Just What Does COVID Accountability Look Like?
Correcting Misconceptions of One of the Pandemic's Most Abused Terms
There was a specific choice made in naming this publication the "Pandemic Accountability Index." The term "accountability" is one of the most misused, abused words in discussions surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic, most especially by the modern crusaders against public health, who have never treated a child dying in an ICU after a "mild" infection with SARS-CoV-2 they picked up in the classroom.
Let's review the numbers that are constantly lost in these discussions about accountability: Over 1.2 million Americans have died (without factoring in a 15-30% undercount), and research shows that nearly half of these deaths were preventable, a fact we’ve known since 2021. This number includes thousands of children. Like it or not but the parents of those children are at the front of line for demanding accountability, as these kids were overwhelmingly unvaccinated, thanks to a perverse choir of voices who personally profited from misleading the public about the safety & necessity of the pediatric COVID-19 vaccine.
Hundreds of thousands of children were infected with SARS-CoV-2 in schools, brought the virus home, and infected their parents, which resulted in their deaths. Those kids lost a parent and were forced to play a primary role in their death. For this trauma, these kids are also at the front of the line for demanding accountability. Yes, the Biden-Harris Administration crusaded for this, and liberals like Jeffrey Zients, former COVID Czar, should be held accountable for such a ridiculous, and needless death march towards a fantasy of "normalcy" paid in blood and tears.
Tens of millions of Americans are now disabled by SARS-CoV-2, the virus they were organized into embracing, including millions of children - numbers that only get worse as the years go on and the population is reinfected by epidemic waves of COVID-19. Many prominent voices made a pretty penny on social media falsely assuring the public that this wasn't possible, while many Americans lost their ability to work, the roof over their heads, abandoned by their loved ones, and often falling to deaths of despair. These Americans are also at the front of the line for getting pandemic accountability and restitution.
Yet, some of the loudest voices demanding “accountability” don’t care about these harms whatsoever. They’ve imagined far worse infractions.
Irrelevant Grievances
The pathetic whiners screeching bloody murder because they were told to wear a mask, get vaccinated, and not cough up their guts on a bartender in 2020 spent five years hollering on social media while a bunch of their fellow countrymen died or became disabled - are the loudest demanding "accountability" for the pandemic response, one that ultimately gave them whatever they wanted. Yet, the vibes are still off. Instead of admitting that their new, unproven, completely ahistorical idea of mass infection failed, these cranks are desperate to divert blame anywhere else.
These voices screeching for "accountability" show trials are thrilled for the opportunity to play God and demand the needless, preventable deaths of their fellow Americans, whilst mocking, ridiculing, and even demonizing those who struggled to prevent these same deaths, starting from the very moment SARS-CoV-2 hit our shores. From an anonymous harassment Twitter account titled "Nuremberg 2.0" harassing a frontline healthcare worker:
"You made patients put on a mask? Accountability is coming for you sweetheart. Hashtag noamnesty Hashtag Nuremberg2"
As an aside, it's worth noting that the phrase "No Amnesty" is inspired by Economist Emily Oster's article in The Atlantic suggesting that anti-vaxxers and their fellow travellers should give "amnesty" to those who sought to protect children from SARS-CoV-2. She intentionally sought to rile up these voices to intimidate those who advocated for mitigation measures to prevent COVID-19 outbreaks, regardless of the human cost caused by the virus.
Let's name a few names - and hey: be careful what you wish for, bub.
Stanford Economist Jay Bhattacharya
As a prime example of those who are most deserving of facing pandemic accountability, let's take a look at your future NIH director Jay Bhattacharya, a completely incompetent Stanford "health economist" that struggles with basic arithmetic, without a medical license, who championed COVID-19 as a harmless & benevolent friend to children tweeted this on March 11th, 2022:
"Now that the politics favor the pandemic ending, the pandemic is ending. It was a coalition of regular people (working-class, poor, moms) who forced the shift. Next, they will hold accountable the people who pushed the lockdowns to answer for the destruction they caused."
