PATIENT BEWARE: Nick Coatsworth, Former Australia Deputy Chief Health Officer
Masking Ignorance With Arrogance Down Under
Here at the Pandemic Accountability Index, we've profiled COVID-19 bad actors from across the United States and the United Kingdom with a wide range of backgrounds. Simply put: Nobody is above reproach. Today, we're hitting the high seas to archive the obscene fictions & narcissistic showboating of yet another woefully incompetent, morally reprehensible, & chronically incorrect fraud. This time, our subject emerges from the tepid wastelands of Australia: Private-practice physician Nick Coatsworth, who 9 News Australia falsely labels a "Medical Mythbuster." In reality, Nick subscribed to many myths about COVID-19 he got from following contrarian quacks on Twitter, such as Vinay Prasad of UCSF. (PAI)
Australia, much like New Zealand, did a rather remarkable job preventing COVID-19 transmission until a vaccine was widely available, saving the lives of countless Australians thanks to strong public health mandates. Sadly, much like the US and UK, bad actors have haunted Australia's pandemic discourse since its inception and have faced zero accountability for frequently getting basic facts wrong - and often are being rewarded for misleading the public, with Nick Coatsworth being a prime example.
Nick Coatsworth started the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 as a Deputy Chief Health Officer, (DCHOs) making frequent media appearances and bold, wildly optimistic proclamations that above anything else, Australians must never "panic." There's one small problem with this: The Deputy Chief Health Officer role was a part-time gig (hence the free time to make constant media appearances) shared with three others. These three other DCHOs were rarely, if ever, seen alongside Nick, as he seized upon this opportunity to not only promote himself, but also to present a false "consensus" about his utterly nonsensical beliefs. Don't just take our word for it! Just ask Australian Alison Davies (@alijzimmerman) via Twitter:
"I for one don't recall seeing any media, or any interviews with the three other Deputy CHO's, you took it upon yourself to engage endlessly with the media on any and every platform you could, you did a plethora of interviews that WERE not a requirement in your part time role as one of 4 Deputy CHO's.”
Well, just what was Nick saying across this "plethora of interviews," Alison? Let’s dig in.
i. Nick Coatsworth Demanded the Mass Infection of Children with SARS in April 2020
Let's open this Profile with a quote from a New York City based MD who was treating COVID-19 patients in the Spring of 2020, Dr. Jonathan Howard, author of We Want Them Infected:
"I don't know if it exists, but I had pre-traumatic stress disorder...I started taking medication to help me sleep for the first time in my life. My fears were not misplaced. One nurse described her experience by saying, 'it was just complete chaos. It was like a medical war zone.' Another said, 'It was an unimaginable hell to be quite honest...'The ICU was an eerie place. IV poles were placed outside the rooms to minimize exposure to staff...There were bodies of motionless people, intubated, sedated, and alone. Some lived. Most died. I would occasionally gaze out a window to glimpse the crumbling ruins of the Renwick Smallpox Hospital on Roosevelt Island, reminding myself that humanity had defeated viruses before."
This was what Nick Coatsworth, private practice MD, was not experiencing as he enjoyed his newfound media spotlight as Australia's favorite COVID-19 media personality, smugly calling for the agonizing deaths of his fellow Australians in early 2020.
Starting on April 27th, 2020, Nick Coatsworth leapt into the living rooms of Australians via their televisions to champion the mass infection of children with a brand-new virus - one that he knew precisely nothing about other than what we all were watching: COVID-19 was killing countless people in rapid, agonizing fashion. The fact that Nick was not instantly fired and stripped of his license to practice medicine for this is a national disgrace. The relentlessly undeniable fact that countless children have been disabled, and yes, even killed by SARS-CoV-2 worldwide since 2020, has done little but make Nick Coatsworth double down upon cowardly denial in the years following.
