Military Veterans and Patriots

Tag: COVID

  • Five Long Years

    Five Long Years

    On March 13, 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic was declared a nationwide emergency. It kicked off a wave of worldwide authoritarianism that hadn’t been seen for centuries, if ever.

    Americans were subjected to unprecedented censorship, lockdowns, and mandates. Parents died alone. Funerals were unattended. Our children were forcibly masked.

    Our neighbors were outed as the cruel, heartless authoritarians they always were but managed to keep hidden somehow. How else could the next three years worth of lockdowns and mask madness have happened?

    Many of you will remember my daily posts about the covid stuff over at Jo’s old site. Back then I tried to cut through the fog and provide solid information about the pandemic and the response to it without resorting to sensationalism or click-bait.

    Even back then I repeatedly stated the given theory – the Wuhan wet market – was unlikely and the virus probably came from the Wuhan Institute of Virology. Now, nearly everyone agrees it was a lab leak and not a natural event. The German BND, Bundesnachrichtendienst or foreign intelligence service, just released a statement saying they knew it was a lab leak back in 2020, but then chancellor Angela Merkel prevented them from releasing their findings.

    So, five years on what have we learned? Other than our fellow Americans can be petty little tyrants at the drop of a hat? Not a lot unfortunately it seems.

    No-one responsible for the US reaction to a virus that was less dangerous to those under 50 than the seasonal flu has been held to account. Nobody involved with the gain of function research into corona viruses has been held to account.

    All I can say is that this individual will not allow anything similar to happen again. My advice to those trying to turn bird flu into a ‘thing’ is to stop. The US is not going to allow you to treat us that way ever again.

  • The Unwelcome Return of…

    The Unwelcome Return of…

    The Unwelcome Return of Covid Restrictions and Lockdowns

    Connor O’Keeffefor mises.org

    Tags Bureaucracy and RegulationHealthProgressivismThe Police State

    Covid restrictions are back. Almost a year after President Joe Biden said“the pandemic is over,” several hospitals, businesses, and universities have reinstated mask mandates and social distancing requirements. Meanwhile, nearly sixty universities have announced that students must take a covid vaccine to attend for the fall 2023 semester.

    Although these restrictions are still limited to only a handful of organizations, their implementation demonstrates that the destructive public health dogmas responsible for the devastation of the last three years are still with us. The American people must stop tolerating these ruinous policies and the totalitarian paradigm underlying them.

    The current dominant SARS-CoV-2 variant is a subvariant of Omicron called EG.5. Informally, it’s been nicknamed Eris after the Greek goddess of strife. The strain was first identified back in February 2023. It overtookthe previous dominant variant at the beginning of August. The symptoms of the Eris variant are those of a cold—a runny nose and a sore throat. There is no evidence that Eris is more contagious or severe than the previous dominant variant.

    Another Omicron variant called BA.2.86, nicknamed Pirola, has also been detected, but the few confirmed cases have also been very mild.

    In recent weeks, an uptick in covid has been detected in wastewater, indicating a rise in cases. The trend is the familiar “summer wave” in viral spread seen as people move indoors to escape the late-summer heat. Still, the case numbers are extremely low, and the virus has the severity of a cold.

    And yet some institutions have reinstated restrictions on their customers and workers in response to Eris. On August 17, two New York hospitals reimposed mandatory face masking and covid testing. Then, on August 20, Morris Brown College in Atlanta reinstated its mask mandate and banned large gatherings. The school also reimplemented contact tracing, symptom monitoring, and general social distancing requirements. The next day, the movie studio Lionsgate instituted a mask mandate for its offices. Two days later, a San Francisco medical center followed suit.

    Meanwhile, the Biden administration publicly urged people to get fall booster shots last Monday. Then, last Friday, the president said he was requesting funds for a new covid vaccine that he anticipates will be recommended to everyone. And, as of August 26, fifty-eight universitieshave notified their students that they are required to take the covid vaccine to attend classes this fall semester.

    These developments are disturbing because they indicate that the paradigm underlying the totalitarian pandemic response is still very intact. That paradigm was laid out well by both Dr. Peter McCullough and Dr. Aaron Kheriaty in their lectures at the Mises Institute’s Medical Freedom Summit this year.

