It’s “just”…
We’re now 2 years into “2 weeks to flatten the curve”, and the previously much repeated “this is your new normal…until a vaccine” appears to be a rapidly fading memory.
There never was anything normal about any of it.
The Cult of Branch Covidian features such timeless classics as:
It’s just 2 weeks
It’s just a mask
It’s just a vaccine
It’s just a vaccine passport
It’s just a booster
In upcoming issues of this substack, I will expand on how each part of the narratives we are fed do not hold up to much scrutiny. I will explore the broader agendas at play, and occasionally derail from there. I hope you enjoy and get something out of it!
Emergency Powers
In this inaugural issue, let’s start with emergency powers.
There is a fundamental question of how anyone can ever really have such unchecked authority over an entire population; a much needed conversation, one still very absent from mainstream discourse.
Emergency powers are usually for things like war.
Measures instituted ostensibly to avoid overwhelming hospitals ended up including things not even done during times of actual war, and have severely impacted hundreds of millions of people, to say the least.
The Precautionary Principle
Many who agree this has all gone too far, still say that extraordinary measures were justified on the basis of the precautionary principle. They typically cite the 1992 Rio Declaration:
In order to protect the environment, the precautionary approach shall be widely applied by States according to their capabilities. Where there are threats of serious or irreversible damage, lack of full scientific certainty shall not be used as a reason for postponing cost-effective measures to prevent environmental degradation.
Interestingly, the actual definition of the precautionary principle is a little different:
The principle that the introduction of a new product or process whose ultimate effects are disputed or unknown should be resisted. It has mainly been used to prohibit the importation of genetically modified organisms and food.
The Free Dictionary - Medical Dictionary:
A risk management principle, originally developed in the environmental movement, based on the concept of avoiding any new action (e.g., introducing a new technology or a new drug) that carries a hypothetical risk for human health or the environment, regardless of whether the hypothesis has been subjected to formal testing.
the precept that an action should not be taken if the consequences are uncertain and potentially dangerous
One could certainly argue that upending all of society in the face of scientific uncertainty actually constitutes an abrogation of the precautionary principle. Unfortunately this was only ever looked at from one point of view: through the lens of not acting being dangerous. The dangers of the action undertaken was never part of the equation, which is itself highly unusual.
To justify it, there must be quite the emergency, right?
First of all, what constitutes an emergency? Models?
According to Merriam-Webster:
an unforeseen combination of circumstances or the resulting state that calls for immediate action or an urgent need for assistance or relief
According to Cornell Law School:
an urgent, sudden, and serious event or an unforeseen change in circumstances that necessitates immediate action to remedy harm or avert imminent danger to life, health, or property; an exigency
The alleged emergence of a novel corona virus can hardly be called unforeseen, considering the long history of corona viruses and many warnings of the next pandemic. The World Health Organization was also talking about an outbreak since early January 2020, notably mentioning no deaths were associated with the initial cluster in Wuhan.
But the standard definition of an emergency might not work because it’s supposed to be a public health emergency.
I’m in Alberta, so I’ll check its Public Health Act:
“public health emergency” means an occurrence or threat of
(i) an illness,
(ii) a health condition,
(iii) an epidemic or pandemic disease,
(iv) a novel or highly infectious agent or biological toxin, or
(v) the presence of a chemical agent or radioactive material
that poses a significant risk to the public health;
With this loose definition and no criteria for what constitutes “significant risk” anywhere to be found in the Act, we can begin to see how just about anything could be deemed a “public health emergency”.
Less than a week after the WHO’s announcement, Alberta’s Lieutenant Governor Lois Mitchell issued an Order in Council declaring a public health emergency. This came at a time when Canada had begun testing, but even as of March 17 2020 when the emergency was declared, the nationwide death toll was: 6 deaths.
Alberta actually saw fewer ICU admissions during 2020 than the preceding 5 years, with no increase in admissions leading up to the emergency declaration. If we look at the all-cause mortality figures for Alberta reported by Statistics Canada, we can see there is no change leading up to the emergency declaration there either:
In addition to the complete absence of any emergency in terms of hospitalizations and death, there is another longstanding problem with the story that this was “all to avoid overwhelming hospitals”. Since when did they care about that?
Canada’s hospital capacity has been in decline for many years:
You’d think that after decades of declining hospital capacity, a supposed new, grave threat to hospital capacity would call for increased hospital capacity.
And yet, they’ve been busy laying off healthcare workers. Alberta Health Services in April 2020 said its existing ICU capacity was 295 beds (page 19). There are now 241 beds. We’re talking about a population of over 4.4 million.
Was this story of benevolent leaders who just want nothing more than to keep everyone safe ever even remotely believable?