Waiters, front-desk clerks, and movie theater ushers will join \u201ctogether\u201d to carry out this very important epidemiological task. At first, the proof-of-vaccination requirement will apply to all individuals age 12 and up who wish to enter a covered venue \u2014 restaurants, museums, sports arenas, etc. \u2014 but children as young as five will be included by March. It has been so ordered.<\/p>\n
The stated purpose of this system is \u201cto address rising COVID-19 cases\u201d in Boston caused by the \u201cOmicron\u201d variant. This seems a bit strange, because what we\u2019ve been told is supposed to be so alarming about \u201cOmicron\u201d (pronounced \u201cOh, c\u2019mon\u201d) is that it\u2019s extra transmissible \u2014 with rapid viral spread observed even among those who are fully vaxxed and \u201cboosted\u201d out the wazoo, drowning in daily \u201crapid tests,\u201d and quadruple-masked at the first sign of human contact. These measures have evidently not succeeded in curtailing the exponential spread. Nonetheless, the hammer is about to come down hard again on \u201cThe Unvaccinated,\u201d allegedly because they pose such a unique transmission threat. If you don\u2019t quite follow the logic there, you simply must not understand The Science, dummy.<\/p>\n
Though the \u201cbooster\u201d is not yet required for compliance with this system, Bisola Ajikutu, the head of the Boston Public Health Commission, offered a pertinent clarification at a\u00a0press conference<\/a>\u00a0Monday: \u201cWe will adjust the policy as needed when the definition of fully vaccinated changes.\u201d Got that? The people who run these \u201cpublic health\u201d bureaucracies reserve the right to perpetually modify what it means to be \u201cfully vaccinated,\u201d and therefore add future injections at their pleasure.<\/p>\n \u201cIt is the unvaccinated that are killing us right now,\u201d bellowed Joseph Curtatone, the mayor of Somerville, MA, who appeared at the press conference alongside Wu and pledged to implement a comparable system in his own jurisdiction. Also trotted out for the press conference was Heather White, the founder of a \u201cboutique fitness studio\u201d in Boston who oddly boasted of being the first gym proprietor in the city to shutter for COVID.<\/p>\n \u201cWe stand here proud to support Mayor Wu and her team\u2019s leadership as we trust in science, we believe in the experts, and we move forward to do what it takes to slow the spread of COVID-19,\u201d White exclaimed. All the while, the press conference was nearly drowned out by protesters belting extremely loud renditions of the Star-Spangled Banner, plus chants of \u201cShame On Wu.\u201d<\/p>\n If it seems curious that this new behavioral regulation and bio-surveillance scheme could just be summarily decreed one day by the Mayor without any apparent deliberative process, take a look at the fine print of the actual\u00a0Executive Order<\/a>. Particularly this section:<\/p>\n Do you have questions about why \u201cstopping the spread\u201d remains a stated goal of these policies, even though the \u201cspread\u201d seems to have continued exponentially in myriad places (like New York City and parts of Europe) where \u201cvaccine passports\u201d have already been implemented? Does mandating vaccines for five-year-olds \u2014 who face astronomically low risk of a severe health outcome from COVID \u2014 strike you as overkill? Are you wary of additional \u201cboosters\u201d becoming required by state injunction every couple of months \u2014 the\u00a0fourth<\/a>\u00a0is already on its way \u2014 just so you can go sit somewhere and have a sandwich?<\/p>\n How about the rationale for this specific Boston policy? Despite invoking \u201cOmicron,\u201d its proponents seem to admit that the real motive has nothing to do with current \u201ccases.\u201d<\/p>\n The head of the Health Commission said: \u201cObviously we want to protect people within these particular venues, but it really is about tipping people over the line so they\u2019ll choose to be vaccinated.\u201d She added that \u201cthe time has passed\u201d for vaccine holdouts, and everyone must come together and accept that \u201cit\u2019s in the best interest of our world if we are all vaccinated.\u201d<\/p>\n Do you find these shifting and contradictory rationales for the imposition of a sweeping new state intervention \u2014 one which could re-order the public sphere in far-reaching, tangible ways \u2014 persuasive? Or perhaps not?<\/p>\n Well, it doesn\u2019t matter what you think: an Emergency has been declared. Sorry!