“If you’re a public health person, and you’re trying to make a decision, you have this very narrow view of what the right decision is, and that is something that will save a life,” former National Institutes of Health (NIH) chief Francis Collins recently told an audience. The Obama appointee, who left office in late 2022 after 13 years in his position, admitted further: “Doesn’t matter what else happens. You attach infinite value to stopping the disease and saving a life. You attach zero value to whether this actually totally disrupts people’s lives, ruins the economy, and has many kids kept out of school in a way that they never might quite recover from. Collateral damage. This is a public health mindset. And I think a lot of us involved in trying to make those recommendations had that mindset – and that was really unfortunate. It’s another mistake we made.”
The admission is stunning given the warnings from anti-lockdown advocates during the COVID-19 pandemic, and the claims from NIH officials and others that they were simply “following the science,” and that those worried about knock-on effects were conspiracy theorists or deathmongers.
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