Unpublished editorial, Chicago Tribune article on school openings, selected tweets, and link to The Children’s Inquiry: How the state and society failed the young during the Covid-19 pandemic (UK)
AS I am going through this, I can already hear what those in the narrative would say in response. "It's not just about death," and. the other one, "why all this focus on death alone?"
Most of what those of us who are not indoctrinated do is dissent against the narrative. And initially we were treated to the hyperbole of the Ferguson model. 3% dead was what they stated, and then other hyperbole like "it will be as bad as the Spanish Flu" (now we know that even the Spanish flu wasn't as bad as the Spanish Flu.)
They are the ones that created the narrative, we didn't want to wake up, counting deaths, asking about death certificates, tracing down the origins of the death, and realizing that death records were far from as cut and dry as the medical professionals claim that they are. We did this because they were the ones who created policies predicated on these assertions. "Facts" as they call them, that aren't factual at all.
I wished we lived in a world where we, humans, didn't have to do the labelling, but we are, and thus the data of "cause of death" is only as good as those who determine it. Back in 2003, It took six months to diagnose my mother with what would eventually kill her in July of that same year.That's just for figuring out what was wrong with a living person. And yet we live in this almost parochial world where we can determine death from a positive PCR test?
“Most of us assume mortality statistics are exempt from Mark Twain’s saw about statistics being lesser in value to lies and damn lies. But the nature of cause-of-death data capture belies the reliability of mortality statistics as structurally sound. Mortality statistics tabulated from death certificates should not steer public health recommendations or medical decisions. Using them as a metric for scientific research or public policy is about as prudent as building a skyscraper on a sandbox.”
I've come a long way since 2020 and now see the "from/with" COVID cause-of-death attribution as part of the con https://www.woodhouse76.com/p/false-binaries-that-limit-the-spectrum-32b -- and I also realize that we can't/shouldn't simply trust the all-cause daily death curves. Numbers in spreadsheets aren't records.
One of my favorite hypocrisies was how doctors suddenly were 100% certain and unified on *everything.* Previously you couldn't call your doctor's office for advice about a headache and get any. The doctor couldn't possibly venture to guess what was causing it without an office visit. It could be a tension headache or it could be an incipient aneurism or it could be that axe buried 3 inches deep in your skull. It would be unethical for him to say anything definitive without seeing you in person. His next available opening is in September. And until 2020 you couldn't get any five doctors to agree on the most obvious proposition ("humans drown when submerged") without adding a dozen qualifiers. Yet suddenly they were united that *everyone* needed these shots and that *definitely* "covid" was dangerous and existed and was new and could be defeated by a cloth slave muzzle.
I'm sorry that you were subjected to that frustration and anguish over the failure of your mother's doctors to diagnose her. Doctors have all the answers until you need some.
Jessica Hockett’s unpublished op-ed isn’t just a time capsule—it’s a scalpel, slicing through the bureaucratic fog and data games that defined the COVID-19 response in Illinois. What’s striking isn’t just how meticulously she sourced the anomalies—the suicide retroactively counted as a COVID death, the May fatality logged in August—but how calmly and clearly she assembled a case for skepticism. No wild theorizing, no performative outrage—just facts that speak loudly enough to make officials squirm.
Her refusal to "dumb it down" or make it about herself shows integrity, especially in a media landscape where personal anecdotes are often used to mask a lack of rigor. The piece reads like a quiet indictment—not just of how the data were manipulated, but of a media class too timid (or too captured) to publish anything that didn’t flatter the state’s narrative.
She was right to stand by every word. The only scandal bigger than what she uncovered is that the Tribune sat on it.
I should probably add that, under the circumstances, it was striking for the Chicago Tribune to even want me to write something. I credit one of the editors (female) who had been following me on Twitter. But (historically) the Tribune is the more conservative-leaning publication of the two major Chicago papers (Sun-Times being the other).
What I wrote is NOT really newspaper friendly, regardless of topic, and I wasn't on Substack until mid-2021, so I didn't have an alt-outlet to publish. A critic might say I should have revised, reduced, and restylized in order to get a message out there in mass media, and that I was being too proud.
Maybe so, but there was a lot of stress at the time involving reopening of schools. I had decided to homeschool both of mine (and had to give up professional/career endeavors to do so), and so I think I was just plain ticked off that they wanted me to present myself and my concerns differently than I want to present myself and my concerns.
