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Pandemia: How Coronavirus Hysteria Took Over Our Government, Rights, and Lives
The most important fact about the coronavirus pandemic that turned the world upside down in 2020 is that our response to it has been an epic overreaction driven by a disastrous confluence of public and private interests—all of them purporting to “follow the science.”
Since the lockdowns began, millions of Americans have relied on the reporting of Alex Berenson. Exposing the hysteria and manipulation behind the worst failure of public policy since World War I, this clear-eyed journalist has been a critical source of reason and truth.
The product of relentless investigation and research, Pandemia explains how an illness that many people will even never know they had became the occasion for economically ruinous lockdowns and the suppression of personal freedom on a previously unimaginable scale. Dispassionate, factual, and untainted by any agenda other than telling the truth, this is the account that pandemic-weary Americans desperately need.
Since the lockdowns began, millions of Americans have relied on the reporting of Alex Berenson. Exposing the hysteria and manipulation behind the worst failure of public policy since World War I, this clear-eyed journalist has been a critical source of reason and truth.
The product of relentless investigation and research, Pandemia explains how an illness that many people will even never know they had became the occasion for economically ruinous lockdowns and the suppression of personal freedom on a previously unimaginable scale. Dispassionate, factual, and untainted by any agenda other than telling the truth, this is the account that pandemic-weary Americans desperately need.
463 pages, Kindle Edition
First published November 24, 2021
826 people are currently reading
1433 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 231 reviews
October 26, 2021
Thorough, well-researched, and a voice for the voiceless. Definitely recommend if you're looking for a detailed overview and solid facts about the COVID pandemic. Full review will follow at Chronicles Magazine: https://www.chroniclesmagazine.org/.
December 20, 2021
Someday in the future - when the dust settles, sanity regains its foothold, and Western culture begins to reflect upon the strange, destructive hubris of cultural elites convinced that they could actually "shutdown this virus" - when we remember that our loved ones died alone, weddings were cancelled, children left unborn, dreams left unfollowed, young lives lost to deep despair, souls left starving for the sacraments, and human interactions force-fed through a camera lens on a laptop all due to an hysterical reaction driven by fear, laziness, and a fascist lust for power ... when we have to look into the eyes of young adults and still see the ravaged remains of the children we broke by forced isolation, years of hidden smiles, and the instilled mental illness of viewing yourself and others foremost as potential contagions ... when we look at their stunted mental and emotional development - not only from the closures of schools, but from lack of social interaction, seeing and being seen by other members of our social species, kept from corporate worship, summer camps, afternoon playdates - and wonder how they will ever live normal lives of pairing up, starting families, finding and living out a vocation ... when we look upon the smoking ruins of the early 2020s whose stench follows us through the years, a haunting specter of bad decisions, stubborn pride, and the charlatans too many chose to trust, we will open Alex Berenson's Pandemia and read again the history of these times and strengthen our resolve never to let this happen again. At least, I really, really hope so.
Though it seems like this has been going on forever, we are still quite early in the timeline for a comprehensive look back at the hateful tomfoolery surrounding the absolutely insane response from public health bureaucrats, our feckless political class, our simultaneously fear-mongering and complacent fourth estate content to accept and print any dictates from the powerful so long as they contributed to panic and despair, and the legions of smug, self-satisfied, and scared citizens who found great comfort in their virtue-signaling lockdown crafts and Facebook posts, their pajama-bottomed Zoom meetings, and their Stasi-like ratting on any neighbors trying to have a breath of normalcy in the midst of the crazy. Can you tell I am a bit of a COVID skeptic - at least so far as the outsized, irrational response to this virus? For those like me, Alex Berenson's Twitter account became an oasis of real data, honest reporting, and release-valve snark in a desert of constant infuriation. And, though we are still at the beginning of (please, God) the end, Berenson has already put in the constant work over the past two years to track each step of the insanity and hold on to all of the receipts of the perfidious governmental overreach vomited out daily to stoke fear and solidify control over a free people. A book like this could only be written at this moment in time by Alex Berenson. And it is a beautiful thing!
Berenson combines impeccable research, exhaustive sourcing, and his experience both in investigative journalism and writing thrillers to weave a narrative that is compelling and immersive. You relive each unfolding wrinkle of this public policy disaster in real time - an experience painful and infuriating - with those little punctuations of snark that make Berenson highly readable and keep the reader from gnashing her teeth and rending her garments. This is the gold standard of COVID reporting.
And Berenson covers it all: From the initial lockdown philosophy and devastatingly wrong computer modeling that shaped it to the current push to mandate a so-called vaccine that is neither super-effective nor long-lasting, Berenson is unafraid to challenge the gods of the COVID age - collectively called Team Apocalypse - with facts and logic. He tackles mask nonsense, the reality of seasonality, different approaches in Red States vs. Blue States, how President Trump got in his own way, the "new normal," and school closures. I think the chapter that gave me the most pleasure was "Long, Long Covid," wherein he takes an appropriately skeptic look at the claims of "long haul COVID" and how they relate to other phantom [my word] illnesses of upper middle-class complainers such a fibromyalgia, irritable bowel syndrome, and chronic fatigue syndrome that are aided and abetted by Big Pharma to feed the idea that symptoms themselves are illness.
