Today's piece about vaccine fanatic Peter Hotez (and the attached 2025 article in which I called out a former friend for his Covid cowardice) have stirred up some feels. I get it. Let's talk.

Seems I’m not the only one who has “a pit in my stomach” about 2021.

After today’s article about Covid vaccine fanatic Peter Hotez, this email hit my inbox:

Hi Alex,

Over the last several years, many of us made the personal choice to refuse the COVID vaccines and spoke out against the mandates, lockdowns, school closures, and mask policies. We based those decisions on our own research, risk assessments, concerns about coercion, and a commitment to bodily autonomy and informed consent.

The personal cost has been enormous. Families divided. Friendships shattered. Careers damaged. Businesses lost. Children missed critical years. We sacrificed time, freedom, and social connections that may never fully return. Even now, reflecting on that era brings up intense anger, grief, and exhaustion for me; I can’t be alone. The gaslighting and ostracism left deep scars.

What do you think about a support group for unvaccinated individuals who resisted the overreach?

This could take the form of a private Substack community, regular Zoom calls, local meetups, or a simple forum… I cannot speak of the COVID era without getting angry, even saying or writing the word COVID is a trigger. I think it could be similar to PTSD.

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So.

I think in general we should reserve PTSD diagnoses for the aftermath of the kind of events Americans usually do not see firsthand unless they’re in the military (your village being massacred, your city washed away in a tsunagmi, your Humvee turned into a four-person oven by a roadside bomb).

That said, Covid stunk.

People we thought we knew well turned out to be cowards — willing to sacrifice their kids’ education and mental health for years, to give up basic civil liberties, and to pretend that a barely tested biotechnology was somehow the answer to all their problems and to ostracize anyone who dared to question it.

And for the most part, those people have decided to pretend 2020 and 2021 didn’t happen. As I said, I try not to think about it, but when I do, I get angry. And some comments at the bottom of the Hotez piece suggest you feel the same.

I don’t know if we need an ongoing “support group.”

But — as we approach the fifth anniversary of the peak of the insanity — it might be time to talk about it.

So tomorrow afternoon, at 2 p.m. Eastern, I’m going to host a chat about Covid and the mRNAs, five years on. Ideally I want the conversation to be forward-looking as much as possible.

In other words, I want to hear your big thoughts like exploring ideas for accountability and preventing future policy failures; but also your feelings about ruptured relationships with friends and family members (and, ideally, those that have recovered).

This chat will be for paid subscribers only. I may try one for everyone in the future. But my initial chat last year, which was open to all 229,000 members, was overwhelmed and didn’t work.

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(If you want to be part of the chat…)

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Depending on how many people join, and what they say, we can consider meetups, calls, or future events.

But I hope even if we do this just once, we’ll all get something out of it.

So, please, if you are a paid subscriber, look for the invite tomorrow — 2 p.m. Eastern, 11 a.m. Pacific!

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