    Dr. McCullough traced the origin of today’s medical totalitarianism to the Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness (PREP) Act of 2005, which militarized the protocols for fighting a pandemic. Under this new philosophy, the government would mobilize the population to fend off a pathogen as if it were a foreign invader. War, be it on people or germs, breeds totalitarianism. As Randolph Bourne wrote over a century ago, it’s during times of war that “the State becomes what in peacetimes it has vainly struggled to become—the inexorable arbiter and determinant of men’s business and attitudes and opinions.”

    Dr. Kheriaty went a bit further back and identified a national public health conference in 1997 as the origin of the government’s repressive approach to fighting viruses. At the conference, a subtle shift in pandemic policy’s emphasis occurred that led public health away from viewing viruses as the enemy to be combatted and toward viewing human beings as possible vectors of disease, as a danger to be controlled. In other words, the field’s priorities switched from working to care for sick people to the top-down control of entire populations.

    This new paradigm of public health led to a “new paradigm of governance,” in the words of Dr. Kheriaty, that was rolled out in early 2020. For the first time in recorded human history, which is full of plagues and pandemics, quarantines were imposed on the entire population, not just the infected or those arriving from infected areas.

    An overly sedentary population with concerning levels of mental illness was forced to stay inside and isolated from their friends, coworkers, classmates, and families. And to hide their faces from strangers when forced to go out. Six trillion dollars was quickly printed to try and delay the inevitable pain that results when millions of people stop producing the goods and services we all rely on.

    The health and development of millions of young Americans have been harmed in ways that will take decades to fully comprehend. All in the name of halting a virus known early on to pose little risk to the young and healthy. And the virus still moved through nearly three-quarters of the American population anyway.

    And yet the new public health paradigm is clearly still with us. It just lies dormant while case numbers remain low. The last few weeks have shown that it will resurface even when officials declare a virus low risk.

    The doctrine of totalitarianism is too dangerous to be tolerated again. But unlike a pathogen, all this threat requires is our refusal.

    In talking with my niece, in Greensboro, NC, yesterday evening, physicians offices and other venues are already calling for masking. It is her feeling schools will not be far behind.

  • Covid Restrictions Can’t…

    Covid Restrictions Can’t…

    Covid Restrictions Can’t Be Allowed to Return

    Noah Rothman for National review.com

    Covid signs on the campus of the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, Calif., August 23, 2021.(Al Seib / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)none

    ‘Covid closed the nation’s schools,” the New York Times declared in a Sunday headline. But that’s not quite right. Though the event that initially prompted school closures was the pandemic, schools in America stayed closed for longer than their European counterparts — and stayed closed longer in richer parts of the U.S. than in poorer parts — because an influential minority wanted them to.

    The results of that experiment are generally regarded as disastrous, so you would think that all that is needed to ensure that we don’t repeat it is our collective resolve not to. Not so, says Times reporter Apoorva Mandavilli: “Clean air can keep them open.”

    Mandavilli’s article opens with a clear premise, though it doesn’t remain clear for long: Covid cases are once again on the rise, so it necessarily follows that the menace of Covid-related restrictions looms large. But a return to the mid-pandemic status quo wouldn’t be necessary if school administrators had prepared for this moment. That preparation begins with ensuring proper ventilation.

    Roughly “41 percent of school districts needed to update or replace the heating, ventilation and air-conditioning systems in at least half of their schools,” Mandavilli writes, “about 36,000 buildings in all.” She observes, however, that Congress appropriated about $550 billion for tasks like these, much of which has not yet been spent. Well, whose fault is that? Everyone’s, apparently:

    Among the reasons: a lack of clear federal guidance on cleaning indoor air, no senior administration official designated to oversee such a campaign, few experts to help the schools spend the funds wisely, supply chain delays for new equipment, and insufficient staff to maintain improvements that are made.

    If one or more of Mandavilli’s sources made the straight-faced claim that the prohibitive obstacle before improving ventilation in schools is the lack of a “senior administration official” dedicated to overseeing that project, her sources deserve to be laughed at. Indeed, as at least one confessed near the end of her piece, spending about $65 per student per classroom per year — a high estimate that amounts to a $5 billion annual expense —on air purifiers is sufficient to mitigate the risk of ambient pathogens in the air. But many localities devoted those funds to other priorities, among them, the Biden Education Department’s desire to engineer a “culture shift” toward “equitable practices.”