Alongside all the COVID reporting is an undercurrent of disgust for the state of journalism in the USA. The lickspittle homage supposed reporters paid to petty bureaucratic tyrants like "energetic bantam" Anthony Fauci, the reactive politicization of the virus to reflect poorly upon the despised President Trump (for whom Berenson does not have much good to say, lest you think this is a right-wing polemic), the navel-gazing essay reflections on journalists' own valorous battles with COVID (some even having to take TWO TYLENOL TABLETS a day!), all come under Berenson's irritated gaze. He was an investigative reporter for The New York Times before it became, as Andrew Klavan likes to say, "a former newspaper." He knows what tenacious digging and dispassionate reporting look like - and how both can be effected despite the journalist's own political proclivities. As one after another of his former colleagues fell into line and parroted the inane, harmful, wicked, or incomprehensible ramblings of various officials with a cloying obeisance and simper that even Uriah Heep would blush to express - and disavowed the work Berenson was doing at the same time, even to the point of questioning his right to do so - Berenson saw that he would have to, for the most part, stand alone in this fight. He unflinchingly did so - encountering scorn, threats, loss of friendships, loss of clout - and in the process gave an immeasurable gift to those of us who did not have his investigative chops but instinctively knew that all of this was so very wrong. Alex Berenson was the scrappy 'Rona truth-seeker Team Reality needed at just the moment we needed him. I will forever be grateful. Everyone should read this book.
Though it seems like this has been going on forever, we are still quite early in the timeline for a comprehensive look back at the hateful tomfoolery surrounding the absolutely insane response from public health bureaucrats, our feckless political class, our simultaneously fear-mongering and complacent fourth estate content to accept and print any dictates from the powerful so long as they contributed to panic and despair, and the legions of smug, self-satisfied, and scared citizens who found great comfort in their virtue-signaling lockdown crafts and Facebook posts, their pajama-bottomed Zoom meetings, and their Stasi-like ratting on any neighbors trying to have a breath of normalcy in the midst of the crazy. Can you tell I am a bit of a COVID skeptic - at least so far as the outsized, irrational response to this virus? For those like me, Alex Berenson's Twitter account became an oasis of real data, honest reporting, and release-valve snark in a desert of constant infuriation. And, though we are still at the beginning of (please, God) the end, Berenson has already put in the constant work over the past two years to track each step of the insanity and hold on to all of the receipts of the perfidious governmental overreach vomited out daily to stoke fear and solidify control over a free people. A book like this could only be written at this moment in time by Alex Berenson. And it is a beautiful thing!
Berenson combines impeccable research, exhaustive sourcing, and his experience both in investigative journalism and writing thrillers to weave a narrative that is compelling and immersive. You relive each unfolding wrinkle of this public policy disaster in real time - an experience painful and infuriating - with those little punctuations of snark that make Berenson highly readable and keep the reader from gnashing her teeth and rending her garments. This is the gold standard of COVID reporting.
And Berenson covers it all: From the initial lockdown philosophy and devastatingly wrong computer modeling that shaped it to the current push to mandate a so-called vaccine that is neither super-effective nor long-lasting, Berenson is unafraid to challenge the gods of the COVID age - collectively called Team Apocalypse - with facts and logic. He tackles mask nonsense, the reality of seasonality, different approaches in Red States vs. Blue States, how President Trump got in his own way, the "new normal," and school closures. I think the chapter that gave me the most pleasure was "Long, Long Covid," wherein he takes an appropriately skeptic look at the claims of "long haul COVID" and how they relate to other phantom [my word] illnesses of upper middle-class complainers such a fibromyalgia, irritable bowel syndrome, and chronic fatigue syndrome that are aided and abetted by Big Pharma to feed the idea that symptoms themselves are illness.
Alongside all the COVID reporting is an undercurrent of disgust for the state of journalism in the USA. The lickspittle homage supposed reporters paid to petty bureaucratic tyrants like "energetic bantam" Anthony Fauci, the reactive politicization of the virus to reflect poorly upon the despised President Trump (for whom Berenson does not have much good to say, lest you think this is a right-wing polemic), the navel-gazing essay reflections on journalists' own valorous battles with COVID (some even having to take TWO TYLENOL TABLETS a day!), all come under Berenson's irritated gaze. He was an investigative reporter for The New York Times before it became, as Andrew Klavan likes to say, "a former newspaper." He knows what tenacious digging and dispassionate reporting look like - and how both can be effected despite the journalist's own political proclivities. As one after another of his former colleagues fell into line and parroted the inane, harmful, wicked, or incomprehensible ramblings of various officials with a cloying obeisance and simper that even Uriah Heep would blush to express - and disavowed the work Berenson was doing at the same time, even to the point of questioning his right to do so - Berenson saw that he would have to, for the most part, stand alone in this fight. He unflinchingly did so - encountering scorn, threats, loss of friendships, loss of clout - and in the process gave an immeasurable gift to those of us who did not have his investigative chops but instinctively knew that all of this was so very wrong. Alex Berenson was the scrappy 'Rona truth-seeker Team Reality needed at just the moment we needed him. I will forever be grateful. Everyone should read this book.
March 28, 2022
Berenson has, in my opinion, been mostly correct about the issues throughout the past 2 years of COVID hysteria. Berenson is not a COVID denier. He looks at facts and data to examine the actual impact of COVID and the problematic measures the government and the experts have taken to respond to COVID.
December 17, 2021
This is the worst kind of book from the worst kind of person. And at the moment I type this, it's #1 on Amazon Kindle. Berenson lost me on page 2 when he characterized the pandemic tearing through New York City for weeks as a "few bad days." Next, he claims "American hospitals were never close to being overrun." Was he unable to speak to a single healthcare worker in the writing of this book? I did. I've heard from respiratory therapists, emergency room nurses, general practitioners - all wildly overwhelmed by what they experienced, working in hospitals on the brink - and I'm not even writing a book.
Being critical of the national political news media -- I get it. There are bad incentives out there. Profit-driven audience engagement often means choosing sides and telling people what they want to hear. But this was a f*cking public health crisis! The one cashing in on the deep cultural divisions wrought by "the media" is you, Mr. Berenson.
Two stars for grammar. Otherwise, #@%* you.
Being critical of the national political news media -- I get it. There are bad incentives out there. Profit-driven audience engagement often means choosing sides and telling people what they want to hear. But this was a f*cking public health crisis! The one cashing in on the deep cultural divisions wrought by "the media" is you, Mr. Berenson.