<\/p>\n Now, it\u2019s very plausible that the citizens of Boston would\u2019ve wanted to go through with a vaccine passport-style system anyway, regardless of how the measure was enacted. Maybe a \u201cnormal\u201d deliberative process would have yielded the same result, and five-year-olds would still have eventually needed to present vaccine documentation to eat an ice cream cone. But the fact remains that this rule-by-decree was made possible by dint of an \u201cEmergency\u201d declaration first issued in March 2020 \u2014 and which has been extended ever since, enabling the Mayor to launch these extremely consequential interventions essentially on a whim.<\/p>\n And it\u2019s far from just Boston. New York City, whose \u201cvaccine passport\u201d system was cited by Michelle Wu as a favorable model, has\u00a0continuously<\/a>\u00a0extended its own \u201cState of Emergency\u201d since March 2020 by order of Mayor Bill de Blasio \u2014 most recently on November 23. This enabled de Blasio to\u00a0unilaterally impose<\/a>\u00a0the NYC system in September.<\/p>\n Missing from any of the debate around the Boston measure is why the de Blasio \u201cmodel\u201d should somehow be seen as an unmitigated success, in light of what we\u2019re being told is an explosion of \u201cOmicron cases\u201d underway in NYC at the moment. Countries like Germany, which tout similar \u201cpassport\u201d systems, are also seeing \u201ccases\u201d skyrocket and have announced\u00a0further restrictions<\/a>. But, whatever! This almost two-year uninterrupted \u201cEmergency\u201d has endowed Mayor Michelle Wu with the authority to make such a policy determination on her own, unfettered volition.<\/p>\n Glance around the US and you\u2019ll be amazed at how many state\/local governments have these \u201cemergency\u201d measures still in place. Delaware maintains an official \u201cPublic Health Emergency<\/a>\u201d by decree of Governor John Carney, which was last extended on December 3. Indiana Governor Eric Holcomb\u00a0renewed<\/a>\u00a0his \u201cPublic Health Emergency\u201d declaration for the 21st time on December 1. Dane County, Wisconsin enforces its current indoor mask mandate by dint of a continuously-renewed \u201cEmergency Order<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n Governor Jay Inslee of Washington first declared a \u201cState of Emergency\u201d on February 29, 2020, and has effectively\u00a0governed by fiat<\/a>\u00a0ever since \u2014 wielding his \u201cemergency\u201d powers to mount sweeping policy campaigns like mandatory vaccination for state employees, nearly 2,000 of whom were subsequently\u00a0terminated<\/a>\u00a0for non-compliance. Democrats control the Washington legislature and have passively enabled Inslee to rule in this manner for approaching two years straight, with no end in sight.<\/p>\n Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham has continuously\u00a0renewed<\/a>\u00a0her declaration of a \u201cPublic Health Emergency\u201d in New Mexico, now set to last through at least January 7. It is \u201cpursuant to the full scope of her emergency powers\u201d that a statewide indoor mask mandate continues to be enforced throughout the state, including at schools.<\/p>\n New Jersey pulled a nifty little switcheroo when Governor Phil Murphy ended the \u201cPublic Health Emergency\u201d in\u00a0June<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 resulting in some nice election-year headlines that suggested the state had returned to \u201cnormalcy.\u201d But in actuality, Murphy figured out a way to simultaneously continue a separate \u201cState of Emergency<\/a>\u201d \u2014 which enables him to do things like mandate mask-wearing at schools. In other words, Murphy terminated the \u201cPublic Health Emergency\u201d but maintained the \u201cState of Emergency,\u201d which definitely makes perfect sense.<\/p>\n Governor Gavin Newsom has proclaimed a \u201cState of Emergency<\/a>\u201d in California through at least March 22, 2022. Governor Steve Sisolak continues to\u00a0draw<\/a>\u00a0on the original March 2020 \u201cDeclaration of Emergency\u201d in Nevada to impose his various policy preferences. Even in Iowa, a \u201cState of Public Health Disaster Emergency\u201d declared by Governor Kim Reynolds\u00a0remains in effect<\/a>\u00a0through at least January 9.<\/p>\n Miami-Dade County, Florida has\u00a0extended<\/a>\u00a0its \u201cState of Emergency\u201d every seven days, most recently on the grounds of \u201cOmicron.