Five Years Ago, Everything Starting Shutting Down...For Nothing
Sports started the downward spiral
Somehow, it's now been five years since the sports world shut down over concerns due to COVID-19. A massive unforced error that led to unnecessary panic, years of disruption, and sports media falling over themselves to demand more restrictions.
As OutKick founder Clay Travis pointed out, the collective college basketball world shut down its tournaments five years ago, in March 2020, with collegiate sports not returning for five full months. And perhaps even more embarrassing, those whose job it is to cover collegiate sports fought tooth and nail to stop it. All because their political beliefs meant they unquestioningly accepted the absurdities and fear-mongering coming from Anthony Fauci and the CDC.
The NBA, Major League Baseball, college basketball…all of them shut down, then returned with ridiculous mask policies or vaccine mandates. Each of those policies did nothing to stop the spread of COVID between players, coaches and staff. Though they did make sports media happier, since there's nothing they love more than a useless political gesture.
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We learned many, many things during the COVID-19 pandemic. Masks don't work, school closures are a disastrous failure, lockdowns and business closures harm millions while accomplishing nothing. And the voices of authority who mandated all of it have not uttered a word of apology.
Sports Shutting Down Legitimized COVID Panic
The Ivy League, naturally, was the first to shut down, canceling its conference tournament on March 10. Initially, the reaction from within the college basketball world was one of indignation, frustration, and criticism.
Per an ESPN story at the time, several coaches responded with derision: "The Ivy League canceled their tournament? Lol. That's so Ivy League," one texted ESPN after the decision came down.
"Lol. What a joke," another one said.
Harvard player Bryce Aiken posted on social media that it was a "horrible, horrible, horrible decision," while the head coach at Penn, Steve Donahue, said it was "the most horrific thing I've dealt with as a coach."
Then the other conferences announced they'd play their tournaments with no fans. Why? Because the NCAA's chief medical officer and their "COVID-19 advisory panel" believed misinformation from Anthony Fauci, the CDC and impossibly false modeling data.
"It really became clear that if the United States didn't go into a very aggressive behavioral risk mitigation, and possibly even containment strategy, there could very easily be a minimum of 500,000 deaths," said Dr. Brian Hainline. "[When I presented the advisory panel's results] to the senior management team, their jaws dropped wide open, kind of like, 'Are you kidding me?' ... I just showed the data, showed the charts, showed the mathematical modeling and the projections. They just sort of nodded. No one pushed back, but jaws did hit the floor."
The mathematical modeling and projections turned out to be unbelievably inaccurate. COVID was nowhere near as dangerous as the experts, advisors, and assumptions said it would be. Even counting every single incidental COVID death as the US did, there were nowhere close to 500,000 deaths in the US in 2020, let alone in a matter of weeks as modeling projected.
And even those numbers were exacerbated by stunning incompetent policies by Gavin Newsom, Andrew Cuomo and other Democratic politicians to send infected nursing home patients home from hospitals to infect their co-residents. All based on inaccurate modeling saying that hospitals would be overrun.
The fatality rate, instead of being 3.4 percent as the World Health Organization claimed, was more in the range of 0.25-0.35 percent. Many hospitals outside of New York City were empty, leading to more unnecessary deaths as patients delayed medical care or screenings due to fear and panic.
Lockdowns in the United States were far too late to matter, as research from new NIH-head Dr. Jay Bhattacharya demonstrated at the time; there were people in the Bay Area who already had COVID antibodies, demonstrating that the virus had been spreading undetected for months.
Nevertheless, sports fell in line, shut their tournaments down, and soon after, "15 Days to slow the spread" became one of the biggest policy disasters in world history. With negative side effects that are still impacting us today, and not a single COVID case prevented.
Sports didn't return for months, and crowds in some anti-science areas like California were banned for well over a year. When they did, it was with absurd, feel-good policies that accomplished nothing. MLB wouldn't let catchers throw the ball to third base after a strikeout, because, you see, that would spread COVID among the players…Who all share a dugout and clubhouse together.
That level of stupidity and inanity was a recurring feature of post-lockdown sports. The virus wouldn't spread on the field or court, where players could go unmasked. But it was terrifyingly dangerous as soon as they sat down, necessitating mask wearing on benches and in dugouts. Makes perfect sense.
Sports media, to their eternal discredit, didn't want sports to come back at all. Consumed by propaganda from Fauci and other left-wing political figures, they were often even more extreme than traditional Democrat media outlets like CNN. USA Today's Dan Wolken and other far-left writers like ESPN's Buster Olney acted as if young athletes, among the healthiest and most in-shape people on earth, were at an extreme risk from COVID, well after we knew it primarily affected the extremely elderly and immunocompromised.
They celebrated vaccine mandates that did nothing to stop the spread of COVID to coaches, staff, or fans. Even after we learned almost immediately that the mRNA vaccines were effectively useless at preventing transmission, they lambasted players like Kyrie Irving while praising New York for refusing to let him play home games. Based on pseudoscience and disinformation from health authorities and politicians.
Even when college sports returned, few pointed out the nonsensical posturing from top officials. Like that it was safe to play football in the SEC, but not the Pac-12.
The Big Ten Conference didn't want football to return, citing concern over the potential for COVID to cause myocarditis. Then it sat by silently soon after as its schools instituted vaccine mandates even after it became clear that mRNA vaccines could cause myocarditis. Especially in young men. Hypocrisy at its finest.
Sports media acted as if the 2021 Super Bowl in Florida would be a "superspreader" due to unmasked fans, then sat by quietly after the data showed that cases in the Tampa region went down two weeks after hosting. All because Fauci said it was ill-advised to have fans at live events.
For years, the world, even sports, reorganized itself based on nonsense from prolifically incompetent, often malicious admitted liars like Anthony Fauci. To their eternal discredit and shame.
Shutting down sports accomplished nothing, other than exposing those who cover it as political activists first and foremost. It spread panic and fear, as people assumed that if conferences and the NCAA were canceling events, the virus must be extremely serious and dangerous. It led to years of disruption, lost income and absurdist alterations. For nothing.
Shutting down sports, and the lockdowns in general, were not an unforced error. Lockdowns were a planned and executed strategy to pave the way for mask mandates and mass injections. Do you want your life back? OK, you can have your life back. Just wear a mask and get this shot. All of that frightening "evidence" of a deadly pandemic was a massive propaganda campaign that had no basis in reality. Why did they do it? That's a question for the DOD.
Great work throughout, Ian! Thanks.
We should meet. Here's my 5 year anniversary post:
https://markoshinskie8de.substack.com/p/five-years-of-coronamania