Two stars for grammar. Otherwise, #@%* you.
March 13, 2022
If you care about current events and have lived through the past two years, and if you care about the truth, this is the most important book you can read right now. I marked 71 highlights while reading it. I probably should have just highlighted the entire book. Fortunately, books like this can still be written and published. Unfortunately, I don't know how long that is going to be true. Our recent leaders, past and present, and the American tech oligarchs are trying their best to make George Orwell's 1984 become real. I hope we can stop them.
December 3, 2021
Pandemia: How Coronavirus Hysteria Took Over Our Government, Rights, and Lives by Alex Berenson is a very highly recommended, excellent, documented, detailed, and substantiated report exposing the hysteria and manipulation behind the coronavirus pandemic and the overreaction to it in the name of safety and science. This is the true story of the pandemia: one part pandemic, five parts hysteria.
Berenson follows along the timeline of developments and social/political reactions related to the pandemic and details information and facts from each new development. He acknowledges that at the very beginning the lockdowns seemed to make sense, before we had more information. Once information started being compiled and collected, however, it was clear that this reaction was causing more harm than good, but at this point those welding the power and control didn't want to let go. It is made clear that our response to the coronavirus is the worst public policy mistake worldwide in at least a century.
Finally someone has written a book full of facts documenting and exposing the truth behind the lockdowns and everything that has followed rather than simply repeating political ideology. Reading the facts and presenting them without an agenda stands in sharp contrast to the current content creators who used to be journalists but currently are beholden to writing what the corporations who own and finance them. Berenson points out the facts, based on collected data, and concludes that we need to put the dangers of the coronavirus in to a reasonable perspective by treating it as a medical problem, not a societal crisis. We need to demand the truth, the facts, and the data rather than forcing new biotechnology on everyone based on vague scare tactics and incomplete data.
This is a well researched and detailed overview and perfect for those of us who have been collecting facts and documents for two years now. Berenson has compiled these facts plus more into one volume. This is a book I very highly recommend that everyone read.
http://www.shetreadssoftly.com/2021/1...
Berenson follows along the timeline of developments and social/political reactions related to the pandemic and details information and facts from each new development. He acknowledges that at the very beginning the lockdowns seemed to make sense, before we had more information. Once information started being compiled and collected, however, it was clear that this reaction was causing more harm than good, but at this point those welding the power and control didn't want to let go. It is made clear that our response to the coronavirus is the worst public policy mistake worldwide in at least a century.
Finally someone has written a book full of facts documenting and exposing the truth behind the lockdowns and everything that has followed rather than simply repeating political ideology. Reading the facts and presenting them without an agenda stands in sharp contrast to the current content creators who used to be journalists but currently are beholden to writing what the corporations who own and finance them. Berenson points out the facts, based on collected data, and concludes that we need to put the dangers of the coronavirus in to a reasonable perspective by treating it as a medical problem, not a societal crisis. We need to demand the truth, the facts, and the data rather than forcing new biotechnology on everyone based on vague scare tactics and incomplete data.
This is a well researched and detailed overview and perfect for those of us who have been collecting facts and documents for two years now. Berenson has compiled these facts plus more into one volume. This is a book I very highly recommend that everyone read.
http://www.shetreadssoftly.com/2021/1...
October 18, 2022
One of the most important books I’ve read. A thoroughly researched (nearly 50 pages of references), painstakingly accurate, non partisan look at the unfolding of this pandemic - from the days where we all tried to do our best with what little information we had, to the days where we (continue to) refuse to admit we were ever wrong about anything despite stacks of evidence to the contrary. It’s astounding. But if you read it in the right state of mind, it’s hopeful - and ultimately good news. We no longer need to be afraid of the virus! Here’s hoping pride doesn’t get in the way of what that truth means for society.
December 5, 2021
Having followed Alex on Twitter for his level-headed information on all things Covid since June of 2020, I wasn’t sure this book would be worth my time, but purchasing his book was the least I could do as a thank you for the hours and hours of research he’s provided the world for free. I’m glad I did.
For people familiar with his work, it will be a walk down memory lane and a reminder of how long we have known certain facts many are just finding out now. He shares candidly about the stress reporting the truth put on his friendships and family relationships that so many of his avid followers can relate to. For those who are looking for a book to find answers or make sense of that nagging feeling that things just aren’t adding up, this is a conspiracy-free eye opener.
Buy a copy or two to share with your grandkids years from now when they ask what it was like living through the pandemic.
For people familiar with his work, it will be a walk down memory lane and a reminder of how long we have known certain facts many are just finding out now. He shares candidly about the stress reporting the truth put on his friendships and family relationships that so many of his avid followers can relate to. For those who are looking for a book to find answers or make sense of that nagging feeling that things just aren’t adding up, this is a conspiracy-free eye opener.
Buy a copy or two to share with your grandkids years from now when they ask what it was like living through the pandemic.
December 4, 2021
This is pure journalism. A brave work from a censored author. Fascinating read
April 20, 2022
Excellent.
If the "politics" side had been researched and analyzed as well as the rest,it would have been laudable.As it is,it distracts from the many very valid points he makes.
If the "politics" side had been researched and analyzed as well as the rest,it would have been laudable.As it is,it distracts from the many very valid points he makes.
December 10, 2021
It is unfortunate for the country (and world) that there needs to be alternative reporting on a medical situation. This is one of those situations where the "science" should control the narrative. From day 1, covid has been a political football and the "science" has been flaked, formed and molded into a narrative that distorts the truth. This book provides a fair and researched look at the actual facts and goes where the facts lead, rather than forcing the facts to fit a particular agenda. If anything, he is too kind with the various political leaders' responses to a medical situation.