I let this slip my mind, but I was interviewed by the Tribune for a story a few weeks about re-opening schools (along with other parents). Link and excerpt below.
But many local parents who also want schools reopened say the issue is one of personal choice, not politics, despite the debate erupting just months before the 2020 presidential election.
“It’s kind of funny, because when people hear that I want my kids back in the classroom this fall, some will be like, ‘Are you a Trump supporter?’ which I’m not, but what does that have to do with it?” said Evanston resident Jessica Hockett, whose children are 9 and 13.
After learning that Evanston-Skokie School District 65 is expected to begin the new school year with remote learning, Hockett said she has decided to withdraw her two children and home-school them instead.
“I had hoped they’d get the kids back in school at the start of the school year, even if it was some kind of hybrid choice,” said Hockett, adding that she does support a remote learning option “for teachers and parents who are fearful about going back in person.”
EDIT: I reflected further on the context and expanded the above comment to include more content. See additions at end of post
Thanks for the thoughtful follow-up, Jessica. You’ve clearly done the work—not just the sourcing and documenting, but the harder internal audit of your own assumptions. That kind of self-scrutiny is rare, especially among people who were technically right in their early skepticism. You saw smoke when others were still praising the aroma.
And while critics may say you should’ve revised your piece to get it past the Tribune’s editorial colander, there’s something to be said for preserving the original tone when the moment demanded clarity, not compromise. Especially when you’re watching your own kids get locked out of school while the media tries to funnel everything through the prism of “Trump or not-Trump?”
The fact that even the more conservative paper couldn’t bring itself to publish a clear-eyed, data-grounded critique is telling. Not because it was conspiratorial or sensational—but because it wasn’t. That’s the real taboo.
Your piece aged well. The Tribune’s silence didn’t.
AS I am going through this, I can already hear what those in the narrative would say in response. "It's not just about death," and. the other one, "why all this focus on death alone?"
Most of what those of us who are not indoctrinated do is dissent against the narrative. And initially we were treated to the hyperbole of the Ferguson model. 3% dead was what they stated, and then other hyperbole like "it will be as bad as the Spanish Flu" (now we know that even the Spanish flu wasn't as bad as the Spanish Flu.)
They are the ones that created the narrative, we didn't want to wake up, counting deaths, asking about death certificates, tracing down the origins of the death, and realizing that death records were far from as cut and dry as the medical professionals claim that they are. We did this because they were the ones who created policies predicated on these assertions. "Facts" as they call them, that aren't factual at all.
I wished we lived in a world where we, humans, didn't have to do the labelling, but we are, and thus the data of "cause of death" is only as good as those who determine it. Back in 2003, It took six months to diagnose my mother with what would eventually kill her in July of that same year.That's just for figuring out what was wrong with a living person. And yet we live in this almost parochial world where we can determine death from a positive PCR test?
Yes, cause of death determination is messy business. I wrote about that further in this article https://www.woodhouse76.com/p/setting-the-stage-for-flus-disappearing and referenced this piece from 2021 too: https://americanmind.org/salvo/a-covid-death-the-bureaucracy-decides/
Excerpt below:
“Most of us assume mortality statistics are exempt from Mark Twain’s saw about statistics being lesser in value to lies and damn lies. But the nature of cause-of-death data capture belies the reliability of mortality statistics as structurally sound. Mortality statistics tabulated from death certificates should not steer public health recommendations or medical decisions. Using them as a metric for scientific research or public policy is about as prudent as building a skyscraper on a sandbox.”
I've come a long way since 2020 and now see the "from/with" COVID cause-of-death attribution as part of the con https://www.woodhouse76.com/p/false-binaries-that-limit-the-spectrum-32b -- and I also realize that we can't/shouldn't simply trust the all-cause daily death curves. Numbers in spreadsheets aren't records.
One of my favorite hypocrisies was how doctors suddenly were 100% certain and unified on *everything.* Previously you couldn't call your doctor's office for advice about a headache and get any. The doctor couldn't possibly venture to guess what was causing it without an office visit. It could be a tension headache or it could be an incipient aneurism or it could be that axe buried 3 inches deep in your skull. It would be unethical for him to say anything definitive without seeing you in person. His next available opening is in September. And until 2020 you couldn't get any five doctors to agree on the most obvious proposition ("humans drown when submerged") without adding a dozen qualifiers. Yet suddenly they were united that *everyone* needed these shots and that *definitely* "covid" was dangerous and existed and was new and could be defeated by a cloth slave muzzle.