\u201d Similarly, a \u201cState of Emergency\u201d still\u00a0exists<\/a>\u00a0in Honolulu County, Hawaii, enabling the imposition of a \u201cvaccine passport\u201d system there.\u00a0San Antonio, Texas<\/a>\u00a0has a \u201cPublic Health Emergency\u201d currently in effect,\u00a0as does<\/a>\u00a0Columbus, Ohio. Portland, Maine just\u00a0retained<\/a>\u00a0its \u201cEmergency Order\u201d this week.<\/p>\n On a federal level, the Department of Health and Human Services has been extending its \u201cDetermination That A Public Health Emergency Exists\u201d every 90 days since January 31, 2020. The most recent extension was\u00a0declared<\/a>\u00a0on October 15, and it\u2019s difficult to imagine that there will be any appetite for not renewing it again next month, given the furor over \u201cOmicron.\u201d<\/p>\n The term \u201cNational Emergency\u201d has also appeared again and again in Presidential directives across two years and two administrations, most recently in the November 26\u00a0executive order<\/a>\u00a0by Joe Biden banning travel from South Africa and seven other African countries. Recall, these bans were purportedly to stem the spread of \u201cOmicron.\u201d Seems to have worked spectacularly well!<\/p>\n Question: when does all this amount to a \u201cPermanent Emergency,\u201d and when do we get to discuss that the very notion of a \u201cPermanent Emergency\u201d is oxymoronic? Back in September, I\u00a0wrote<\/a>\u00a0that \u201cfor many people in positions of bureaucratic authority, universal vaccination was never going to be sufficient for a transition away from the \u2018Permanent Emergency\u2019 mode of COVID exegetical theology.\u201d<\/p>\n At that time I was referring mostly to elite college campuses, which were at the vanguard of incubating this \u201cPermanent Emergency\u201d mentality \u2014 complete with enforcement regimes subjecting double-vaxxed 20-year-olds to endless \u201ctesting\u201d protocols, monitoring their social activity, and forcing them into isolation.<\/p>\n Now, many of those same students will soon have to be\u00a0triple<\/em>-vaxxed, and the administrative dictates show no sign of easing. A darkly humorous example is Dartmouth College, which just\u00a0decreed<\/a>\u00a0that mandatorily \u201cboosted\u201d students will be barred from socializing indoors when they arrive back to campus \u2014 but they are more than welcome to socialize outdoors, in New Hampshire, in January.<\/p>\n Given the vast interlocking patchwork of governmental jurisdictions in the US, only the most discerning citizens would have the faintest clue that these official \u201cEmergencies\u201d are not only still on the books, but are still being invoked to authorize aggressive state action.<\/p>\n On Monday, Mayor Muriel Bowser of Washington, DC once again declared a \u201cPublic Emergency<\/a>,\u201d which once again vests city officials with a variety of \u201cemergency\u201d-related powers \u2014 including the ability \u201center into contracts and procurements\u2026 without regard to established operating procedures relating to the performance of public works.\u201d Conveniently, this likely means there will be no \u201cperformance\u201d metrics used to evaluate the efficacy of the million-plus \u201crapid antigen tests\u201d just\u00a0ordered<\/a>\u00a0on Monday by the DC Health Department.<\/p>\n It\u2019s safe to assume that similarly lax \u201cperformance\u201d standards will be applied to the 500 million \u201crapid tests\u201d that Biden just\u00a0announced<\/a>\u00a0will be procured by the Federal Government to thwart \u201cOmicron.\u201d But while the efficacy of this endless testing regime remains a mystery, what\u2019s clear as day is that the manufacturers of the tests are having a profit bonanza. Abbott Laboratories, which produces the widely-used \u201cBinaxNOW self-test,\u201d reported in its latest quarterly earnings update a whopping 29.6% increase of total net sales between 2020 and 2021 \u2014 and that number is sure to balloon even higher thanks to \u201cOmicron\u201d frenzy.<\/p>\n \u201cDuring the first nine months of 2021, Abbott\u2019s COVID-19 testing-related sales totaled approximately $5.4 billion,\u201d the corporation wrote in its SEC filing. No wonder Abbott CEO Robert Ford said optimistically, \u201cWe always believed that the rapid test was going to be a kind of more sustainable part of the business.\u201d<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/brownstone.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/emergency-800x124.png\")
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