Yes, covid came on quickly, and, in the first few weeks, over-reactions (and under-reactions) can be expected. But, 2 years into it, there should be some intelligent management of the crisis, rather than things like vaccine and mask mandates for 5 year-olds.
Read the book. Think about what you are reading. Compare it to what you hear from the national media. Mourn the First Amendment...
Yes, covid came on quickly, and, in the first few weeks, over-reactions (and under-reactions) can be expected. But, 2 years into it, there should be some intelligent management of the crisis, rather than things like vaccine and mask mandates for 5 year-olds.
Read the book. Think about what you are reading. Compare it to what you hear from the national media. Mourn the First Amendment...
August 17, 2022
Why is this dude bragging about being called the "Worlds Most Wrong Person About COVID"?
He keeps talking about how if you "look at the actual facts", you’ll find that COVID wasn’t a big deal, but he never really presents us with any facts. No data points, no graphs, very few numerical values. He fluffs this book up with a bunch of subjective adjectives and over generalizations, without providing any real hard-core evidence to support his claims.
Also, in the very beginning of the book, Alex Berenson says, that "aside from a couple bad days in New York," everything was just peachy. Mhm. By "a couple bad days in New York, do you mean the death of 6 Million people worldwide, and the infection of 572 Million?
And again, he keeps using these patronizingly false over generalizations, claiming that, quote, "hospitals were nowhere near being overrun". Tell that to the people who had to lie in cars and hallways because hospital beds were full. Tell that to all the nurses and doctors who were "drafted" to serve inhumane hours in order to save other's lives. They had to lower the bar on what qualified as legally dead in order to save time and prioritize lives! I'd say that's a pretty big deal!
The most irritating part of this book is the way Alex Berenson flippantly jokes about a global catastrophe that ended in millions of deaths, billions of jobs lost, and worldwide suffering. Even if you believe that people overreacted, or that scientists were lying or whatever, you still need to acknowledge that people suffered and died, and treat this subject with the seriousness and respects it deserves.
In the end, Berenson talked a big game and delivered nothing. He claimed that he - a lowly New York Times castoff - could debunk and disprove the expert analysis of people like Dr. Fauci, recipients of the John Hopkins awards, presidential medal of freedom, and so many more. In the end, he proved nothing, disrespected a great number of people who unnecessarily lost their lives and the families that grieved them, and wasted paper and everyone's time. I'd burn my copy if I didn’t respect books too much.
He keeps talking about how if you "look at the actual facts", you’ll find that COVID wasn’t a big deal, but he never really presents us with any facts. No data points, no graphs, very few numerical values. He fluffs this book up with a bunch of subjective adjectives and over generalizations, without providing any real hard-core evidence to support his claims.
Also, in the very beginning of the book, Alex Berenson says, that "aside from a couple bad days in New York," everything was just peachy. Mhm. By "a couple bad days in New York, do you mean the death of 6 Million people worldwide, and the infection of 572 Million?
And again, he keeps using these patronizingly false over generalizations, claiming that, quote, "hospitals were nowhere near being overrun". Tell that to the people who had to lie in cars and hallways because hospital beds were full. Tell that to all the nurses and doctors who were "drafted" to serve inhumane hours in order to save other's lives. They had to lower the bar on what qualified as legally dead in order to save time and prioritize lives! I'd say that's a pretty big deal!
The most irritating part of this book is the way Alex Berenson flippantly jokes about a global catastrophe that ended in millions of deaths, billions of jobs lost, and worldwide suffering. Even if you believe that people overreacted, or that scientists were lying or whatever, you still need to acknowledge that people suffered and died, and treat this subject with the seriousness and respects it deserves.
In the end, Berenson talked a big game and delivered nothing. He claimed that he - a lowly New York Times castoff - could debunk and disprove the expert analysis of people like Dr. Fauci, recipients of the John Hopkins awards, presidential medal of freedom, and so many more. In the end, he proved nothing, disrespected a great number of people who unnecessarily lost their lives and the families that grieved them, and wasted paper and everyone's time. I'd burn my copy if I didn’t respect books too much.
June 23, 2022
Overlong for reading, but filled with what the reality of the last 2 plus years has wrought.
The model chosen by our authorities to decide protocols! Read the book or some of the longer and well done reviews here. I can't begin to give the background and research and embedding within the structures and players that is related here. It's truly a win for some truth/reality over censorship that this is readily available to read.
A total lockdown such as was done? Even with a disease of higher percentage death rate or long term outcomes- it would have been just as despicable to chose a "zero pass" model. And what lengths and circumstances of fear that was blasted out daily. And what was done to the children! Still is being done to the children. Do these morons have any idea of what brain or human development comprise as core?
God help us if there really does come a mighty bacteria or a chemical attack catastrophe that spreads. Because the entire posit of locking down humans who think and need to produce for any length of time more than days is just ludicrous. They have no idea of what comprises most human lives, is all I can figure. Berenson makes many law points to economics, work and sanity beyond the obvious.
Hysteria is the only true core for what occurred. And the government should NEVER close the churches. I have a grandson who is working on some petitions upon this. So it will never happen again. Human individuals can be easily overpowered and negated in any movements or power of their own by Authority with the big A. And fear is their biggest currency.
How people with 4 Covid shots are still getting Covid. That isn't being addressed in any measure either.
Read the ridiculous assumptions and dictates that were made. Let alone how the media blasted out dire 24/7 for 18 months plus. Terrible and totally unjustifiable torture.
The model chosen by our authorities to decide protocols! Read the book or some of the longer and well done reviews here. I can't begin to give the background and research and embedding within the structures and players that is related here. It's truly a win for some truth/reality over censorship that this is readily available to read.
A total lockdown such as was done? Even with a disease of higher percentage death rate or long term outcomes- it would have been just as despicable to chose a "zero pass" model. And what lengths and circumstances of fear that was blasted out daily. And what was done to the children! Still is being done to the children. Do these morons have any idea of what brain or human development comprise as core?