Let's be clear: Nick Coatsworth wanted Australia to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic in Spring 2020 by treating their millions of children as lab-rats for a brand-new pathogen - who would go on to infect their teachers and families, killing many. Nick Coatsworth wanted to see massive numbers of his fellow Australians die horrible, agonizing deaths, including many children. Australian hospitals would obviously be overwhelmed and driven to the brink of collapse, just as they were in New York City. Yet, Nick is still allowed to show his face in public without an ounce of shame for refusing to admit his own willful ignorance.
As a minor aside, in a Feb. 19 2024 tweet, Nick Coatsworth revealed what he truly cares about, much more than protecting Aussies from needless and utterly preventable harm: "The question for the future is how we ensure in any crisis the cooler heads always prevail." Nick has spent a great deal of time constructing his public media persona. As Australian Craig Wallace (@CraigWtweets) explained via Twitter: "his spraytanned visage has literally been seared into our screens for years," as an allegedy handsome, level-headed, "experienced" expert on the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic. The laid-back, no worries California Surfer Brah mentality of public health is the one that Coatsworth campaigns for, casting himself in the leading role - even if countless innocent Australians must be sacrificed in the process of constructing Nick's public-facing image as a level-headed, stoic champion of public health.
ii. Nick Coatsworth Denied that SARS-CoV-2 is Airborne in May 2020
Just weeks later in May 2020, Nick Coatsworth falsely proclaimed that SARS-CoV-2 "is definitely not an airborne pathogen." The opposite was already established in scientific literature published in 2004, showing that SARS-CoV-1 was an airborne virus. While Nick often loves to spend time tapping out half-baked scientific falsehoods via Twitter, his fingers were apparently too worn out to search for basic medical research about SARS-CoV - a key part of his professional responsibilities as Deputy Chief Health Officer for millions of Australians. Instead of admitting fault and accepting the shame of getting this crucial fact dead wrong, Coatsworth has spent the years following this grave mistake crying and moaning, posting endless screeds rallying against any form of airborne mitigations - that have already been well-documented to prevent SARS-CoV-2 transmission.
iii. Nick Coatsworth Championed Widespread COVID-19 Infections of the Omicron Variant in November 2021
In November 2021, Nick Coatsworth dragged his face across Australian television again, proclaiming on The Today Show that (Twitter) "we" apparently "want" the latest variant of COVID-19, "Omicron to spread around the world as quickly as possible...you actually want it to spread within your community." He would have his face plastered on the face of newspapers, proclaiming the "flu is more dangerous." Anyone with real-world experience treating COVID-19 patients, or a basic understanding of the medical research around the SARS-CoV-2 virus, would tell you that anyone claiming the flu is worse than COVID-19 is dangerously incompetent, recklessly dishonest, or most likely a combination of both.
Coatsworth's fantasies would tragically become policy in Australia, leading to a massive surge in deaths and disability over the next two years. Nick has never acknowledged this fact nor apologized for his failures, instead only doubling down on his fictions - even after thousands of Aussie corpses soon proved him dead wrong. Just weeks later in January 2022, New South Wales and the rest of Australia began to experience a surge of Omicron deaths:
Sadly, Nick will only get worse and more depraved from here.
iv. Nick Coatsworth Falsely Proclaimed The Pandemic Would Be Over in January 2022
Nick Coatsworth would go on to take out an opinion-editorial (emphasis on opinion, a decent editor would have nipped this slop in the bud) column in the Sydney Morning Herald, titled: "Welcome to 2022, the year this pandemic ends." He opened by boldly proclaiming that the Omicron variant would "generate immunity" in "the global population." Hospitalizations for COVID-19 in Australia had already immediately skyrocketed to the worst they'd been throughout the entire pandemic, so far. By July, the Australian COVID-19 death toll had increased by 380% and hospitalizations continued to increase.
Looking at COVID-19 deaths in Australia from the 2022-2023, Nick's claim misled tens of thousands of Australians into embracing the cold embrace of the dirt. The end of public health policies designed to prevent SARS-CoV-2 transmission in December 2021, forcing COVID-19 upon the Australian population, killed and disabled countless Aussie citizens, whose families would have preferred to see them still alive and in good health today. For healthcare "expert" Nick Coatsworth, he was content with the body bags being zipped shut on their loved ones while he continued to promote himself in the media as a medical genius.
