Oh, what a tangled web we weave.
Most of us remember, all too clearly, the 2020 COVID-19 debacle. Americans were ordered to stay in their homes. Grocery stores made all the aisles one-way to minimize human contact. Schools closed. Private businesses were ordered to close. We were all ordered to wear masks in public. That last part, of course, gave rise to one of the most head-scratching displays of nitwittery imaginable: The sight of someone driving along, in their personal car, alone, wearing a mask.
Now, before that and after it, the government had pandemic plans. That's not surprising. Various government entities have plans for any eventuality; they should. The Pentagon does; a few years back, there was a lot of pearl-clutching in the legacy media when it was revealed that the Pentagon had a plan to invade Iran. The sensible reply to that was, "Heck yes, I should hope so, they probably have a plan to invade Canada in a drawer somewhere." That's what they do. They plan.
There are also plans for disease outbreaks. Historically, these things have been handled sensibly, even the 1918 Spanish flu, which killed a lot of people: If you're ill, stay home, drink lots of fluids, stay warm, minimize contact. Key part of that: If you're ill. There were no stay-at-home orders for the general population. Business and education went on, for the most part.
But now we have learned some things about the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) pandemic plan, and they would seem to have learned nothing from the vast overreaction to COVID-19. No, the current plan is nothing more than a colossal power grab.
The closest thing we have in the US to a pandemic plan is called the Pandemic Action Crisis Plan or PanCap. It remains the prevailing unclassified document. It posits stay-at-home orders, school closures, business shutdowns, office closures, travel restrictions, testing, track-and-trace and the creation and distribution of countermeasures called vaccines.
So far as anyone knows, it is still the prevailing document. It’s one of many. Nothing has changed about any of them in light of what we learned from Covid. The CDC currently hosts all these documents:
- National Strategy for Pandemic Influenza
- National Strategy Implementation Plan
- MMWR: Updated Preparedness and Response Framework for Influenza Pandemics
- 2017 HHS Pandemic Influenza Plan Update
- 2009 HHS Pandemic Influenza Plan Update
- 2006 HHS Pandemic Influenza Plan Update
- 2006 HHS Pandemic Influenza Plan Update
- Allocating and Targeting Pandemic Influenza Vaccine Guidance
This approach has no precedent in the long history of public health. The old way was to keep calm, understand the illness, treat those affected and use rational approaches to mitigate the impacts. The new way invented in 2005 is about command and control, pretending to manage the microbial kingdom like an engineering project.
Here's the thing about the old way: It worked.
Read More: New: Desperate Fauci Emailed Biden for Pardon on Inauguration Morning
Fauci Backs Out of Voluntary Testimony — Rand Paul Slaps Him With a New Subpoena
Here's some of what's in that new plan, which actually isn't all that new, but has been in place since 2006, more or less:
This is not some conspiracy theory. We need only look at one related document, the Biological Incident Annex to the Response and Recovery Federal, Interagency Operational Plan as produced by FEMA. It is out of classification and available for anyone to observe. It comes into operation with any pathogen that is new, perhaps manufactured in a lab as many of them are.
Halfway through this document you find a presumption of business closures, transportation restrictions and disruptions, widespread commodities hoarding by the public, stay-at-home orders, workforce shift to virtual environment, school and childcare closures, restaurant closures, hotel closures, reduced workforce and plant closures.
This is basically all of the worst parts of the COVID-19 panic, and then some.
Here's the problem: Not only is all this likely unconstitutional, but it is also, or would be, the greatest infringement of Americans' individual liberty in the history of the republic. Worse, the COVID-19 panic has already shown that too many Americans will meekly submit; they will submit to having their kids' schools closed, to having to wear a face diaper in public, to having their businesses shut down, and more.
But, hey, it's all part of the plan.
Here's what needs to happen with this plan: It needs to be torn up, shredded, and burned. We should never again be subjected to the vast overreaction to a flu bug as happened in 2020. We should never again be expected to surrender so many of the liberties that we perhaps take too much for granted, because of a virus that is indeed dangerous to the very elderly, the very young, and those with compromised immune systems, just like most flu viruses. The COVID-19 strain was, yes, a little nastier than most coronaviruses, or any of the other bugs that can cause the syndrome we call influenza, but to most healthy adults, it wasn't particularly dangerous.The government reacted, as we see now, by mindlessly following that plan.
The Trump administration has the power to strip this plan away. RFK Jr., as head of Health and Human Services, has the power to strip this plan away. This should be done. But there's a caution to remember here: No government plan ever truly dies. The invasive, intrusive pandemic plan will remain somewhere, in some drawer, on some server, out of sight, out of mind, until something happens and perhaps some administration with little or no concept of constitutional liberty can unearth it and implement it again. At that time, it will be incumbent on us to exercise those four powerful words: I will not comply.