God help us if there really does come a mighty bacteria or a chemical attack catastrophe that spreads. Because the entire posit of locking down humans who think and need to produce for any length of time more than days is just ludicrous. They have no idea of what comprises most human lives, is all I can figure. Berenson makes many law points to economics, work and sanity beyond the obvious.
Hysteria is the only true core for what occurred. And the government should NEVER close the churches. I have a grandson who is working on some petitions upon this. So it will never happen again. Human individuals can be easily overpowered and negated in any movements or power of their own by Authority with the big A. And fear is their biggest currency.
How people with 4 Covid shots are still getting Covid. That isn't being addressed in any measure either.
Read the ridiculous assumptions and dictates that were made. Let alone how the media blasted out dire 24/7 for 18 months plus. Terrible and totally unjustifiable torture.
December 14, 2021
This should be book of the year for 2021!
January 26, 2022
Like Berenson, I was a lockdown skeptic almost from the get-go in 2020. I read this in the hopes that there would be something new to me, and to some extent there was. But this book is intended for two primary audiences. First, history. Future generations will read this book and see how foolish and even evil our response was to COVID-19. Second, skeptics have much to consider here, though if they've endured two years of propaganda without opening their eyes to the truth, this book likely won't have much impact on them.
I appreciate that Berenson did the work of chronicling the insanity of the past two years, but didn't get as much out of this as I'd hoped.
I appreciate that Berenson did the work of chronicling the insanity of the past two years, but didn't get as much out of this as I'd hoped.
December 10, 2021
What about the 5.9 million dead people? Move this book to the fiction section.
December 19, 2021
Truth wins over censorship
I recommend this book to anyone who is willing to learn the truth about Covid, even if it doesn’t fit their narrative. Berenson is not a conspiracy theorist or a right wing nut job. He looks at the data and uses common sense. We should be alarmed that he has been banned from Twitter for telling the truth.
I recommend this book to anyone who is willing to learn the truth about Covid, even if it doesn’t fit their narrative. Berenson is not a conspiracy theorist or a right wing nut job. He looks at the data and uses common sense. We should be alarmed that he has been banned from Twitter for telling the truth.
March 15, 2022
Is there a less than one star rating?
September 3, 2023
4.5 stars
I was afraid at first that this book would be outdated already, but it wasn’t. In fact, it was probably written a little too soon (late 2021), as more Covid data has come to light since it was written. (Its focus is the United States.)
Mr. Berenson had been a long-time New York Times reporter on the medical beat and was very familiar with the pharmaceutical industry, government health policies, and the behavior of epidemics long before Covid.
He shows clearly the roles played by governments, Big Pharma, news media, and social media played and how science got politicized and we ended up with lockdowns and masks despite decades of evidence that neither would work. People who love money, fame, and power (human nature fundamentals) all took advantage of the situation.
The writing is extremely accessible and engaging; it reads very quickly and smoothly. Not a dry or dull moment. I appreciate Mr. Berenson’s thorough research and dedication to facts over feelings.
Language: Occasional strong language, mostly in quoted material
Sexual Content: None
Violence/Gore: Mentions of protests and riots, descriptions of illnesses
Harm to Animals:
Harm to Children:
Other (Triggers):
===================================
Hospitalizations mattered for another reason, too. The potential stress Covid posed to the hospital system was the reason governments had imposed lockdowns in the first place. Remember, “flattening the curve” did not mean that Covid would necessarily infect or kill fewer people. Sars-Cov-2 would still be out there. Flattening the curve meant lengthening the time period over which the crisis occurred, so that hospitals could handle it without being overwhelmed. But if hospitals weren’t overwhelmed, much of the rationale for lockdowns disappeared.
On Saturday, May 23 [2020], determined to ensure no other outlet would get credit for calling the milestone first, the New York Times jumped the gun. The paper devoted its entire front page to a list of one thousand Covid victims. The headline read, “U.S. DEATHS NEAR 100,000, AN INCALCULABLE LOSS.” The words were emotionally arresting—and profoundly illogical. After all, what was the death count if not a precise calculation of the loss? Somehow, the article did not mention the more than one million Americans who had died from other causes in the first five months of 2020. Their deaths didn’t matter.
I was doing everything possible to point out that the models had failed. I believed the danger of hysteria far dwarfed the danger of the coronavirus. With the entire media—led by the Times—in a blind panic, a sharp satirical voice seemed a necessary corrective. Or maybe I was just being a jerk.
“The science” wasn’t driving the change. No one had conducted a convincing randomized controlled trial in March showing that masks protected their wearers—or anyone else. In fact, when Danish researchers ran a trial on masks and the coronavirus later in the spring, they found that masks did not work. The trial was well designed and included more than six thousand people, a very large sample—larger than the samples in all the studies the researchers had reviewed for the CDC meta-analysis in February combined. But the pressure to encourage mask-wearing was so heavy that the scientists couldn’t find a journal to publish their findings for several months.
Over time I grew to believe that a purely psychological explanation was the only answer that made sense. Masks were useless as protection, but the public health authorities needed them as a signifier. Seeing them on other people was frightening, a reminder of the danger of the coronavirus.
Pseudo-science and panic had driven every aspect of our response to the pandemic, including mask mandates. Encouraging people to wear masks was very different that requiring them. If people wanted to try to protect themselves, even in a pointless way, so be it. If the government wanted to make people hide their faces from one another, it needed a good reason. It didn’t have one.
Teachers’ unions had simpler, baser motives. Keeping schools closed would give their members a chance to work from home, convince the public the epidemic remained uncontrolled because of Trump’s failures, and disrupt the economy. the only item not on their agenda was helping kids—particularly poor, inner-city children.
Over and over again, studies that played up the risks of Covid received uncritical press attention. Those that showed the virus might be less dangerous were scoured for flaws—or simply ignored.