In the real world, the burden of COVID-19, especially when it comes to disability and chronic illness, will haunt nations like Australia, the United States, and the United Kingdom for decades to come - especially in our children.
v. Nick Coatsworth Championed Infecting Children With COVID-19 Again in 2022
After boldly claiming that unmitigated COVID-19 infections would end the pandemic, Coatsworth immediately returned to his favorite policy position: that children and their families need COVID-19 forced upon them, just weeks after a pediatric COVID-19 vaccine was approved in Australia. Tweeting out, "It's time. Hashtag UnMaskOurKids," and boldly pro-claiming there is "no logical reason" to protect children from COVID-19 infections, Nick doubled down on the same position he has held since April 2020, when we knew very little about COVID-19's potential for harm. We now know quite a deal about how COVID-19 harms children across their bodies, from their hearts to their brains, and even their reproductive organs. (PAI) Nick has refused to acknowledge this.
At the beginning of January 2022, Prof. Kerryn Phelps AM (@drkerrynphelps) sensibly proclaimed "return to primary school classrooms should be delayed until vaccination levels are optimal, mitigations measures are completed and the peak of this wave of the #Covid19 passes." For the crime of being a woman who dared to be publicly smarter and more morally upstanding about pediatric health and development than Nick Coatsworth, Australia's smartest doctor, Nick screeched "Ignore this individual.” Well, Nick got what he wanted. How is that working out for Australian children? Let’s ask ABC News, from an article this past June:
In Australia, the lack of awareness is biting in shocking ways. Too many children with long COVID are being dismissed by doctors who say there's nothing they can do to help — or worse, that their pain and fatigue is "all in their head". They're being pushed out of school by teachers who don't understand why they can't come to class or run around with their peers. Their parents have been gaslighted and blamed, too, not just by medical professionals but their closest friends and family. And experts are concerned that all this ignorance and apathy — and the unwillingness of governments to do more to curb COVID transmission — is exposing a generation of children to the same chronic illness and disability, with potentially devastating consequences.
Nick Coatsworth has never acknowledged how he has played a role in harming Australian children, because his priority is lashing out at women in medicine and science, for the crime of proving Nick Coatsworth dead-wrong about COVID-19. This has become a common hobby for Nick and his mostly anti-vax Twitter followership for years now.
vi. Nick Coatsworth Thinks "Fearful Doctors" (Mostly Women) Are Worse Than COVID-19 Deaths
In a September 2023 tweet, Nick declares:
"Best thing about private practice is I don't wear a mask to see patients anymore and haven't done for quite some time. What's the end point for the public hospitals that skill require masks? They are not, and never have been, a cost neutral intervention."
A private practice contrarian proudly broadcasting his ignorance about how, according to an Australian study (of all places!), COVID-19 infections acquired in healthcare settings carried a 10% fatality rate. Imagine that: Driving your beloved spouse to visit her private practice doctor for reasons un-related to SARS-CoV-2, while he's pre-symptomatic infectious from COVID-19, he infects your loved one, and they wind up dying because Kevorkian Down Under wanted to gloat on social media that he had free reign to get his fellow Australian killed? In reality, PPE mandates in healthcare settings are, in-fact, a cost-positive intervention.
When confronted about his obscene statement by a female doctor named Rhea Liana (@LiangRhea) who treats immunocompromised patients, Nick would double down on his laziest habit of unprofessional misogyny, having an extended meltdown riddled with some of the anti-mask movement's greatest hits:
"We've been fighting a battle to protect patients from fearful doctors for 3 years. It ends this year. No more kids wearing PPE to see dying parents. No more limitations on visiting elderly relatives in aged care. No more bad news delivered by masked faces. No more."