    “In many schools, however, spending on ventilation trails other priorities, like hiring staff, purchasing laptops and other equipment, or extra help for students who have fallen behind,” Mandavilli writes. According to a CDC survey, just over “one-quarter had installed air cleaners or planned to do so,” while 70 percent of schools opted to address air-quality issues by pursuing “low-cost improvements, like opening doors or windows.” And implementing those improvements should not require constant guidance from the White House.

    The banal manageability of this challenge belies the author’s premise from the outset, which is perhaps why her article quickly sprawls. “Indoor air may be contaminated not just by pathogens,” Mandavilli continues, “but also by a range of pollutants like carbon monoxide, radon and lead particles.” Indeed, even the plague of smoke that descended across the continent from Canada’s blazing forest fires presented a threat to indoor air quality — a threat that educators in Denver, Colorado, mitigated by, get this, keeping schoolchildren inside.

    Expanding the utility of Covid-related mitigation measures so they might apply to far less extraordinary circumstances is a tactic to which advocates of the mid-pandemic status quo appeal with some regularity. “Masks also help protect from other illnesses like common cold and flu,” former CDC director Rochelle Walensky advised in a brief but aborted campaign to popularize masking in public as an essential element of basic hygiene. Dr. Anthony Fauci agreed. When pressed as to whether Americans will ever again fly maskless, the doctor had some bad news. “Even though you have a good filtration system, I think that masks are still a prudent thing to do, and we should be doing it,” he said. Indeed, indoor air quality, or lack thereof, was a point of leverage for Chicago teachers’ unions when they forced a work stoppage against the city’s wishes in the winter of 2022.

    Blessedly, these and many other interested parties were ignored. Yes, it would be wise for states and municipalities to apply the federal funds on which they are sitting to improve air quality and increase access to climate control in America’s schools, but the lack of those conditions is not an obstacle to keeping schools open. So why introduce the binary at all? Why menace American parents with the prospect of a return to the pandemic’s calamitous restrictions if not to present them with an ultimatum?

    Mandavilli’s piece isn’t the first sign that those who subscribe to a particular psychological disposition are keen on seeing a restoration of the Covid protocols. Businesses that seek to limit masking for all but the immunocompromised — either among employees for the purposes of preserving customer relations or among patrons to discourage consequence-free theft — are threatened with lawsuits and public shaming campaigns. Medical settings that reintroduce masking mandatesinsist they are only focused on preserving hospital capacity as Covid hospitalizations tick upwards slightly. And now, we’re implicitly threatened with the return of school closures.

    Maybe threats are all that justify the readoption of the pandemic’s failed and otherwise unenforceable mitigation strategies. That is telling enough. But there can be no doubt that, in the last month, a powerful coalition of the perpetually anxious has floated trial balloon after trial balloon, testing your willingness to acquiesce to renewed restrictions on your social and economic activity. If the balloons float by without so much as a scoff, that will only serve as proof of concept. It’s incumbent on all of us to say, loudly and unambiguously, whenever we encounter too-clever appeals to our sense of solidarity or paranoia in the effort to bring pandemic-mitigation measures back: No.

  • How elite scientists…

    How elite scientists…

    Lab Leak Cover-Up

    How elite scientists lied and concealed the truth.

    Michael Barone for Frontpage Magazine 

    When the Wall Street Journal reported in a front-page lead story that the Department of Energy had concluded the COVID-19 pandemic resulted from a leak from China’s Wuhan laboratory, you might have argued it was old news. The FBI had already, it turns out, come to the same conclusion and with a higher degree of confidence (moderate) than the Energy Department (low).

    Those agencies’ conclusions, moreover, came as a result of a May 21 directive from President Joe Biden to multiple intelligence agencies to review two “equally plausible scenarios” for COVID’s origin, “whether it emerged from human contact with an infected animal” (the zoonotic theory) “or from a laboratory accident” (the lab leak theory).

    That should have been big news since the zoonotic theory, advanced early and widely accepted by government scientists and many journalists, had become entrenched as early as February 2020 when COVID first became big news.

    Emails unearthed by a House committee and quoted by longtime New York Times science reporter Nicholas Wade showed that Scripps Research Institute scientist Kristian Andersen had written National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director Anthony Fauci on Jan. 31, 2020, to inform him that he and other scientists had concluded that COVID-19 was “inconsistent with expectations from the evolutionary (that is, zoonotic) theory.”

