Throughout the global pandemic, Americans have been told by health experts to “Follow the Science.” But what does that actually mean? Scientific truth is never settled, and the history of science is a history of error. Anyone who has ever spent time in a science class would know that the whole point of science is to question how things work, and why they are the way they are. People have seen examples of scientific truth in the past, yet when data shows that theories are proven to be faulty, those theories can be challenged, improved, or replaced. But this past year and a half, if anyone questioned the decisions made by the experts of the pandemic, they were immediately accused of denying science. The truth is that the phrase “Obey the Science” has come to mean one thing: “Believe what we tell you, and do as you are told.”

The phrase “Follow the Science” has been abused by experts and politicians to achieve nothing but public compliance with political agendas. As a result, schools have been closed, cities have been shut down, millions have lost their jobs, and multiple people have been murdered for issues relating to mask mandates. Many argue that Dr. Fauci and the CDC should just get a pass because of the once-in-a-lifetime nature of this pandemic. This point has merit, however, it ignores the gross inconsistencies and arrogance these experts maintain even though scientific evidence and data is constantly proving them wrong. Fauci has repeatedly endorsed anti-scientific viewpoints that have been proven to be inaccurate over and over again. These viewpoints include mandating masks on teenagers, which is not necessary given that everyone over the age of 12 is allowed to be vaccinated, seeing as the vaccine has been proven to be safe and effective. Fauci advised against travel bans which turned out to be crucial in saving millions of lives. Not only has Fauci refused to admit his wrongdoings, but he continues to lead the country in the fight “for science” without consequence for his actions.

Politicians like (former) Governor Andrew Cuomo told his state to kindly “Ignore the politics, and follow the science.” That did not work out for him too nicely, seeing as he resigned as New York’s Governor just weeks later after his infamous nursing home scandal, which violated common sense and mandated COVID positive patients to leave hospitals and head into nursing homes. This resulted in the deaths of 9,000 elderly people. Fauci had praised Cuomo for his leadership skills throughout the pandemic, but has failed to react or even speak out after the atrocity.

The statewide lockdowns that were promised to work and save lives failed in doing so efficiently. Using the two latest articles that ranked states including DC with in-depth methodology, one study done by the Becker’s Hospital Review in March and the other by WalletHub in April 2021, one can compare the death rates of heavy lockdown states versus less restrictive states, which gave additional proof that lockdowns and other strong COVID restrictions had little effect on death rate. After calculating state COVID death rates at the time the Becker’s Hospital Review article was published, and splitting the states into half with the most COVID restrictions and a half with the least COVID restrictions (complete calculations and methodology can be found here), it was revealed that 12 of the 26 states with the highest death rates in the country were states that had extreme lockdown measures, while 12 of the 25 states with the lowest death rates were states with the least amount of COVID restrictions. The same approach is taken with the Wallethub article, where states were reorganized based on how restrictive their lockdown measures were in April 2021. The COVID 19 death data was updated to when the article was written. It found that 14 of the 26 states with the highest death rates were in the half with more restrictions, while 14 of the 25 states with the lowest death rates were states in the half with the lowest amount of restrictions. In fact, the top 5 states with the highest death rates were among the 15 most restrictive states in the country according to the Wallethub article. The states that performed the best were equally split among those who were and were not heavily laid with restrictions. The same story occurred among the worst performing states. In other words, many open and less restrictive states were on par or handedly outperformed the hard lockdown states without crippling their state economies in the process. This is especially important because the vaccine was not fully available to all adults at this time. Virtually everyone who is dying of COVID today are unvaccinated adults, meaning that their death is their responsibility and has nothing to do with lockdowns today.

The school closures that came with lockdowns devastatingly affected students, including many from Claremont High, for a year and a half, as students struggled to navigate “Zoom Classes.” Experts told us this was for the best, yet for the past 17 months, this decision did not save lives. In fact, a study found that more kids died from gunshots in Chicago this year than the total number of kids that have died from COVID-19. Even as students return to class, most are forced to mask up, once again obeying the pandemic scientists, when some of their decisions have not been backed with facts.

On May 13th, 2021, the CDC updated their guidance confirming that fully vaccinated people were protected from the virus and did not need to use a mask anymore. Two days later, they mysteriously changed their guidance. This happened because the National Education Association, the largest teachers’ union in the country, threatened to release an email criticizing the CDC for their “negligence on school safety,” in which they also threatened not to go back to school if the guidance was not changed. A day later, the CDC changed their stance to recommend that everyone (students or not) wear a mask, to fully accommodate the teacher’s union agenda. When you are forced to wear a mask in your classroom, just know: This decision to mask schoolchildren wasn’t backed by “science.” It was backed by the experts who were too scared of the possibility of their reputation being tarnished than to actually follow the real science.

Medical officials deserve skepticism, not because they are bad doctors or scientists, but because they have lost sight of the limits of their own expertise. They have completely ignored the concept of trade-offs: social, economic, psychological and political. We must instead look at the data ourselves, and make personal risk assessments that weigh the costs and benefits, like rational human beings, and come to verifiable conclusions ourselves. The experts have left our country in devastation and disaster, and we must ensure it will never happen again.