Is COVID-19 truly worse than doctors who would rather be keeping patients safe than winding up sick and spreading disease around hospital wards? Do hospitalized parents truly want to see their children be infected, sick, hospitalized and potentially dead from the disease they themselves are suffering from? Should the hospitalized elderly be killed off early by COVID-19 before their kids can graduate school? Is the bad news of finding out that the loved one you took to visit Nick Coatsworth's private practice for issues unrelated to COVID-19, who was infected by Nick and his staff with COVID-19, killing them, worth seeing a smile from fake Turkish veneers? This is not a serious person’s mind at work here.
When Nick Coatsworth screeches "no more," what he actually means is that he wants much more needless suffering, disability, and death happening across Australia.
vii. Nick Coatsworth Falsely Proclaimed PPE Does Nothing but "Pollute the Environment"
In an interview with right-wing propagandist Ben Fordham of 2GB, Nick "2022 is the year COVID ends" Coatsworth was forced to acknowledge that COVID-19 infections were surging in Australia yet again. Instead of being mature and responsible enough to acknowledge that he was wrong, Nick simply took advantage of being a man with a television camera on his face and started whining about how PPE doesn't work and is, in fact, actively harmful to the environment, a false-flag argument long popular with cranks who have championed COVID-19 infections. This is quite a silly argument from a private-practice doctor who clearly lacks real-world COVID-19 experience.
If you've ever actually spent time in a hospital's Emergency Department, or even better, actually worked in one, you would know that healthcare workers can go through an incredible number of materials in just a single night, even when a pandemic isn't raging. The science is clear: PPE works, is reusable, is recyclable, and is cost-effective. (ScientificAmerican) The waste caused by people dying or being hospitalized for COVID-19 is far greater - if Nick Coatsworth wishes to debate this point, he is more than welcome to make an attempt to run his own cost-benefit analysis so actual experts can rip apart his terrible, narrow-minded math.
viii. Nick Coatsworth Covers for His Own Scientific Illiteracy with Tortured Metaphors
Long before the many challenges of SARS-CoV-2 entered our lives, engineering solutions to remove harmful pathogens from the air have been developed and deployed in one form or another. N95, N99, and P100 respirators are all various forms of Personal-Protective-Equipment that have been researched, developed, designed, and deployed by engineers to help safeguard your health. When failing to run for re-election, Joe Biden used industrial grade ventilation systems to protect himself from COVID-19 when speaking before large crowds. HEPA Filters & Corsi-Rosenthal Boxes use fans and filters to help prevent transmission of airborne harms such as SARS-CoV-2. Sadly, Nick Coatsworth is not an engineer in any capacity, is totally illiterate on this entire field of science, and being forced to admit these facts would also infer that Nick Coatsworth is not the smartest mind in Australia.
On April 2nd, 2022, Nick Coatsworth proclaimed: "Thought of the day" - such a shame he only gets one, he should use them more responsibly - "…any COVID commentator equating breathing indoors without HEPA filtration to drinking toilet water needs a health inoculation of perspective." In reality, of the countless millions of people worldwide who have died or been disabled by COVID-19, over 99% of them were infected by a fellow person who breathed the virus into their face without consent. The average citizen is not forced to drink used toilet water full of excrement as part of their employment or education.
Scientists (real ones, not Substack cranks like Nick Coatsworth's biggest influences) and concerned parents around the world, not happy to see their kids constantly reinfected with a deadly & disabling virus, became needed voices in protecting children against pestilence when their governments pissed off to brunch. Desperate to enforce his fantasy of a "post-pandemic" of "normalcy," Nick decided to anoint himself as the Supreme Excelsior of All Science and make profound declarations about topics he knows utterly nothing about and is totally unwilling to learn even the basics of. This is quite a dangerous game to play when there's already years of being chronically incorrect under Nick Coatsworth's belt, yet he only seems to be rewarded for his many failures while Australian families continue to pay the price.
In February 2023, Nick Coatsworth would jump on Twitter to boldly declare in the second year of his "post-pandemic" fantasy that:
"'Clean' air is now the new obsession of a small segment of the scientific fraternity, just as not letting your kid eat dirt was in the 1990s."
