Alex Berenson, Pandemia: How Coronavirus Hysteria Took Over Our Government, Rights, and Lives (Regnery: Washington D.C., 2021). 464 pp. ISBN 978-1-68451-248-5. $29.99. For the first months of the pandemic, I was a Corona hysteric. I had the virus very early; for four days I was extremely sick, and as I recovered and Europe began to lock down, I read the panic pornography of Tomas Pueyo and thought we might well be facing a mass casualty event. Everything reinforced this message, from obscure Twitter accounts to colleagues to German state media. There were critics too, but in those early days it was hard to find them. Those who came to my notice turned out to be saying a lot of things that were just wrong, and in this way they played into the hands of the containment regime. It was easy for casual readers to think that sanity and good judgement lay entirely with Team Lockdown.
"Probably nobody important in his lifetime will acknowledge it, but Berenson’s calm, rational, and diligent reporting has been crucial to breaking the spell of Corona in the West."
A lot fairer than his claim yesterday that you are a "nihilist".
Did Berenson ever recant his absolutely baseless attack on Robert Malone? He made it right at a potential tipping point when McCollough and Malone had just been on Rogan, and all skeptical voices should have been united.
When given the opportunity, he doubled down on his attack, making laughably false points, and I unsubscribed from his substack at that point.
I track most of the COVID authors. Alex is imperfect -- but aren't we all? I have no idea what personal tiff he has with Malone, and neither does any commenter here. Do i wish he did not use his bully pulpit to pursue that distraction? Of course. But that misses the point.
As Eugyppius correctly points out, Alex has a far larger platform than most and has mostly used it for good and right reasons. At a time when speakers-that-can-be-heard on this important topic are few and far between, religious tests on every last point are the last thing we need.
Alex is thoughtful and generally correct -- but surely not always correct. Pandemia is an excellent book and I, too, recommend it (I gave away 20 copies as Christmas presents, together with Unmasked by Ian Miller). He is one of those valuable voices in a struggle that few were willing to take on when he did. That fact matters.
I applaud Eugyppius for giving credit where credit is due (nihilism isn't exactly a slur...although probably not the right choice of words) and urge all of us interested in making progress in exposing the idiocy/evil of the established system and reinforcing the truth to not throw out the baby with the bathwater.
"Corona is ending, but I very much fear that the crazy is just getting started." That is the golden question that I keep asking myself. How do we prevent this again?
Berenson is great because he is honest. I feel that way too many people nowadays cater to their audience, and he does not.
I don't always agree with him, but what is the point of reading somebody that you always agree with.
My only issue with this book is that it feels like an autobiography of a 23 year old. I fear the covid circus is not over and therefore it feels wrong to read books that are looking back on it.
As an American who never joined Twitter, I had missed Alex and the "team reality" cohort entirely. I only discovered Alex after seeing other substack users reading him, so followed without paying, but by fall 2021 I was reading dozens of people on Substack, plus the NYT, WaPo, FT, etc, etc - so his voice hadn't really stood out to me (and I generally focus on reading from those I disagree with anyway).
When the "Rogan Hysteria" hit in January, I decided to check out his interview with Malone, and as I was scrolling noticed he had Berenson on a few weeks earlier, and decided to give that a quick go just to orient myself with Rogans style and see what Berenson had to say.
I stuck with the whole 3 hour interview (intention to listen for 10 minutes or), never making it to the Malone interview, and promptly paid the $300 "founder fee" to Alex with a quick note letting him know I appreciated the fact that we would say "I don't know" in the course of that interview. That in itself is the rarest quality in our Covid media punditry class.
My only wish is that Berenson can move from cynic to skeptic. I also hope if he gets back his Twitter account he doesn't rejoin. I felt his effort was better spent on Pandemia.
It's funny, I too got Covid very early (the end of Feb / start of March), and I too was very sick with it—I have asthma, and at times could not even fill my lungs with air. But I am a statistician who used to specialise in health economics, so despite this awful experience I was never a Covid hysteric, because every piece of actual evidence already suggested from the very beginning what we now know to be true: that it is a nasty virus, just as flu is nasty, but no more than that.
I like your recollection because you admit that you were wrong. What I cannot stand is those who pretend that they were right to panic at the beginning, even after they have realised that it was unnecessary. No, the actual evidence ALWAYS signalled that Covid is no worse than flu. That was clear to me and to many others from the beginning.