I'm sorry that you were subjected to that frustration and anguish over the failure of your mother's doctors to diagnose her. Doctors have all the answers until you need some.
Jessica Hockett’s unpublished op-ed isn’t just a time capsule—it’s a scalpel, slicing through the bureaucratic fog and data games that defined the COVID-19 response in Illinois. What’s striking isn’t just how meticulously she sourced the anomalies—the suicide retroactively counted as a COVID death, the May fatality logged in August—but how calmly and clearly she assembled a case for skepticism. No wild theorizing, no performative outrage—just facts that speak loudly enough to make officials squirm.
Her refusal to "dumb it down" or make it about herself shows integrity, especially in a media landscape where personal anecdotes are often used to mask a lack of rigor. The piece reads like a quiet indictment—not just of how the data were manipulated, but of a media class too timid (or too captured) to publish anything that didn’t flatter the state’s narrative.
She was right to stand by every word. The only scandal bigger than what she uncovered is that the Tribune sat on it.
LOL. Sounds like Grok talking :)
I hope it's clear to readers that I fully recognize I was WRONG about much in my assumptions and conclusions...and well within the bounds permitted dissent. https://www.woodhouse76.com/p/false-binaries-that-limit-the-spectrum-32b
I should probably add that, under the circumstances, it was striking for the Chicago Tribune to even want me to write something. I credit one of the editors (female) who had been following me on Twitter. But (historically) the Tribune is the more conservative-leaning publication of the two major Chicago papers (Sun-Times being the other).
What I wrote is NOT really newspaper friendly, regardless of topic, and I wasn't on Substack until mid-2021, so I didn't have an alt-outlet to publish. A critic might say I should have revised, reduced, and restylized in order to get a message out there in mass media, and that I was being too proud.
Maybe so, but there was a lot of stress at the time involving reopening of schools. I had decided to homeschool both of mine (and had to give up professional/career endeavors to do so), and so I think I was just plain ticked off that they wanted me to present myself and my concerns differently than I want to present myself and my concerns.
I let this slip my mind, but I was interviewed by the Tribune for a story a few weeks about re-opening schools (along with other parents). Link and excerpt below.
https://web.archive.org/web/20240307170842/https://www.chicagotribune.com/2020/08/04/parents-who-want-schools-to-reopen-this-fall-say-its-a-matter-of-choice-not-politics-students-mental-health-has-got-to-be-weighed/
But many local parents who also want schools reopened say the issue is one of personal choice, not politics, despite the debate erupting just months before the 2020 presidential election.
“It’s kind of funny, because when people hear that I want my kids back in the classroom this fall, some will be like, ‘Are you a Trump supporter?’ which I’m not, but what does that have to do with it?” said Evanston resident Jessica Hockett, whose children are 9 and 13.
After learning that Evanston-Skokie School District 65 is expected to begin the new school year with remote learning, Hockett said she has decided to withdraw her two children and home-school them instead.
“I had hoped they’d get the kids back in school at the start of the school year, even if it was some kind of hybrid choice,” said Hockett, adding that she does support a remote learning option “for teachers and parents who are fearful about going back in person.”
EDIT: I reflected further on the context and expanded the above comment to include more content. See additions at end of post
Thanks for the thoughtful follow-up, Jessica. You’ve clearly done the work—not just the sourcing and documenting, but the harder internal audit of your own assumptions. That kind of self-scrutiny is rare, especially among people who were technically right in their early skepticism. You saw smoke when others were still praising the aroma.
And while critics may say you should’ve revised your piece to get it past the Tribune’s editorial colander, there’s something to be said for preserving the original tone when the moment demanded clarity, not compromise. Especially when you’re watching your own kids get locked out of school while the media tries to funnel everything through the prism of “Trump or not-Trump?”
The fact that even the more conservative paper couldn’t bring itself to publish a clear-eyed, data-grounded critique is telling. Not because it was conspiratorial or sensational—but because it wasn’t. That’s the real taboo.
Your piece aged well. The Tribune’s silence didn’t.