The pandemic public policy catastrophe

The world is facing another health emergency. This is a silent one. Excess death rates across the world have been between 5-30 percent above expected levels over the last 12 months. This has been almost totally ignored by public health authorities and governments, even though aggregate deaths are now more than those who died from Covid-19.

No one is screaming. No one is asking for an explanation, and no one is giving one. This should be a public health priority of the highest magnitude. Governments were only too willing to lock their citizens down, implement vaccine certificates that made two classes of citizens, and impose medicines upon their citizens by mandate, but unperturbed over the unexpanded number of excess death rates today.

Social media, mainstream media, prestitutes, and the so-called factcheckers have skewed and suppressed public discussion and dissenting opinions of medical experts. The media and even political leaders have fearmongered, scaring their respective populations into compliance, with those protesting, harshly treated. In Victoria, Australia, protestors have been beaten up and even shot with rubber bullets, something only practiced during the Northern Ireland protests decades ago.

The recent public health crisis has badly damaged the concept of civil liberties. Acts of Parliament that override the parliament itself, cannot be constitutional.

Politicians handed power in many cases to unelected technocrats, who were questionably qualified enough to understand the science of a virus, and the effectiveness of measures against it. They appeared to suffer cognitive dissonance, mandating measures that had little or no research supporting their views. They seemed to blindly follow what other nation's public health authorities did in some massive group think. Very sadly, these public health leaders didn't ask for or consider alternative opinions for alternative strategies. The Swedish example, now considered a success, was one such alternative path.

This public policy disaster should never be allowed to repeat itself. There must be a sincere inquiry into what happened, so the lessons can be formally learnt with transparency. The declaration of public health emergencies which bypass legislatures should be made with more checks and balances. Dissenting and alternative expert opinions should be sort and be part of the evaluation process.

Many political leaders used fearmongering, lacking total empathy towards the citizens they are responsible to. There are dangers the precedents created during the pandemic could be very easily repeated once again.

Enough lives have been needlessly lost.