    But former National Institutes of Health Director Francis Collins emailed on Feb. 2 that if the lab leak theory were accepted, “the voices of conspiracy will quickly dominate, doing great potential harm to science and international harmony.” Thus, after a teleconference with Collins and Fauci, Andersen, in a Feb. 4 email, characterized the lab leak as one of an unnamed number of “crackpot theories.” Later, on March 20, he said the virus was “not a laboratory construct.”

    So why the switch? Well, scientists like Andersen knew that Fauci and Collins controlled huge streams of research funding. Fauci and Collins knew that they had repeatedly approved funding at the Wuhan lab. The conspiracy was not to spread the lab leak theory but to suppress it.

    The zoonotic theory had become unassailable dogma by the time Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) advanced the lab leak theory on Fox News on Feb. 16. “Fringe theory” and “conspiracy theory,” huffed The New York Times. “A coronavirus fringe theory,” wrote the Washington Post . Other eminent journalists piled on, even though an accident, by definition, is not the result of a conspiracy.

    Facebook, led and staffed almost entirely by left-wingers, promptly followed the lead of government science funders and suppressed news of the lab leak theory for more than a year. The State Department-backed Global Disinformation Index, the Washington Examiner’s Gabe Kaminsky revealed, similarly sought to suppress the theory. Twitter, under its similarly biased pre-Musk regime, used “visibility filtering” to downplay the lab leak theory. President Donald Trump’s March 2020 tweets about “the China virus” were attacked as “racist” by multiple critics, and those advancing the lab leak theory were attacked for “racism.” The lab leak theory, The New York Times science writer Apoorva Mandavilli tweeted in May 2021, has “racist roots.” Even advocates of the zoonotic theory were briefly charged with racism, too.

    Nevertheless, serious and carefully nuanced arguments were made for taking the lab leak theory seriously, in multiple articles by Nicholas Wade, in science writer Matt Ridley and Alina Chen’s book “Viral: The Search for the Origin of Covid-19,” in a National Review cover story and in a detailed report from the liberal ProPublica organization published with Vanity Fair.

    The press, even while proclaiming that “democracy dies in darkness,” was reluctant to shed any light on the lab leak theory. Even worse was the behavior of scientists. “Welp,” tweeted FiveThirtyEight founder Nate Silver when the Wall Street Journal story on the Energy Department’s decision broke. “The behavior of a certain cadre of scientists who used every trick in the book to suppress discussion of this issue is something I’ll never forget. A huge disservice to science and public health.”

    The origin of COVID is not the only issue on which the scientists have disgraced themselves. Just this month, the prestigious British medical journal The Lancet published a review of 65 studies that concluded that the natural immunity of those who have contracted COVID provides more protection than the vaccines. There goes the case for requiring that the previously infected get multiple vaccinations.

    And just last week, Britain’s prestigious Cochrane Library released a study of 78 randomized control trials with 610,000 participants, which concluded that masks make no difference — none — in stopping transmission of respiratory diseases like COVID. “There is just no evidence they make any difference. Full stop,” said the study’s lead author. So much for the mask mandates, including the CDC masking guideline, which teachers unions got the CDC to impose upon schoolchildren by applying their undue political influence.

    We don’t know for certain — and given Chinese secrecy, we probably never will — that COVID resulted from a lab leak. But we do know that leading scientists and science funders in government lied, distorted and suppressed the truth. We do know that public health officials stuck and still stick to requirements that have negative effects but no scientific basis. We know that many journalists who arrogantly offer themselves as voices speaking truth to power were actually exerting power to suppress truth.

    Elite scientists and journalists today complain that they get no respect. Their record shows they don’t deserve much.

    The last two sentences are concise and true!!! Those of us who had questions were subjected to denigration of a magnitude never previously exhibited. Before they acknowledge our accuracy, there will be angels ice skating in hades.

  • Crimes or Cover-Up? Exposing the World’s Most Dangerous Lie

    Crimes or Cover-Up? Exposing the World’s Most Dangerous Lie

    COVID-19 changed everything. The way we live our lives, how we operate our businesses, how we see each other. And now, the federal government is sinking its tendrils even deeper, threatening the fabric not only of our bodily autonomy, but of the republic. Our American way of life may never be the same. To save it, we must understand the key fundamentals of the pandemic that transfigured our society into the nightmare it is today. What is the COVID-19 origin story? Who are its top players in government and science, pulling the strings? What was their REAL response in the first days of the pandemic? The answers to these questions are frightening. Emails, documents, and federal contracts tell a dark story that is still dominating our lives. It’s time to cast a light on the shocking truth. Because only with the truth can we emerge from the darkness of this “pandemic” and take back the liberty stolen from us. This is Glenn Beck’s most important chalkboard of his life. And the most pivotal time in yours.

