything (but plastic masks inside still work, of course).

“We kept schools closed for too long”, she further laments, without mentioning they never needed to be closed at all, or conceding this was done cynically to create fear and isolation.

And the biggest oops of all?

When the vaccines came out, we lacked definitive data on the relative efficacies of the Johnson & Johnson shot versus the mRNA options from Pfizer and Moderna. The mRNA vaccines have won out. But at the time, many people in public health were either neutral or expressed a J&J preference. This misstep wasn’t nefarious. It was the result of uncertainty.

Oh mea culpa! Some of us didn’t realize those Pfizer jabs were as amazing as they turned out to be!

Still think this is a genuine recognition of the fact Covid skeptics were right the whole time?

Maybe read the whole article before jumping to conclusions?

In fact genuine Covid skepticism doesn’t even merit a hearing in this deceitful guff.  

It’s just another mind-fuck, in part about reinforcing the narrative and in part excusing the negative results of the last two years  as a series of accidents and “misjudgments” done in the panic of the moment, whilst insisting that they were all done with good intentions:

But most errors were made by people who were working in earnest for the good of society.

She says, before concluding later:

Let’s acknowledge that we made complicated choices in the face of deep uncertainty, and then try to work together to build back and move forward.

This always happens. After the strong man with the sword comes the weak man with the sponge.

Rather than asking for amnesty they are offering one…to those covid skeptics who have found two and a half years of being on the outside looking in too exhausting to carry on. A compromise.

If you pretend we didn’t mean any harm, we’ll forgive you for telling (partial) truth about us.

And, should any forgiveness or peaceful accord be achieved, we – you reading this, me writing it and any other sinners who won’t repent – are not included.

A fact Ms Oster is at pains to point out:

We can leave out the willful purveyors of actual misinformation.

Yes – she means us.

Naturally, this amnesty will never extend to us. We are heretics beyond salvation.

It’s about the fence sitters and half-doubters.

The ones who still have one foot inside the establishment and are looking, desperately, for an excuse to edge all the way back inside and who can be persuaded to accept a cozy little fudge

1. Covid was a real problem and needed important “public health measures” to deal with it.
2. Any damage done by these measures was purely accidental, and the result of misguided good intentions.
3. Anyone who acknowledges points 1 and 2, will be allowed back into the shelter of the mainstream no matter how much they fought against the Covid narrative in the past

But let’s suppose I’m actually wrong.

Let’s suppose this was a genuine apology on behalf of the people who half-destroyed the world in the quest for more money and more power and now want us to forgive and forget.

Well, then they can go to hell.