In all, more than a quarter-million Americans died from drug overdoses, alcohol, traffic accidents, and homicides in 2020, a rise of over fifty thousand. Those deaths primarily occurred in younger people. Even excluding traffic accidents, the rise in deaths of despair in people under fifty—not the total number but the increase from 2019 to 2020—was larger than the total of seventeen thousand Covid deaths in people in the same age range in 2020.
The experts—so quick to be outraged at any suggestion that we should try to return our lives to normal, put the virus’s death toll in context, or acknowledge that many people infected with Covid might never even know they had it. Journalists even claimed that Trump’s call to be unafraid was hurtful to Americans who had died of Covid—as if calls to beat cancer insulted people who had died of that disease. Apparently the only acceptable way to face Covid was on bended knee, hoping that the dread plague wouldn’t take you.
The riot was real, the tear gas was real, and Trump was disgustingly slow to condemn what was happening. An insurrection? It wasn’t an insurrection, exactly. I’d seen those first-hand in Iraq when I worked for the Times. Insurrections came with mortars and car bombs. It wasn’t a coup, either. Did you see any tanks in the streets preventing a peaceful transfer of power? Me neither.
Both systems [VAERS and EUDRA] have received far more reports of side effects after Covid vaccine shots than other vaccines. By mid-March, VAERS had received more than thirty thousand reports of side effects from Covid vaccines—as many as all other vaccines combined during the last year. The gap is even larger for reports of serious side effects or deaths. With about 110 million doses of mRNA vaccines given in the United States, the VAERS system had received more than 1,800 death reports, the CDC reported on March 16 [2021]. In comparison, ir received about 20 reports of deaths out of 180 million flu vaccinations in the last two flu seasons.
Two Vanity Fair headlines on stories written by the same author summed up the woke media’s incoherence. On October 7, “Trump’s Rush to Release a COVID Vaccine Has Americans Worried.” On December 18, “The White House’s Incompetence Is Apparently Holding Up ‘Millions’ of COVID Vaccines.”
Whatever the method, the goal of gain-of-function research is often to figure out how to make a virus more infectious, more lethal, or both. In theory, this work can help scientists and public health experts figure out which viruses are the most dangerous and how to manage them. But many scientists have sharply criticized gain-of-function research, saying its risks far outweigh any potential benefits.
China might never have cooperated with an investigation no matter how much pressure the United States put on it, but our own public health officials had ensured that the scientific and medical community never even came together to demand that the Chinese open their doors. They had ensured China would have plenty of time to destroy whatever evidence it had.
I was afraid at first that this book would be outdated already, but it wasn’t. In fact, it was probably written a little too soon (late 2021), as more Covid data has come to light since it was written. (Its focus is the United States.)
Mr. Berenson had been a long-time New York Times reporter on the medical beat and was very familiar with the pharmaceutical industry, government health policies, and the behavior of epidemics long before Covid.
He shows clearly the roles played by governments, Big Pharma, news media, and social media played and how science got politicized and we ended up with lockdowns and masks despite decades of evidence that neither would work. People who love money, fame, and power (human nature fundamentals) all took advantage of the situation.
The writing is extremely accessible and engaging; it reads very quickly and smoothly. Not a dry or dull moment. I appreciate Mr. Berenson’s thorough research and dedication to facts over feelings.
Language: Occasional strong language, mostly in quoted material
Sexual Content: None
Violence/Gore: Mentions of protests and riots, descriptions of illnesses
Harm to Animals:
Harm to Children:
Other (Triggers):
===================================
Hospitalizations mattered for another reason, too. The potential stress Covid posed to the hospital system was the reason governments had imposed lockdowns in the first place. Remember, “flattening the curve” did not mean that Covid would necessarily infect or kill fewer people. Sars-Cov-2 would still be out there. Flattening the curve meant lengthening the time period over which the crisis occurred, so that hospitals could handle it without being overwhelmed. But if hospitals weren’t overwhelmed, much of the rationale for lockdowns disappeared.
On Saturday, May 23 [2020], determined to ensure no other outlet would get credit for calling the milestone first, the New York Times jumped the gun. The paper devoted its entire front page to a list of one thousand Covid victims. The headline read, “U.S. DEATHS NEAR 100,000, AN INCALCULABLE LOSS.” The words were emotionally arresting—and profoundly illogical. After all, what was the death count if not a precise calculation of the loss? Somehow, the article did not mention the more than one million Americans who had died from other causes in the first five months of 2020. Their deaths didn’t matter.
I was doing everything possible to point out that the models had failed. I believed the danger of hysteria far dwarfed the danger of the coronavirus. With the entire media—led by the Times—in a blind panic, a sharp satirical voice seemed a necessary corrective. Or maybe I was just being a jerk.
“The science” wasn’t driving the change. No one had conducted a convincing randomized controlled trial in March showing that masks protected their wearers—or anyone else. In fact, when Danish researchers ran a trial on masks and the coronavirus later in the spring, they found that masks did not work. The trial was well designed and included more than six thousand people, a very large sample—larger than the samples in all the studies the researchers had reviewed for the CDC meta-analysis in February combined. But the pressure to encourage mask-wearing was so heavy that the scientists couldn’t find a journal to publish their findings for several months.
Over time I grew to believe that a purely psychological explanation was the only answer that made sense. Masks were useless as protection, but the public health authorities needed them as a signifier. Seeing them on other people was frightening, a reminder of the danger of the coronavirus.
Pseudo-science and panic had driven every aspect of our response to the pandemic, including mask mandates. Encouraging people to wear masks was very different that requiring them. If people wanted to try to protect themselves, even in a pointless way, so be it. If the government wanted to make people hide their faces from one another, it needed a good reason. It didn’t have one.