  • Dr. David E. Martin reveals shocking news …Proof of Treason and Crimes Against Humanity.

    Dr. David E. Martin reveals shocking news …Proof of Treason and Crimes Against Humanity.

    Dr. David E. Martin reveals shocking news everyone, especially Canadians, MUST ACT on NOW! Proof of Treason and Crimes Against Humanity.

    Comment: Very few watch or even pay attention to what is occurring in Canada. I’ve said for years this is a base of operation for evil – why – exactly those reasons “very few watch or even pay attention to Canada; including Canadians”

  • Top Ziden Health…

    Top Ziden Health…

    Top Biden Health Official:

    We’re ‘Failing’ on COVID

    Photo Crédit: National Institutes of Health director Dr. Francis Collins (AP)

    With the United States recording its highest daily Covid case load in six months, a top public health official warned Sunday that the country is “failing.”

    “We should not really have ever got to the place we are,” Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health, said on ABC’s “This Week.”

    “In that regard, yes, we are failing.”

    According to him, we reached a new daily surge with 118,000 cases. 

    The problem I have with this fear mongering is the failure to put the numbers in context. Per the Census Bureau, as of 8 August, the US population was 332,607,774. It is doubtful that includes the thousands of illegal aliens flooding our borders. Prefacing my percentage with the statement my math skills are below abysmal, the percentage of cases seems to be approximately 0.003 of the population. 

    Another portion of their talking points is children under 12 are not yet eligible for the vaccines. Collins said the number of children hospitalized with Covid is now at an all-time high of 1,450.

    I keep hearing the word “hospitalized”. Has anyone noticed they have yet to define that word. Are people being kept in the hospital for hours or days? 

    Anecdotal evidence from my community is people arrive at the hospital, are tested, provided care instructions and sent on their way. This information is coming from health care professionals working in two of our hospitals. Admittedly, our county is quite large. There could be differences for other hospitals in the county. 

    Why the sudden uptick in fear mongering? Putting on my tinfoil chapeau, my thoughts are;

    things were becoming a trifle difficult with the administration’s polling numbers. Inflation is climbing. The job numbers are consistently below their predictions. Very few are paying attention to Nancy’s January Commission theatre. Those may seem like a reason to restart fear mongering; however, they are not the proximate cause. The very worst possible thing was beginning happen. People started enjoying their freedom to live without dictates defining their life. Just think; no masks, going out and about without pré plandemic regulations. This cannot be allowed, hence the new fear mongering. 

  • Covid Calvinball

    It seems our betters in government are making up new rules. Again. What’s worse, there isn’t any scientific basis to do so. That puts me in mind of Calvinball.

    The only permanent rule of Calvinball is you can’t play the same way twice.

    I suppose I need to do an explainer of what exactly Calvinball is. Ther name stems from the comic strip Calvin and Hobbes created by Bill Watterson. The strip was centered on the adventures of six year old Calvin and his stuffed tiger Hobbes. Calvinball has no rules; the players make up their own rules as they go along, so that no Calvinball game is like another. Rules cannot be used twice (except for the rule that rules cannot be used twice), and any plays made in one game may not be made again in any future games. 

    The CDC just issued new masking guidance. The new guidance says vaccinated people should still wear masks. In that guidance they cited a study that stated vaccinated individuals had a high viral load in their sinuses as support for the new guidance. Unfortunately for the CDC, the article they used has a couple of problems.

    First, it was based on an Indian study of those dosed with the Astra-Zenica vax. And that vaccine is not approved here in the US. Second, and frankly more worrisome, that article had been initially rejected by the journals it had been submitted to. I say initially because since the citation by the CDC the status of the article has changed from rejected to under review.

    https://twitter.com/RubinReport/status/1420092482327621640?s=20

    Honestly, at this point if the CDC said that the sky was blue or the grass was green I’d go out to check. The US governmental health agencies have all but destroyed their credibility in the last 15 or so months.