Great review, I enjoyed reading Alex's book too... Perhaps it was the symbolic nature of the mask over the mouth, or the visual factor to remind people there's a "pandemic" going on, or possibly the discomfort factor to make people uncomfortable until taking the jab, but (at least here in the US) the masks were a slippery slope to compliance and economic misery.
I was really impressed with Berenson at the beginning of the pandemic. He asked all the right questions like an investigative reporter with a good background in the medical industry should. He was fearless and dogged and his sharp tone broke through a lot of the nonsense. But that stubbornness and ego can also be a hindrance when it comes to team sports and even downright annoying.
But he is right, the George Floyd brouhaha in the US absolutely highlighted the sheer lunacy of the lockdowns. For politicians to openly claim that the protestors would be somehow immune, as compared to the rest of us, was just the right level of preposterousness to encourage more vocal debate. This very day, I’m sitting in an office in NY with a useless mask which is required and they still wipe everything down with alcohol (even though the CDC’s own study showed only a one in 10,000 chance of contracting COVID from a surface). It’s just the weirdest thing to see NYers vacation in FL without a mask, fly back here and become donkeys all over again. There is a rumor, though, that the NY Governor is in jeopardy- the Republican candidate stands a reasonable chance of winning- which is really amazing!
I can’t write worth a crap… I am thankful for the writers, whether I agree with them or not. Eugyppius, whether you are a nihilist or not (per Berensen) , keep writing away! A beacon of light in this dark time has been a Godsend. ☮️
So grateful to read you were at first a "Corona hysteric."
I wasn't a hysteric but I was cautious, and being retired, having a beautiful country view from my small-city window, and dreading any possibility of becoming a burden to my adult child, I was quite comfortable indulging all my worst habits of just staying home and having fun with my hobbies.
I'm a regularly-published letters-to-the-editor writer to my regional paper, and was disconcerted to see, in reviewing my files, that I'd written forcefully in favor of masking in August 2020. In January 2022 I wrote even more forcefully (excoriatingly!) against the masking of our children anywhere. Fuck the grownups, but the willful destruction of the lives of children gets me wild-eyed.
But I did feel ashamed to have so easily believed the masking nonsense. (I didn't believe the vax nonsense ever and fortunately am not in a position to be compelled or coerced. But loved ones are and that's a grief to me.) It's a relief to know that someone of your intelligence, perception and analytical strengths believed some of that early crap too.
Pandemia review: Excellent. I've been sorry to see how easily Berenson sabotages himself by a sort of neurotic over-excess in his then-permitted Twitter feed and Substack postings. Makes him too easy to mock by those wishing to decredit him. (And I was really sorry for how he went after you for your Ukraine analysis. I think it's hard for him, having been so early a skeptic on COVID, to have to share the truth-telling universe with others. But he is human after all and has lost all his Before Time social and collegial relationships and that's hard. A need to be the smartest one in the room works against a measured temperament.)
For me, before Alex, or any of the books you mention, (and I agree with your list, except I also would want to add The Great Covid Panic), wthere was the book by Prof. Sucharit Bhakdi and his wife, "Corona False Alarm?"
One of the key differences I think between Europeans and Americans is that a vast number of Americans have is distrust of the national government. We just want them to go away and leave us alone. One of the oldest jokes in politics is:
How can you tell if a politician is lying?
Punch line:
His mouth is moving.
In my best moments I distrust Washington politicians, at my worst I despise them.
I am a former subscriber to Berenson, but I did the 1 year deal so have a few more months to run out
Alex did a really good job to do the ground work digging up all the inconsistencies and uselessness of covid policies and sounded the alarm on the vaccines, probably earlier than anyone else I think. I think he also was on the vanguard of the lab-leak theory but I honestly can't recall
What has happened over the past 6-12 months is that many more names & personalities have come forward and created crowding and competition in the "skeptic space". These include people like Robert Malone, Peter McCollough, and substacks such as Eugyppius, Bad Cattitude, and many many more
Alex has responded somewhat badly to this change - since he is basically just a journalist and doesn't actually have any background, the rise of the "expert skeptic" seems to have rubbed him the wrong way. A good barometer is the various Joe Rogan podcasts - he had Berenson, McCollough and Malone on, and the absolute shitstorm was for the latter 2. Nobody cared about Alex on Rogan, and I think he knows it.
But Covid policies are changing and the tide of battle has shifted. I wish he would accept the win, and the role he played in it, and realize that he can't be at the center of it all the time
Of the books I've read about covid - pandemia didn't really land that solidly for me. I more or less forget about it a few days afterwards. Maybe if he had released it many months earlier it would have been different.