Teachers’ unions had simpler, baser motives. Keeping schools closed would give their members a chance to work from home, convince the public the epidemic remained uncontrolled because of Trump’s failures, and disrupt the economy. the only item not on their agenda was helping kids—particularly poor, inner-city children.
Over and over again, studies that played up the risks of Covid received uncritical press attention. Those that showed the virus might be less dangerous were scoured for flaws—or simply ignored.
In all, more than a quarter-million Americans died from drug overdoses, alcohol, traffic accidents, and homicides in 2020, a rise of over fifty thousand. Those deaths primarily occurred in younger people. Even excluding traffic accidents, the rise in deaths of despair in people under fifty—not the total number but the increase from 2019 to 2020—was larger than the total of seventeen thousand Covid deaths in people in the same age range in 2020.
The experts—so quick to be outraged at any suggestion that we should try to return our lives to normal, put the virus’s death toll in context, or acknowledge that many people infected with Covid might never even know they had it. Journalists even claimed that Trump’s call to be unafraid was hurtful to Americans who had died of Covid—as if calls to beat cancer insulted people who had died of that disease. Apparently the only acceptable way to face Covid was on bended knee, hoping that the dread plague wouldn’t take you.
The riot was real, the tear gas was real, and Trump was disgustingly slow to condemn what was happening. An insurrection? It wasn’t an insurrection, exactly. I’d seen those first-hand in Iraq when I worked for the Times. Insurrections came with mortars and car bombs. It wasn’t a coup, either. Did you see any tanks in the streets preventing a peaceful transfer of power? Me neither.
Both systems [VAERS and EUDRA] have received far more reports of side effects after Covid vaccine shots than other vaccines. By mid-March, VAERS had received more than thirty thousand reports of side effects from Covid vaccines—as many as all other vaccines combined during the last year. The gap is even larger for reports of serious side effects or deaths. With about 110 million doses of mRNA vaccines given in the United States, the VAERS system had received more than 1,800 death reports, the CDC reported on March 16 [2021]. In comparison, ir received about 20 reports of deaths out of 180 million flu vaccinations in the last two flu seasons.
Two Vanity Fair headlines on stories written by the same author summed up the woke media’s incoherence. On October 7, “Trump’s Rush to Release a COVID Vaccine Has Americans Worried.” On December 18, “The White House’s Incompetence Is Apparently Holding Up ‘Millions’ of COVID Vaccines.”
Whatever the method, the goal of gain-of-function research is often to figure out how to make a virus more infectious, more lethal, or both. In theory, this work can help scientists and public health experts figure out which viruses are the most dangerous and how to manage them. But many scientists have sharply criticized gain-of-function research, saying its risks far outweigh any potential benefits.
China might never have cooperated with an investigation no matter how much pressure the United States put on it, but our own public health officials had ensured that the scientific and medical community never even came together to demand that the Chinese open their doors. They had ensured China would have plenty of time to destroy whatever evidence it had.
December 27, 2021
My copy of Pandemia arrived yesterday. this morning I reviewed it.
Reviewed in Canada on November 30, 2021
At this time I have only read the opening paragraphs of most chapters and picked out a number of other excerpts including Mr Berenson's concluding and acknowledging chapters. The book surpasses my expectations. I am familiar with the history of Covid 19 and the public response our political leaders and their medical advisors have forced on us. I am also an individual that has strongly disagreed with what has taken place in that, from the start the citizens have never been treated as having the ability think objectively about their own well-being. Every thing that has been done has been mandated and human freedom discarded. This book recognizes what has happened and the author fully understands the dire consequences of relinquishing our freedom will have on a stable, prosperous society. A dictatorship, even one that professes to be benevolently concern with public health spells disaster.
Can we re-establish a society that seeks informed consent, a society that strives to persuade rather than dictate public affairs? Can we recognize that our future does depend on our willingness to fight to reclaim a freedom lost because we panicked? Mr Berenson has laid out the case ...I urge everyone to take his words seriously.
Reviewed in Canada on November 30, 2021
At this time I have only read the opening paragraphs of most chapters and picked out a number of other excerpts including Mr Berenson's concluding and acknowledging chapters. The book surpasses my expectations. I am familiar with the history of Covid 19 and the public response our political leaders and their medical advisors have forced on us. I am also an individual that has strongly disagreed with what has taken place in that, from the start the citizens have never been treated as having the ability think objectively about their own well-being. Every thing that has been done has been mandated and human freedom discarded. This book recognizes what has happened and the author fully understands the dire consequences of relinquishing our freedom will have on a stable, prosperous society. A dictatorship, even one that professes to be benevolently concern with public health spells disaster.
Can we re-establish a society that seeks informed consent, a society that strives to persuade rather than dictate public affairs? Can we recognize that our future does depend on our willingness to fight to reclaim a freedom lost because we panicked? Mr Berenson has laid out the case ...I urge everyone to take his words seriously.
December 20, 2021
One of my most gripping listens of the year, I binged Pandemia in three days. Contrary to other media surrounding COVID-19, Berenson maintains an easy, non-reactive tone as he explains the flaws in our response.
Read
November 30, 2021A Tour De Force
Alex Berenson writes with clarity, passion and fairness. He criticizes Trump when justified, ditto Fauci and the censoring giants of social media. At last, a journalist who sets his light by facts and truth, a journalist we can trust. Bravo.
Alex Berenson writes with clarity, passion and fairness. He criticizes Trump when justified, ditto Fauci and the censoring giants of social media. At last, a journalist who sets his light by facts and truth, a journalist we can trust. Bravo.
January 8, 2022
Read this!
If you want the truth about Covid read this book. I've never seen a more highly referenced book. Berenson sights tons of sources. I was thankful someone finally asked the question I'd been asking. Stop living in fear. Start thinking for yourselves. Start asking the questions. Stop trusting the media and government to tell the truth. Read this book!
