No True Scotsman: Lockdown as social and political phenomenon

101 commentators who urged harder Covid lockdowns

Michael P Senger

Apr 14, 2022

In Shanghai, China, millions of residents have been locked in their homes for weeks. Those who test positive for Covid are taken to detention camps and their pets are killed. Many face starvation, and there have been countless suicides. Despite all this—as is the case in every country that implemented them—these inhuman policies have failed to stop the virus.

This gruesome spectacle has been taken in with horror by international onlookers. Many who once supported lockdowns have gone silent. Indeed, these scenes are the logical conclusion of the Zero Covid cause, and serve as a grim reminder of the dystopia that could have been our own had they gotten their way.

Who gave life to this deadly ideology which culminated in such catastrophe? Below is a sample of 101 individuals and institutions with significant, public-facing credentials who advocated for “real” lockdowns—harder, longer, or earlier than those imposed across the world in March 2020—to control Covid.

As many have noted, journalists and health professionals are overrepresented in this group. Most lean to the political left. Even more telling is that, of all 101 individuals, not a single one appears to have been financially affected by the lockdowns they were advocating. Below is a telling example:

This indicates that many were aware lockdowns caused significant harm to others—even lethal harm—but were reassured by the fact that those harms did not affect them, personally. Many justified a “real” lockdown as being necessary to prevent further lockdowns. Presumably, this means that some may have stopped supporting lockdowns after seeing they’d failed. That said, all appear to live in states and countries that implemented strict lockdowns in March 2020, and that did not stop them from advocating stricter lockdowns, indicating that some may have advocated even stricter lockdowns in a “no true Scotsman” loop.

Lockdown had no history in the western world prior to Xi Jinping’s lockdown of Wuhan, China, and was not part of any western pandemic plan, but it’s unclear, in most cases, whether those in this sample were thinking of China when advocating for “real” lockdowns. Lockdown was a social phenomenon, and many likely promoted lockdown simply because they saw their peers promoting lockdown. Those who opposed lockdowns were often vilified and censored by powerful institutions; this may have led to an association of support for lockdowns with power, leading many to believe they need not examine the policy prior to advocating it.

To be sure, this is a very tiny sample of those who promoted lockdowns on social media. Additionally, for every person who publicly advocated lockdowns, countless others quietly acquiesced while playing no role in the debate. Tragically, these silent enablers included the leaders of our society’s highest governing bodies who, each in their own way, could have stopped the entire lockdown catastrophe; this stand-down by the stewards of our most revered institutions gave a veneer of legitimacy to the broad implementation of a Xi Jinping policy across the free world. Nonetheless, all the individuals in this sample publicly advocated policies that caused substantial harm to others in pursuit of a goal that—as Shanghai has so tragically demonstrated—was doomed ab initio.