    I see that Eva Peron, err, Nancy Pelosi has told the Capitol Police to arrest anyone violating her mask mandates. It seems the arrest order does not apply to Members of the House, but if you are a visitor or staffer not wearing a mask, be prepared to be hauled off in cuffs.

    OK Nan. It will be nice to see you hand over the gavel in 2022.

    What he said.

    The entire response to this outbreak has played out as one giant game of Calvinball, rules made up on the spot, goalposts moved whenever it’s expedient.

  • EXCLUSIVE! Dr. David Martin Just Ended COVID, Fauci, DOJ, Politicians

    EXCLUSIVE! Dr. David Martin Just Ended COVID, Fauci, DOJ, Politicians

    EXCLUSIVE! Dr. David Martin Just Ended COVID, Fauci, DOJ, Politicians in ONE INTERVIEW.

    Published July 19, 2021

    Stew Peters talked with Dr. David Martin in an historical interview with inarguable fact-based exposure that should be seen by the entire world as an absolute end to the COVID narrative.

    Rumble Link: https://rumble.com/vk2bya-exclusive-dr.-david-martin-just-ended-covid-fauci-doj-politicians-in-one-in.html

    BREAKING! Massive Cover-Up! 45,000 DEAD, Booster Plan EXPOSED!

    EXCLUSIVE DISCOVERY! Dr. Jane Ruby reveals the plan for a third and FOURTH BOOSTER being prepared for release as the push to inoculate every living being continues.

    A CDC whistleblower has signed a sworn affidavit confirming the numbers are being tampered with, and as many as 45,000 Americans are confirmed DEAD as a result of the shots being called ‘vaccines’.

    Rumble Link: https://rumble.com/vk26qv-breaking-massive-cover-up-45000-dead-booster-plan-exposed.html

    https://twitter.com/KM02758589/status/1417173296408268802?s=20
    Dr. Del Bigtree

    Del Bigtree Exposes Deep State Tactics of Propaganda and Overwhelming Disinformation

    Stew Peters talked with Del Bigtree, host of “The Highwire”, about the piling-on of fear being pushed by a complicit media amid the exposure of criminal activity perpetuated by our own government.

    Rumble Link: https://rumble.com/vk2cxa-del-bigtree-exposes-deep-state-tactics-of-propaganda-and-overwhelming-disin.html

  • Fauci is Not America’s Doctor, or Voice

    Fauci is Not America’s Doctor, or Voice

    This week, U.S. Congressman Jim Jordan (R-OH) really put Dr. Anthony Fauci – the bureaucrat MD who has been Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) for nearly 30 years – on the spot. Mainstream newstainment outlets spin it, otherwise. Unfortunately for them, C-SPAN is free and some people record hearings and general sessions.

    During Congressional questioning about the COVID-19 shutdowns and mask restrictions Fauci continues to inflict upon American citizens in the name of public health, Jordan asked the doctor to give us his number, his magic metric that would determine when people could gad about with their smiles showing. What numbers need to be reached before Fauci felt the citizens of the United States of America would be free to go to church, have a funeral for a family member, meet a new one that entered the world during this crazy time? Jordan’s questions were reasonable and they deserved thoughtful, articulate responses. Instead, Jordan received an earful of . . . People are sick! People are dying! You’re ranting! You’re making it personal! . . . from the most highly paid federal employee in the United States of America.

    Reasonable, articulate answers are not available to Fauci so he was unable to provide same. In no small part because he is not the right person for this job. Officially.

    See Also: DOJ Close Investigation into Ashli Babbitt’s Death

    .

    When looking at the behaviour of Dr. Anthony Fauci, it seems as though he may have misinterpreted a gracious invitation to be part of the COVID-19 Coronavirus Response Team as an assignment of absolute power. How did Fauci’s voice become the lone, national medical voice for the SARS-CoV-2 virus and the disease it causes, COVID-19? The Director of a national research institute? From a job responsibilities perspective, he seems to be ignoring the federal chain of command.

