A Sign of Progress:

Something struck me today. When @pandata19 first came into the public eye, it was with a single message—that lockdowns were a cure worse than the disease; that health authorities were ignoring their harms, otherwise we wouldn't do them. 1/8

This simple observation earned us more abuse than you can imagine, filling me with admiration for my many colleagues who soldiered on through it all. Though many of our early detractors still circle, their rage has diverted to subsequent elements of our work. 2/8

However, a great many are now saying that lockdowns are no longer appropriate, something they never supported, not their responsibility or only there because so-and-so isn't observing some or other crackpot dictum of the new religion. They no longer defend them per se. 3/8

Of course, in today's partisan world, their attention simply shifts. They try as hard as they can to pin onto us ideas that aren't our own, and sift through legions of tweets, interviews and articles in the strange rictus of "offence archaeology". 4/8

They have entirely missed the fact that they now agree with the point that first made them furious with us, that what they really didn't like about that point was that it was, at the time, an affront to their preferred deity or their own perceived authority. 5/8

But that is oddly less irksome than their initial objections, as it's a sign of what will come. What we are seeing for lockdowns, we will see for the rest of the entire post-science fleet of bad ideas and policies. We will one day write to deny saying that pigs fly, ... 6/8

... but at least it will be to someone who has stopped saying that lockdowns or school closures were wise, that the WHO or PCR tests were infallible, that masks have massive benefits, that only a vaccine can save us, that alcohol should be banned, that censorship is good,... 7/8

... or that "fact checkers" know their proverbials from their elbows. They will no doubt still accuse us of "misinformation", meaning we say stuff they disagree with, but at some point it will have drifted into the trivial, and the rest of us will breath a sigh of relief. 8/8