This entire statement is a complete fabrication. Just weeks earlier, January 2022, was the deadliest month for pediatric COVID-19 deaths on record in America. Bhattacharya masquerades as a benevolent champion of the working class, when he has always been funded by wealthy billionaires - such as the Kochs which funded the "Tea Party" that became Trump worshippers - to advance a pro-business agenda that dumps the burden of the COVID-19 pandemic on working families. Unfortunately, they had a friend in the Biden Administration, which sought to absolve themselves of responsibility and "privatize the public health response," in the words of Final COVID Czar Ashish Jha. Didn't end well for the Democrats.
Much like every previous pandemic throughout history, why were measures such as stay-at-home orders, remote schooling, and quarantine requirements issued instead of failed mass infection agendas? Hospitals were overwhelmed. Educators were dying on the job, and schools were shutting down due to unmitigated COVID-19 outbreaks. Mass graves were being dug. Society was not, and could not, function "normally," as Bhattacharya proposed to magically end the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic in "three to six months" by infecting everyone with a new virus he knew nothing about. Unfortunately, you cannot grab a virus by the collar and read it the riot act when it causes an untold amount of suffering. Since Bhattacharya constantly refuses to admit that he wildly underestimated COVID-19, he constantly seeks out somebody else to blame. This isn't uncommon.
Many Americans died and were disabled over the many years Bhattacharya pounced in front of a camera lens and chose to make the pandemic about himself. If pandemic "accountability" trials are to happen, Bhattacharya would be at the front of the line to face justice for misleading the public on television and social media, causing numerous deaths and needless disability.
You asked for it, Smilin' Jay. You don't get to play the "censored" victim in this.
UCSF Professor Vinay Prasad
Vinay Prasad chose to profit from being a social media provocateur over his responsibility to the general public as a medical professional. Tragically, the money is pretty good as a COVID Contrarian. (Shameless plug to subscribe to the PAI goes here) We've well documented Prasad's failures in an extensive, 17,000+ word profile you can read for yourself here - be sure to pour yourself a stiff drink first. This is what Vinay Prasad wrote on the evening of Halloween, 2022:
"we need pandemic accountability -- not amnetsy-- we have to make sure we never make the same errors again...my plan (downward pointing emojis pointing to a link to Prasad's Substack)"
It's really easy to write a Substack article titled "pandemic accountability" and cast yourself as the supreme judge of America's doctors, nurses, scientists, and public health officials. In the face of a future pandemic, this document raving against protecting children from new pathogens is utterly worthless if we face another wave of overwhelmed pediatric ICUs and schools shutting down due to outbreaks killing educators. Not to mention, the trauma of children being forced to grit their teeth and smile through epidemic waves surrounded by death and devastation rolling through their community.
Just who would hold Prasad accountable for his master plan completely falling flat on its face? As a writer for the Brownstone Institute, he should be aware that they published an article titled "Who Will Be Held Responsible for this Devastation" - with a picture of a guillotine attached. Is Prasad brave enough to walk the gallows when his fantasies of mass infection of hundreds of millions of unvaccinated Americans with a new pathogen leads to little more than mass graves and economic suicide?
After spending years destroying his credibility with his colleagues in medicine and science, Prasad finds himself isolated deep within the pits of the rabid anti-vaccine conspiracy theory cranks. In January 2025, he tweets out:
"The case that lockdown was misguided, masking kids, moronic, and vaccine mandates, harmful is strong. It is winnable. Sadly, many who agree, also believe in unproven nonsense like ivermectin. This undermines an effort to get accountability for pandemic errors."
Well bud, you made the bed you chose to lie in.
Years before, Vinay Prasad once demanded RCTs for treating COVID-19 with Ivermectin, foolishly using an anti-parasitical drug for a viral infection, while refusing to acknowledge the RCTs that already existed. Arguing that children should have been forcibly infected with SARS-CoV-2 as part of their education in Spring 2020, infecting not only their teachers, but their unvaccinated families - would have rapidly overwhelmed hospitals and exponentially multiplied the bodycount. In April 2020, Vinay Prasad’s primary concern was that people were wearing PPE:
So what do you really consider “winning,” Prasad? Standing proud over a mountain of dead and disabled Americans? Or were you just happy to make a mess for someone else to clean up, like your beloved Trump and RFK Jr. are doing right now to hard-working doctors & scientists in the federal government you’ve wasted years demonizing for your own personal profit?