If you want the truth about Covid read this book. I've never seen a more highly referenced book. Berenson sights tons of sources. I was thankful someone finally asked the question I'd been asking. Stop living in fear. Start thinking for yourselves. Start asking the questions. Stop trusting the media and government to tell the truth. Read this book!
December 30, 2021
This is the most important book about the pandemic and the overreaction and panic that stemmed from it. All sources cited.
December 13, 2021
Over 100 pages of footnotes. Yes, COVID kills people, mostly elderly with comorbitities as documented on the CDC webpage since early on. Just looking at the data, the ages to the number of deaths was enough to throw caution to the wind versus what the Fauch and the media were telling us. Mr Berenson also smelled something fishy and his work confirmed my suspicions that COVID was being overhyped, the vaccines were overhyped and politically hyped, so I followed him before he got suspended permanently. Most healthy adults with a healthy immune system should easily beat the odds and survive unvaccinated. Once vaccinated, the rules change as no one knows what any long term effects will be and if it weakens the immune system in young adults. Critical thinkers will read this book. Those vaccinated with never having looked at one shred of data will brush it off as a conspiracy theory.
March 19, 2022
It's accessible, engaging, and tells a story that needs telling. You don't have to agree with his every conclusion to understand the importance that he be permitted to share those conclusions purely as a matter of free speech. It should be read by every free-thinking, independent-minded American. It will wake up anyone still capable of rational thought.
November 11, 2022
Alex Berenson provided a level of sanity and clarity during the COVID hysteria. This is a great history of the time period.
December 13, 2021
I like Alex Berenson. I wish him the best that life has to offer. I value his critical input and steadfast optimism. If you have not been following the pandemic closely, this is a very fine overview. I esp. liked his personal reveals. It really humanizes a man who is very obviously conscientious, rational and caring.
That being said, Alex Berenson is naive.
If a neighbor shits on your front step every day for a year, then complains to the condo board about stoop poop being on your front porch, that neighbor does not have your best interest at heart. If said neighbor seeks to have you fined or arrested because of the feces that collects on your welcome mat every morning, that neighbor is not acting in good faith and may, in fact, hate you. He may have it in for you.
That neighbor is Fauci. That neighbor is Gates. That neighbor is the democratic media and the democrat, totalitarian party. That neighbor is Big Pharma and hospitals that refuse early treatment.
A few questions for Alex:
1. How many deaths are recorded FROM COVID without a single co-morbidity?
2. How many COVID deaths occurred in hospitals after the patient received Remdesivir and/or was put on a ventilator? What is that total %?
3. Why would anyone require mandates or vax passports when mRNA shots do not work? And, do not stop the vaxxed person from getting or passing the virus?
4. How is it moral or legal to deny studies of early treatment or to deny early treatment with existing off-label drugs? Esp. when that same playbook was Fauci's response to HIV/AIDS with AZT, which ended up killing 100,000s?
5. Why allow the person that funded gain-of-function research to create novel hyper-infectious bio-weapon bat coronaviruses to respond to the COVID crisis? Esp. when said person is not a treating physician and has a history of animal and human medical research ethics violations, if not outright murder, for gain?
Answer those questions, and on the face of it, there is are serious violations of human rights, medical ethics and potentially lead up to Nuremberg crimes. Plus, masks are full-stop evil.
Also: I am pro-Amazon. There are tons of small, local businesses that Americans can start that Amazon does not threaten, and Amazon has opened up a world of ideas and products to consumers that was unimaginable in the 80s. So, bully for them.
That being said, Alex Berenson is naive.
If a neighbor shits on your front step every day for a year, then complains to the condo board about stoop poop being on your front porch, that neighbor does not have your best interest at heart. If said neighbor seeks to have you fined or arrested because of the feces that collects on your welcome mat every morning, that neighbor is not acting in good faith and may, in fact, hate you. He may have it in for you.
That neighbor is Fauci. That neighbor is Gates. That neighbor is the democratic media and the democrat, totalitarian party. That neighbor is Big Pharma and hospitals that refuse early treatment.
A few questions for Alex:
1. How many deaths are recorded FROM COVID without a single co-morbidity?
2. How many COVID deaths occurred in hospitals after the patient received Remdesivir and/or was put on a ventilator? What is that total %?
3. Why would anyone require mandates or vax passports when mRNA shots do not work? And, do not stop the vaxxed person from getting or passing the virus?
4. How is it moral or legal to deny studies of early treatment or to deny early treatment with existing off-label drugs? Esp. when that same playbook was Fauci's response to HIV/AIDS with AZT, which ended up killing 100,000s?
5. Why allow the person that funded gain-of-function research to create novel hyper-infectious bio-weapon bat coronaviruses to respond to the COVID crisis? Esp. when said person is not a treating physician and has a history of animal and human medical research ethics violations, if not outright murder, for gain?
Answer those questions, and on the face of it, there is are serious violations of human rights, medical ethics and potentially lead up to Nuremberg crimes. Plus, masks are full-stop evil.
Also: I am pro-Amazon. There are tons of small, local businesses that Americans can start that Amazon does not threaten, and Amazon has opened up a world of ideas and products to consumers that was unimaginable in the 80s. So, bully for them.
December 8, 2021
Excellent history lesson. Will the nation learn from the past or continue its mistakes?
Covid-19 has now consumed the world for two years. Berenson writes a comprehensive history of the pandemic as one who has become a key figure in communicating the truth. (But don't read it if you are still wearing masks!)
Covid-19 has now consumed the world for two years. Berenson writes a comprehensive history of the pandemic as one who has become a key figure in communicating the truth. (But don't read it if you are still wearing masks!)
July 24, 2022
One of the most important books of our age, a time capsule of sorts for the next century when the government-led narrative (read: lie) prevails. Free thinkers will seek this book out and get an understanding of the reality of the situation. Well done, Berenson. Thank you for elevating & preserving truth.
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