Jay W. Richards - The Price of Panic: How the Tyranny of Experts Turned a Pandemic into a Catastrophe

Praise for

T HE P RICE OF P ANIC

Jay Richards, William Briggs, and Douglas Axe have written the definitive account of the most egregious policy blunder in the history of American government.

George Gilder, author of Life after Google

As America emerges from lockdown, many are wondering how we were all stampeded into actions that have caused more deaths than they prevented. How did experts like Fauci become gods, and why were those of us who questioned the panic labeled as psychopaths? How did progressive fascism become the new normal and, more importantly, how do we getand keepthe normal normal back? Arm yourself with the answers to these questions by reading The Price of Panic, then buy a copy for a liberty-minded friend.

Steven W. Mosher, author of Bully of Asia: Why Chinas Dream Is the New Threat to World Order

We physicians appropriately focus on an individual patients medical problems as we see them before us; very few of us have the knowledge or wisdom to balance the much larger issues involved in responding to public health pandemics with major economic and political impacts. This book puts these issues in perspective, for example, by showing that the illness and death toll from the COVID-19 virus was unremarkable in comparison with many historical pandemics. What was remarkable is how we reacted is how the authors put it. They explore this and other important issues, such as why the COVID-19 pandemic incited worldwide panic whereas previous pandemics did not. This book also shows how most decision-makers relied way too heavily on gimmicks, such as computer models, to arrive at disastrous decisions. As a radiologist, I saw how my X-ray film seemed like magic to others; I had to resist the temptation to imply that I actually had magical powers to tell other doctors what to do.

Robert J. ihk, M.D., past president, Association of American Physicians and Surgeons

Practically everything the Internet told you about COVID-19 is wrong. While the pandemic may have been real, the panic was more a product of social contagion. Jay Richards, William Briggs, and Douglas Axe provide a highly informed, page-turning look at how the entire world succumbed to what can only be described as a virus of experts.

Austin Ruse, author of Fake Science: Exposing the Lefts Skewed Statistics, Fuzzy Facts, and Dodgy Data

Entertaining prose, surprising insight, and an engrossing account of how a handful of so-called experts with bad track records, dubious modeling, and no data convinced world leaders to shut down the economy. This book exposes the expert-media industrial complex and confirms the lesson that nothing spreads like fear.

Betsy McCaughey, Ph.D., New York Post columnist

Copyright 2020 by Douglas Axe, William M. Briggs, and Jay W. Richards

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who wishes to quote brief passages in connection with a review written for inclusion in a magazine, newspaper, website, or broadcast.

Regnery is a registered trademark of Salem Communications Holding Corporation

ISBN: 978-1-68451-141-9

eISBN: 978-1-68451-142-6

Cover design by John Caruso

Library of Congress Catalog Number: 2020939344

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From Douglas Axe

To Daniel and Emily, who, like countless other young people, had their big day taken away, and to Verna, who, at ninety-one, refused to let fear steal a day.

From William M. Briggs

To my dad, who taught me to be skeptical of experts.

From Jay W. Richards

To my daughters, Gillian and Ellie, who survived being trapped in the house with me while this book was being written.

What can we be certain of from history? That human beings have been wrong innumerable times, by vast amounts, and with catastrophic results. Yet today there are still people who think that anyone who disagrees with them must be either bad or not know what he is talking about.

Thomas Sowell

T he last century gave us the word viral to refer to the spread of tiny pathogens. It didnt take long for the meaning of the word to expand. We now speak of stories and ideas going viral when they explode into public awareness.

In 2020, the metaphor reclaimed its literal sense.

UN secretary-general Antonio Guterres declared the greatest crisis since World War II. In the United States, state and federal governments ordered the closure of tens of thousands of small businessesmany never to return. Almost every school and college in the country sent its students home to finish the school year in front of their computers. Churches cancelled worship services, many before the government forced them to. Christians celebrated Easter in their homes, in front of screens. Overnight, social distancing went from an obscure medical term to a duty. Shaming of skeptics on social media was ratcheted up to ever-new heights.

A walk in the park became a criminal act. In Brighton, Colorado, police handcuffed former state trooper Matt Mooney in front of his six-year-old daughter. Why? He was playing tee-ball with her in an otherwise empty field.

This was not a top-down dictatorship imposed on a resistant public. Polls showed that most Americans supported the lockdowns. If anything, we pushed for them. Neighbors snitched on small church groups with gusto. New Jersey posted a form on its website to make it easy to turn your neighbors in to the authorities. Two months in, most Americans were still telling pollsters that they supported the shutdowns.

Local government did its best to keep up. On Easter morning, District of Columbia mayor Muriel Bowser tweeted that she had met with the Easter Bunny. It expressed its frustration about people not staying home, she reported, and consequently, that its stops may be delayed this year. We agreed that road closures will be necessary for the Easter Bunny to quickly hop its way through the District and stay on time.

Louisville mayor Greg Fischer tried to ban drive-in church services on Easter. A federal judge quickly slapped that down.

In the Philippines, President Duterte ordered police and the military to shoot residents who wandered out. Thank God we live in the land of the free.

All this in response to a new virusa tiny infectious agent that hijacks living cells.

Some viruses are deadly, and the coronavirus that causes COVID-19 certainly can be. Symptoms of the disease may include fever, coughing, shortness of breath, chest pain, and loss of smell. Severe cases can lead to pneumonia, and even death. More than four hundred thousand deaths worldwide by the end of June have been attributed to the virus since we first detected it at the end of 2019. By the end of May, it had claimed about a hundred thousand souls in the United States. At its peak, on Good Friday, April 10, just over two thousand Americans were reported to have died with it in a single day. There were later apparent peaks. But these followed the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) diluting the way COVID-19 deaths were coded, which increased their numbers.