I also find it self serving that he is day-in-and-day-out plugging his book. Makes me wonder.
Books that really impacted me and stuck with me were State of Fear (Laura Dodsworth), and Viral (Alina Chan, Matt Ridley).
"Probably nobody important in his lifetime will acknowledge it, but Berenson’s calm, rational, and diligent reporting has been crucial to breaking the spell of Corona in the West."
A lot fairer than his claim yesterday that you are a "nihilist".
As usual ... Eugyppius is fair and methodical (despite Berenson trashing him the other day)
Did Berenson ever recant his absolutely baseless attack on Robert Malone? He made it right at a potential tipping point when McCollough and Malone had just been on Rogan, and all skeptical voices should have been united.
When given the opportunity, he doubled down on his attack, making laughably false points, and I unsubscribed from his substack at that point.
I track most of the COVID authors. Alex is imperfect -- but aren't we all? I have no idea what personal tiff he has with Malone, and neither does any commenter here. Do i wish he did not use his bully pulpit to pursue that distraction? Of course. But that misses the point.
As Eugyppius correctly points out, Alex has a far larger platform than most and has mostly used it for good and right reasons. At a time when speakers-that-can-be-heard on this important topic are few and far between, religious tests on every last point are the last thing we need.
Alex is thoughtful and generally correct -- but surely not always correct. Pandemia is an excellent book and I, too, recommend it (I gave away 20 copies as Christmas presents, together with Unmasked by Ian Miller). He is one of those valuable voices in a struggle that few were willing to take on when he did. That fact matters.
I applaud Eugyppius for giving credit where credit is due (nihilism isn't exactly a slur...although probably not the right choice of words) and urge all of us interested in making progress in exposing the idiocy/evil of the established system and reinforcing the truth to not throw out the baby with the bathwater.
"Corona is ending, but I very much fear that the crazy is just getting started." That is the golden question that I keep asking myself. How do we prevent this again?
Berenson is great because he is honest. I feel that way too many people nowadays cater to their audience, and he does not.
I don't always agree with him, but what is the point of reading somebody that you always agree with.
My only issue with this book is that it feels like an autobiography of a 23 year old. I fear the covid circus is not over and therefore it feels wrong to read books that are looking back on it.
Wonderful review, so well done and informative.
As an American who never joined Twitter, I had missed Alex and the "team reality" cohort entirely. I only discovered Alex after seeing other substack users reading him, so followed without paying, but by fall 2021 I was reading dozens of people on Substack, plus the NYT, WaPo, FT, etc, etc - so his voice hadn't really stood out to me (and I generally focus on reading from those I disagree with anyway).
When the "Rogan Hysteria" hit in January, I decided to check out his interview with Malone, and as I was scrolling noticed he had Berenson on a few weeks earlier, and decided to give that a quick go just to orient myself with Rogans style and see what Berenson had to say.
I stuck with the whole 3 hour interview (intention to listen for 10 minutes or), never making it to the Malone interview, and promptly paid the $300 "founder fee" to Alex with a quick note letting him know I appreciated the fact that we would say "I don't know" in the course of that interview. That in itself is the rarest quality in our Covid media punditry class.
My only wish is that Berenson can move from cynic to skeptic. I also hope if he gets back his Twitter account he doesn't rejoin. I felt his effort was better spent on Pandemia.
It's funny, I too got Covid very early (the end of Feb / start of March), and I too was very sick with it—I have asthma, and at times could not even fill my lungs with air. But I am a statistician who used to specialise in health economics, so despite this awful experience I was never a Covid hysteric, because every piece of actual evidence already suggested from the very beginning what we now know to be true: that it is a nasty virus, just as flu is nasty, but no more than that.
I like your recollection because you admit that you were wrong. What I cannot stand is those who pretend that they were right to panic at the beginning, even after they have realised that it was unnecessary. No, the actual evidence ALWAYS signalled that Covid is no worse than flu. That was clear to me and to many others from the beginning.
Great review, I enjoyed reading Alex's book too... Perhaps it was the symbolic nature of the mask over the mouth, or the visual factor to remind people there's a "pandemic" going on, or possibly the discomfort factor to make people uncomfortable until taking the jab, but (at least here in the US) the masks were a slippery slope to compliance and economic misery.