First of all, as someone who, in the 1990s, grew up on a very rural cattle farm in the middle of the woods, between two meth-labs - one of which that exploded - it must be asked: Who in the hell was letting their children eat dirt, or worse, pretending it was no big deal? It’s a sign of a serious eating disorder called pica. Second of all, if pediatric dirt-eating was a widespread phenomenon in Australia, then just how many cases of children eating dirt wound have wound up with kids hospitalized, disabled, or dead? One might start to suspect a tinge of dishonest rambling at work here, from somebody utterly scientifically illiterate. Nick continues:
"We don't need to breathe HEPA filtered air...This isn't about clean air, it's about over-engineering facilities at the behest of a lobby group that stands to benefit significantly from that investment. That's called rent-seeking."
Nick Coatsworth is a private-practice doctor in the liberal capitalist economy of Australia who has a direct financial incentive to see more Australians sick. Secondly, Nick provides zero evidence for his bold claims. In reality, the science of HEPA filtration to prevent COVID-19 outbreaks in education is well-documented. You might have noticed a pattern at this point - Nick Coatsworth has never stayed up to date on the science of SARS-CoV-2 and its harms, especially in children. Nick has maintained his same opinions since April 2020 as a champion for harming children with this virus.
ix. Nick Coatsworth Falsely Claims COVID-19 is Harmless to Children in Fall 2024
After years of profiting from spreading obscene falsehood and fantasy about the benefits of children nakedly embracing COVID-19 across mainstream Australian media, Nick Coatsworth decided to have another meltdown after ABC News tweeted out a story on September 22nd, 2024: "A free online course aims to bust COVID misinformation & teach people how to stop the virus from spreading in schools." As a long-standing champion of children winding up sick, hospitalized, and even dead as a result of COVID-19 spreading in schools, Nick Coatsworth responded:
"Dear Schools. Save your money, and your time and ignore this. Any investment in air filtration is unproven and wastes precious resources. COVID is no more harmful to kids than any respiratory virus. Beware the activist"
In reality, schools in the US, UK, and AUS are consistently running out of money to hire replacement teachers as educators are repeatedly infected with COVID-19, with many winding up disabled by COVID-19 and too disabled to work in their chosen career anymore. Nick has never cared about what happens to those in this predominantly female-dominated profession. The benefits of using engineering solutions to prevent transmission of SARS-CoV-2 in classrooms has been well-proven to keep children in school, and learning, instead of sick at home - or worse, too sick to learn in class while they infect their fellow classmates and teachers. This fourth sentence requires a dedicated response of its own, to outline Nick Coatsworth's morally depraved incompetence in the medical field:
SARS-CoV-2 is an airborne, socially transmitted virus spread from person-to-person via exhaled aerosols. This virus enters the body and causes COVID-19, a multi-system disease with well-documented harms all over the body, including the brain, heart, and even reproductive organs - especially in children. Nick Coatsworth is intentionally conflating "airborne" with "respiratory" in order to intentionally mislead you that COVID-19 is merely another flu-type bug that goes in one lung, and out the other, with little worry. This is objectively false and should qualify as medical malpractice.
Nick Coatsworth has been an outspoken activist for forcing COVID-19 on children, parents, and teachers since April 2020. If there is anyone to beware, it's the wealthy man who profits from children suffering - as this keeps COVID-19 in the news, and those trying to prevent COVID-19 in the news, so Nick Coatsworth can lash out and attack them with all sorts of nasty relationships. This is what is often referred to as a "symbiotic relationship," which may seem confusing, since Nick Coatsworth has been an utter parasite.
x. Nick Coatsworth Openly Denies that COVID-19 Harms Pediatric Health & Development
In a follow-up to the previous, utterly illiterate rant, Nick Coatsworth claims on September 24th, 2024 that:
"The starting premise that COVID-19 causes serious neurological issues in children in anything more than a case report frequency is flawed. So there's a pathogen that doesn't cause the harm you think it does, and an intervention that doesn't have the effectiveness you hope it does, and you're keen on making the trade off with the educational $$ being speant on IAQ. I'm sorry, I don't agree."
