Tom Woods: The COVID Lessons We Can't Forget
The historian and podcaster joins us on the five-year anniversary of the COVID-19 emergency to relive all the pandemic policy failures.
Five years to the day after President Donald Trump declared a national emergency, what are the lessons of the COVID-19 pandemic? Just asking questions.
Tom Woods joins us today. He's a historian, host of The Tom Woods Show, and author of many books, including Diary of a Psychosis: How Public Health Disgraced Itself During COVID Mania, which has a foreword written by the new National Institutes of Health Director Jay Bhattacharya. Because he so painstakingly documented his experience of "COVID mania" as it unfolded day-to-day, we asked him to reflect on the lockdowns, social distancing, masks, and vaccines, as well as how all these measures ultimately affected liberty and what COVID accountability should look like.
Sources Referenced:
- Diary of a Psychosis: How Public Health Disgraced Itself During COVID Mania, by Tom Woods
- Sweden during the Pandemic, by the Cato Institute
- "A Soho Forum Discussion of COVID with Tom Woods"
- Just Asking Questions with Johan Norberg: "The truth about Sweden's COVID policy"
- Just Asking Questions with Thierry Mallaret: "Is The Great Reset underway?"
- Follow The Science documentary series
- "Were the COVID-19 Lockdowns a Mistake?" by Zach Weissmueller
- Have Deaths of Despair Risen during the COVID-19 Pandemic? A Systematic Review
- Global tuberculosis report 2024 by the World Health Organization
- The Great Barrington Declaration
- Just Asking Questions with Vinay Prasad: "What are RFK Jr.'s real views on vaccines, diet, and health?"
- Then-U.S. Surgeon General Jerome Adams' archived tweet, February 2020
Chapters:
- 00:00 Introduction: What have we learned from COVID?
- 04:30 The early days: Panic, lockdowns, and initial reactions
- 10:15 Florida vs. California: The great COVID policy divide
- 16:45 The unseen costs: Lockdowns, economy, and mental health
- 23:30 The vaccine debate: Mandates, coercion, and public trust
- 30:20 The science debate: Experts, models, and misleading predictions
- 37:15 Masks, symbolism, and political messaging
- 44:00 Australia, New Zealand, and the global COVID response
- 50:45 Federalism & freedom: Why some states resisted COVID rules
- 57:30 What comes next? Preparing for the next health crisis
- 1:04:00 Final thoughts: The lessons we must remember
- Producer: John Osterhoudt