I was really impressed with Berenson at the beginning of the pandemic. He asked all the right questions like an investigative reporter with a good background in the medical industry should. He was fearless and dogged and his sharp tone broke through a lot of the nonsense. But that stubbornness and ego can also be a hindrance when it comes to team sports and even downright annoying.
But he is right, the George Floyd brouhaha in the US absolutely highlighted the sheer lunacy of the lockdowns. For politicians to openly claim that the protestors would be somehow immune, as compared to the rest of us, was just the right level of preposterousness to encourage more vocal debate. This very day, I’m sitting in an office in NY with a useless mask which is required and they still wipe everything down with alcohol (even though the CDC’s own study showed only a one in 10,000 chance of contracting COVID from a surface). It’s just the weirdest thing to see NYers vacation in FL without a mask, fly back here and become donkeys all over again. There is a rumor, though, that the NY Governor is in jeopardy- the Republican candidate stands a reasonable chance of winning- which is really amazing!
I can’t write worth a crap… I am thankful for the writers, whether I agree with them or not. Eugyppius, whether you are a nihilist or not (per Berensen) , keep writing away! A beacon of light in this dark time has been a Godsend. ☮️
So grateful to read you were at first a "Corona hysteric."
I wasn't a hysteric but I was cautious, and being retired, having a beautiful country view from my small-city window, and dreading any possibility of becoming a burden to my adult child, I was quite comfortable indulging all my worst habits of just staying home and having fun with my hobbies.
I'm a regularly-published letters-to-the-editor writer to my regional paper, and was disconcerted to see, in reviewing my files, that I'd written forcefully in favor of masking in August 2020. In January 2022 I wrote even more forcefully (excoriatingly!) against the masking of our children anywhere. Fuck the grownups, but the willful destruction of the lives of children gets me wild-eyed.
But I did feel ashamed to have so easily believed the masking nonsense. (I didn't believe the vax nonsense ever and fortunately am not in a position to be compelled or coerced. But loved ones are and that's a grief to me.) It's a relief to know that someone of your intelligence, perception and analytical strengths believed some of that early crap too.
Pandemia review: Excellent. I've been sorry to see how easily Berenson sabotages himself by a sort of neurotic over-excess in his then-permitted Twitter feed and Substack postings. Makes him too easy to mock by those wishing to decredit him. (And I was really sorry for how he went after you for your Ukraine analysis. I think it's hard for him, having been so early a skeptic on COVID, to have to share the truth-telling universe with others. But he is human after all and has lost all his Before Time social and collegial relationships and that's hard. A need to be the smartest one in the room works against a measured temperament.)
For me, before Alex, or any of the books you mention, (and I agree with your list, except I also would want to add The Great Covid Panic), wthere was the book by Prof. Sucharit Bhakdi and his wife, "Corona False Alarm?"
One of the key differences I think between Europeans and Americans is that a vast number of Americans have is distrust of the national government. We just want them to go away and leave us alone. One of the oldest jokes in politics is:
How can you tell if a politician is lying?
Punch line:
His mouth is moving.
In my best moments I distrust Washington politicians, at my worst I despise them.
I am a former subscriber to Berenson, but I did the 1 year deal so have a few more months to run out
Alex did a really good job to do the ground work digging up all the inconsistencies and uselessness of covid policies and sounded the alarm on the vaccines, probably earlier than anyone else I think. I think he also was on the vanguard of the lab-leak theory but I honestly can't recall
What has happened over the past 6-12 months is that many more names & personalities have come forward and created crowding and competition in the "skeptic space". These include people like Robert Malone, Peter McCollough, and substacks such as Eugyppius, Bad Cattitude, and many many more
Alex has responded somewhat badly to this change - since he is basically just a journalist and doesn't actually have any background, the rise of the "expert skeptic" seems to have rubbed him the wrong way. A good barometer is the various Joe Rogan podcasts - he had Berenson, McCollough and Malone on, and the absolute shitstorm was for the latter 2. Nobody cared about Alex on Rogan, and I think he knows it.
But Covid policies are changing and the tide of battle has shifted. I wish he would accept the win, and the role he played in it, and realize that he can't be at the center of it all the time
Of the books I've read about covid - pandemia didn't really land that solidly for me. I more or less forget about it a few days afterwards. Maybe if he had released it many months earlier it would have been different.
I also find it self serving that he is day-in-and-day-out plugging his book. Makes me wonder.
Books that really impacted me and stuck with me were State of Fear (Laura Dodsworth), and Viral (Alina Chan, Matt Ridley).