The best advice any champion of COVID-19 infections, especially in children, could heed is to subscribe to the Pandemic Accountability Index and our regular "What COVID-19 Does To The Body Series." We open every edition with a dedicated section compiling negative effects of COVID-19 in children, tragically as a result of politicians & their chosen who gleefully insisted that we should force this pathogen on kids. Sadly, Nick's beloved "respiratory" virus is shown to often cross the blood-brain barrier and damage the natural flow that makes all your beloved inner thoughts possible - similar to Dementia & Alzheimer’s, tragically. Coatsworth could have long ago realized that a growing mountain of evidence is proving his utterly ignorant opinions dead wrong and quietly bowed out. Instead, Nick is doubling down in public. What a shame, buddy.
xi. Nick Coatsworth Refuses to Admit Children Spread COVID-19 in 2024
In September 2024 from anti-vaxxer social media fantasy land, Nick Coatsworth proclaims:
"We must reject the conceptualization of children as vectors of infectious disease."
In reality, from CIDRAP in the United States, June 2023:
Here is some commentary from John Hess MD (@DrJohnHhess) - an American MD who has actually treated COVID-19 patients:
"No surprise to anyone who actual treats families. Worst case of the pandemic for me. Male 40s. Dec 2021. Unvaccinated. Kids got COVID at school. Caught it from them. Died 1 week later. Haunts me to this day."
Nick Coatsworth championed this story playing out all across Australia.
xii. Nick Coatsworth boldly asks, "Do You Want to Live Forever?"
In September 2023, after it was apparent that Nick Coatsworth's preferred approach to COVID-19 was killing countless Australians and causing many health complications, it was announced that he would be helming a new mini-series in 2024 for 9 Network Australi - Nick will "guide six Aussies on a powerful journey to stop the clock and turn back time as they explore the possibility of reversing ageing, ending disease and living forever."
On June 14th, 2024 - Nick Coatsworth would advertise the mini-series as his "landmark TV documentary." There’s one small problem with someone like Nick hosting a program about trying to “live forever.”
Life-expectancy in Australia has continued to decline for many years as a result of the population-wide COVID-19 infections that Nick Coatsworth championed. Nick has never acknowledged this fact nor admitted the role he played in making this possible. Nick's beliefs are about as real as his tan.
In Conclusion
The meanest thing we can say about Nick Coatsworth is that he has never been an original thinker, if he even thinks at all. Instead of taking his responsibility as Deputy Chief Health Officer seriously and learning all the best ways to protect families from a brand-new disease, Nick would latch on to views from contrarian social media grifters he found across unscientific cesspools such as Twitter, and Youtube, who personally profited from contrarianism - including Anders Tegnell, Tracy Beth Hoeg, and Jay Bhattacharya. Like a bird barfing microplastics into the mouths of her own children, Nick Coatsworth went on to import these contrarian, unscientific fantasies into the Australian media discourse, with little pushback or journalistic inquiry. Tragically, many everyday Australians wound up very sick, disabled, or even dead as a result of Nick Coatsworth's advocacy and influence.
Nick Coatsworth is now claiming that he is advising government officials, especially when it comes to his view of doing nothing to prevent COVID-19. If it’s true that Coatsworth is influencing public health policy in Australia, then this is a national scandal that should be grounds for a major reckoning in Australian politics - Nick has proven himself utterly incompetent and unfit to work in any medical setting, much less advising governments. Being a reality television clown is a much more fitting role for Nick.
In loving tribute to The Chaser's War on Everything, here's hoping every Australian profoundly rejects Nick Coatsworth’s The Secret approach to the ongoing COVID-19 disaster, future pandemics & public health in general by simply wishing pestilence away:
You shouldn’t be forced to tolerate such masturbatory narcissism from those tasked with the responsibility to safeguard the public’s health.