    In the United States of America, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is led by the Secretary of HHS, a Cabinet official seated via Presidential appointment after Congressional approval. HHS oversees diverse Offices, Programs and 11 Operating Divisions, all assigned different duties to keep the national population in good health. The HHS Operating Divisions are:

    Administration for Children and Families (ACF)
    Administration for Community Living (ACL)
    Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ)*
    Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR)*
    Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)*
    Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS)
    Food and Drug Administration (FDA)*
    Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA)*
    Indian Health Service (IHS)*
    National Institutes of Health (NIH)*
    Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA)*

    *Components of the Public Health Service

    Under the HHS structure, CDC and NIH are peers. While there is some crossover when it comes to research activity pursued within the Divisions, they are tasked with different responsibilities. The Centers for Disease Control’s Mission, as published on cdc.gov:

    “CDC works 24/7 to protect America from health, safety and security threats, both foreign and in the U.S. Whether diseases start at home or abroad, are chronic or acute, curable or preventable, human error or deliberate attack, CDC fights disease and supports communities and citizens to do the same.

    CDC increases the health security of our nation. As the nation’s health protection agency, CDC saves lives and protects people from health threats. To accomplish our mission, CDC conducts critical science and provides health information that protects our nation against expensive and dangerous health threats, and responds when these arise.”

    In the form of a “Pledge to the American People,” CDC promises to:

    • Be a diligent steward of the funds entrusted to our agency
    • Provide an environment for intellectual and personal growth and integrity
    • Base all public health decisions on the highest quality scientific data that is derived openly and objectively
    • Place the benefits to society above the benefits to our institution
    • Treat all persons with dignity, honesty, and respect”

    It is the responsibility of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to keep an eye out for us. They are our national health protection agency. CDC advises Americans on ways to stay healthy, providing public comportment guidelines when there is a health crisis.

    CDC is the agency that tests water and tracks down the source of foodborne illness outbreaks, for example. They are also our national population health reporting agency, compiling and publishing statistics on US of American health-related issues; including, communicable disease, mental health, suicide and things like our current obesity epidemic. Their main task is to be aware, informed and communicative regarding any threat to our health; providing facts and data to US of Americans. CDC also conducts research on preventatives, therapies and cures for infectious agents.

    NIH, on the other hand, is pure research with no formal public health service designation. The U.S. Surgeon General appointed all NIH Directors (with one exception) until legislation in 1971 moved appointment responsibilities to the White House. Today, the Director’s seat is filled by Presidential appointment with Congressional approval. Clinical researchers at NIH investigate causes, cures and therapeutics in effort to thwart looming health threats all over the globe. NIH is the world’s largest scientific research laboratory. From nih.gov:

    “The National Institutes of Health (NIH), a part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, is the nation’s medical research agency — making important discoveries that improve health and save lives.”

    NIH oversees 27 Institutes and Centers, one of which is the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID.) NIAID work is primarily focused on research – basic and translational – performed by clinical researchers. The study of allergies and infectious diseases is the primary task, with an eye toward understanding the biology involved. The Institute also researches cures and therapies which is where the NIAID’s work overlaps with CDC pursuits. Both conduct research to find cures and treatments for HIV, malaria, SARS, MERS, ebola and other communicable disease.

    As the CDC is officially tasked with Public Health – they are the agency assigned to provide health-related information and guidance to the US of American public – why is Dr. Anthony Fauci, the Director of a research institution, running the COVID-19 show? This question has escalated from a bothersome murmur into a scream for attention as CDC and Fauci advisements diverge from one another, widely and wildly.

    On 29 March 2021, Dr. Rochelle P. Walensky, Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, appeared on MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow show. In the interview, Dr. Walensky said there was no evidence, in the lab or in the real world, showing vaccinated people transmit the disease COVID-19 to others:

    “… our data from the CDC today suggests that vaccinated people do not carry the virus, don’t get sick. And it’s not just in the clinical trials, it’s in real world data.”

    When speaking with MSNBC’s Mehdi Hasan last Sunday, 11 April, 2021, Dr. Fauci had this direction to share with people who have received a COVID-19 vaccination:

    “… until we show, definitively, that a person who is vaccinated does not get this sub-clinical infection and can spread to others, you should also continue to wear a mask for the time being.”

    While the CDC advice has been just as alarmist as has been Fauci’s in many ways, it has been offered in a reasoned fashion. All this bureaucracy is a wearisome waste of time and money, but, if I choose to listen to the government I’m going to look to the advice of the agency tasked in Public Health Service, CDC. Not, the words of an arrogant, phobic man who does not recognise when he is overstepping his bounds and seems incapable of offering scientific evidence when asked for same. Oh, Fauci still hasn’t helped us find a way to manage seasonal and pet allergies without side effects. After 30 years. That, is reason enough to consider him an ineffective and underinformed federal pension bench sitter.