1 Devi Sridhar, Public Health Professor
2 Tom Frieden, Former CDC Director
3 Jerome Adams, Former Surgeon General
4 Bill Gates, Software developer
5 Anthony Fauci, NIH Director
6 Rochelle Walensky, CDC Director
7 Eric Feigl-Ding
8 Michael Osterholm, Infectious Disease Professor
9 Ian Mackay, Virologist
10 Angela Rasmussen, Virologist
11 Ellie Murray, Epidemiology Professor
12 Lisa Iannattone, Dermatology Professor
13 David Fisman, Public Health Professor
14 Irfan Dhalla, Medical Professor
15 Christina Pagel, Operational Research Professor
16 Zoë Hyde, Epidemiologist
17 Isaac Bogoch, Infectious Disease Physician
18 Tomás Ryan, Neuroscientist
19 Susan Michie, Health Psychology Professor
20 Bruce Arthur, Toronto Star Columnist
21 Yaneer Bar-Yam, Physicist
22 Mike Gibbs, Ontario Ministry of Health
23 Deepti Gurdasani, Epidemiologist
24 Brian Goldman, ER MD
25 The New York Times Editorial Board
26 Jacobin Magazine
27 John Ross, China lobbyist
28 Chen Weihua, China Daily EU Bureau Chief
29 James Palmer, Foreign Policy Magazine Deputy Director
30 Peter Daou, Democratic Campaign Strategist
31 Erica Joy, CTO at Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee
32 Dr. Oz
33 Jason Silverstein, Medical Professor
34 Yoni Freedhoff, Medical Professor
35 Zubaida Haque, Equality Trust Director
36 Daniel Andrews, Premier of Victoria, Australia
37 Kevin Rudd, Former Prime Minister of Australia
38 Diane Abbott, MP
39 Timm Bruch, CTV Reporter
40 Shafi Ahmed, Medical Professor
41 Abe Oudshoorn, Nursing Professor
42 Ananyo Bhattacharya, Science Writer
43 Bloomberg Opinion
44 Brendan Crabb, Microbiologist
45 Luke Bailey, iPaper Editor
46 Paul Bongiorno, Saturday Paper Columnist
47 Dirk Devroey, Medical Professor
48 Emily Deans, Psychiatrist
49 Ximena González, Freelance Writer
50 Omar Ghraieb, Oxfam Policy and Campaigns Officer
51 Zoe Daniel, Australian Politician
52 Diederik Gommers, Chairman of the Dutch association for ICU doctors
53 Jay Beecher, Investigative Journalist
54 Femi Oluwole, Writer at The Independent
55 Jennifer Gunter, OB/GYN
56 Cheri DiNovo, Canadian Politician
57 Malgorzata Gasperowicz, Developmental Biologist
58 Andrew Gaffney, Sports Writer
59 Andreas Eenfeldt, CEO at Diet Doctor
60 Quentin Dempster, Journalist
61 Simon Houpt, Writer at Globe and Mail
62 Issa López, Film Director
63Rhys Jones, Public Health Doctor
64 Emmett Macfarlane, Political Science Professor
65 Bartley Kives, CBC Reporter
66 Jane Merrick, iPaper Policy Editor
67 Virginia Heffernan, Wired Columnist
68 Brian Klaas, Global Politics Professor
69 Andrea Horwath, Canadian Politician
70 Judy Melinek, Forensic Pathologist
71 Chico Harlan, Washington Post Bureau Chief
72 Julien Mercille, Geography and Environment Policy Professor
73 Paul Mason, Journalist
74 Margaret Morgan, Filmmaker
75 Mary-Margaret McMahon, Canadian Politician
76 Steven Newman, Floriculture Professor
77 Don Moynihan, Public Policy Professor
78 Neel Kashkari, President at Minneapolis Federal Reserve
79 Kai Kupferschmidt, Science Journalist
80 Shannon Palus, Editor at Slate
81 Umbereen S Nehal, Founder at Nehal Group LLC
82 Jonathan S Perkins, UCLA Director of Race and Equity
83 Tyler Watt, Public Health Nurse
84 Tony Blakely, Epidemiologist at Melbourne University
85 Alfons López Tena, Spanish Politician
86 Tara C Smith, Infectious Disease Professor
87 André Picard, Globe and Mail Health Journalist
88 Ishaan Tharoor, Washington Post Columnist
89 Michael Schull, Medical Professor
90 Stefanie Leder, TV Writer/Producer
91 Diana Z Berrent, Founder at Survivor Corp
92 Asa Winstanley, Investigative Journalist
93 Jeff Sharlet, Author
94 Bell Ribeiro-Addy, UK Politician
95 Claudia Webbe, UK Politician
96 Bruce Hawker, Political Commentator
97 Alheli Picazo, Freelance Writer
98 Charlie Stross, Author
99 George Aylett, UK Politician
100 Jeremy Farrar, Director of the Wellcome Trust
101 Brianna Wu, Executive Director at Rebellion PAC