Radiologist Scott Atlas
On July 9th, 2024 the former Trump COVID-19 advisor Scott Atlas tweeted out a quote from a recent speech, as one does when you're a man in love with the sound of his own voice above all else:
"Some call for forgiving & forgetting unconscionable decisions to close schools & implement these reckless lockdowns. NO - truth matters in an ethical society, & we demand accountability so they never do this again."
This is quite fascinating, because in the early days of 2020, the unqualified radiologist Atlas, with zero relevant credentials related to infectious diseases or pandemics, was very excited to sing the praises of SARS-CoV-2, a brand new virus, and the disease it causes, COVID-19, as harmless and benign for many.
Atlas was more than thrilled to plaster his face across Americans' televisions as an advocate for disease, instead of treating COVID-19 patients in the ICU. This misled many Americans into wildly underestimating the virus, leading to needless death and disability that Scott shares responsibility for.
Did Atlas apologize for his errors? When Atlas was corrected by Stanford faculty, did he accept accountability for his failures? Did Scott Atlas admit he wasn't being truthful nor ethical with the American public about the limitations of his expertise?
Oh, heavens no. As a member of the Trump Administration, he used legal intimidation against his (objectively correct) critics. In 2024, Atlas declared that he was right about everything since March 2020 and to do this. As a ruthless self-promoter, Scott Atlas doesn't care how many Americans he gets killed or disabled, as long as he gets to line his own wallet. Instead of ejecting Atlas for bringing embarrassment to the reputation of Stanford, they rewarded him with a prime speaking slot at a "Pandemic Policy" conference that was widely shunned by students who prioritized actually learning something useful instead of entertaining crackpots.
What COVID-19 Pandemic “Accountability” Would Actually Look Like
What the modern anti-vaccine movement is talking about when they screech about "accountability" is that they want to demonize, bully, and humiliate healthcare workers and scientists - who spoke up against the ridiculous fantasy these cranks insisted was possible in Spring 2020 - into silence. Their goal is rewriting a tragic, bloody history with ridiculous, unrealistic fictions that will be immediately debunked with blood come a future pandemic disaster. They don't believe in holding themselves accountable for the many, numerous glaring errors that they make on a regular basis - even when it's struggling with those mystical Arabic numerals. It’s pathetic.
So why should they have all the fun? As the Trump Administration goes to war on medical research at universities across the country, administrators will likely bend the knee - throwing doctors, scientists, students, and the institutions they’re supposed to defend under the bus in a pathetically foolish and self-defeating act of cowardice. The far smarter tactic is our hospitals and medical universities working together and doing everything they can to undercut the Trump Administration, isolating their influence over destroying America’s ability to perform lifesaving research.
We can start with purging all the anti-vaccine cranks, whose priority is grandstanding on social media over scientific and intellectual pursuits, from medical academia. Bhattacharya, Prasad, Atlas, Gandhi, the list goes on and on. They don’t believe in “evidence-based medicine,” they engage in the reverse of the scientific method - often committing flagrant errors as they work backwards to construct bunk “evidence” for their pre-conceived conclusions - and refuse to admit fault. Students need to learn that there is no place for this in the academy, and that there are more important & valuable pursuits than contrarian grandstanding your way up the political ladder.
The anti-vaccine movement and its champions have to be soundly condemned by our institutions, and the Trump Administration shamed for being its vessel. Cowardice in this moment is little more than engaging in censorship of facts and hard science. There is academic freedom, and then there is reality. Men like Bhattacharya, Prasad, and Atlas have rejected the latter while misrepresenting themselves as heroes of the former. It’s repulsive and indefensible that university administrations wasted years egging this sort of flagrant misconduct on, even as these cranks openly cheer on the Trump Administration crippling their respective institutions.
Real pandemic accountability starts with those who championed SARS-CoV-2, and all the death and disability it caused being utterly humiliated, with their ill-gotten wealth expropriated, and their careers permanently ended. The modern anti-vaccine movement needs to be utterly crushed before it cripples civil society as we know it, if we are to ever rebuild public health and move forward.
That would be a good start to finding accountability for the COVID-19 pandemic.
