Blindsight is 2020

Perspectives on Covid policies from dissident scientists, philosophers, artists, and more

The following is a guest post by Gabrielle Bauer, author of the new book BLINDSIGHT IS 2020: Perspectives on Covid policies from dissident scientists, philosophers, artists, and more.

Bauer is a Toronto health and medical writer who has won six national awards for her magazine journalism. Her books include Tokyo, My Everest, co-winner of the Canada Japan Book Prize, and Waltzing The Tango, a finalist for the Edna Staebler Creative Nonfiction Award.

Her new book is currently available on Amazon and LuLu as a printed edition or in e-reader format. Please check it out and consider leaving a review if you’re so inclined!

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I was 63 years old when the pandemic hit—not a grandma, but certainly old enough to be one. Old enough that I was expected to cheer for policies ostensibly designed to keep me safe. But I wasn’t cheering. Nothing about the policies seemed remotely fair, proportionate, or humane.

I’ll never forget the early days of the pandemic: the pedestrians leaping away if another human passed by, the taped-up park benches, the shaming, the snitching, the panic… My heart ached for the young people, including my own son and daughter in their dreary studio apartments, suddenly barred from the extra-curricular activities and gigs that made university life tolerable for them. People said it was all part of the social contract, what we had to do to protect each other. But if we understand the social contract to include engaging with society, the new rules were also breaking the contract in profound ways.

Stay safe, stay safe, people muttered to each other, like the “praise be” in The Handmaid’s Tale. Two weeks of this strange new world, even two months, I could countenance. But two months were turning into the end of the year. Or maybe the year after that. As long as it takes. Really? No cost-benefit analysis? No discussion of alternative strategies? No regard for outcomes beyond the containment of a virus?

My bewilderment and despair kept growing, even as the restrictions loosened up. I collected links to articles and podcasts and took feverish notes, without knowing where it would all lead. By the time the opportunity to write a book about the pandemic came along, I already had a running start. And I knew just want I wanted to write about: the psychology of the pandemic response. I wanted to explore what precipitated the fear and what sustained it, what prompted people to shame and snitch on each other, and what led the world to lose its sense of proportion.  As a medical writer I knew that such a book could put my career at risk, but I couldn’t say no.

Called Blindsight Is 2020, the book was recently published in English by the Brownstone Institute and in Spanish by Mandala Ediciones. It showcases 46 scientists, ethicists, writers, and other thinkers who reflect on the societal harms of the Covid-19 lockdowns and mandates. A few of my medical-writing clients have bought it, and to my happy surprise they haven’t ditched me.

Beyond the science

Follow the science. Everyone was saying this, but it never made sense to me. Why were only scientists being consulted? Where were the mental health experts to tell us how social isolation will affect our most vulnerable, both young and old? Where are the economists to insist on a cost-benefit analysis? Where are the ethicists to weigh in on the appropriate balance between risk avoidance and human rights? Or the philosophers to zoom out to the big questions, like the perils of setting life apart from living?

The book takes the position—shared by many scientists, as it turns out—that a pandemic is not just a scientific problem, but a human one. “The novel coronavirus response is being driven too much by the epidemiology,” Mark Woolhouse states in his book The Year The World Went Mad. A professor of infectious disease epidemiology at the University of Edinburgh and one of the people I feature in the book, Woolhouse shares my dismay at the curious and conspicuous dismissal of the mental-health, human-rights, and economic perspectives on the pandemic. “We epidemiologists were repeatedly told it was someone else’s job” to worry about these things, he writes. But “whose? Nothing was ever made public.”

Managing a pandemic is not just about containing a virus, but about steering the human family through a massive societal upheaval. An upheaval that threatens not just lives, but livelihoods. Not just lung health, but mental health. Not just heartbeats, but hopes and dreams. It’s about striking a balance between collective action and individual agency. It’s about respecting that not everyone brings equal capabilities or resources to the navigation of public health directives—considerations that were jettisoned with Covid.

Epidemiologists can do epidemiology. Public health experts can do public health. But none of these experts can do society or human nature any better than intellectuals from other disciplines or even “ordinary people.” No scientist has the legal or moral authority to tell someone they can’t sit next to a parent on their deathbed.

Embracing reality

The dominant narrative positioned the virus as the enemy in a planetary war—an enemy we must fight to the bitter end, costs be damned. But as it became clear that the war was unwinnable, a second story began gaining momentum. This story cast Covid as a guest that, while not exactly welcome, was here to stay, so we needed to find a way to coexist with it without destroying our social fabric. In his book Gone Viral, Justin Hart calls the supporters of each story Team Apocalypse and Team Reality, respectively. My book embraces the second story: attempting to eliminate all risk from Covid is a fool’s errand and carries too high a cost. The thought leaders featured in the book explain why.

As an essayist and memoirist, I also enjoy weaving some storytelling into the mix. From therapy with a Zoom shrink to a trip to lockdown-free Sweden, I recount several personal experiences that sprang from my despair about the Covid policies.

To those who have shared my despair, I hope the book provides a sense of validation. But I’ve also written the book to help those who supported the Covid measures understand why some of us despaired at the policies they cheered on.  Wherever you fall on the spectrum, the book will introduce you to a cast of free-spirited and courageous characters. If their insights leave you with some food for thought, I’ll call it a win.