Pandemic? You're on your own

 

In case you didn't notice this (and given all the other news, I hadn't noticed it either), there have been lots of laws passed recently that make it harder, MUCH harder, for public health officials to take action to limit the spread of a pandemic.

So, stockpile your bouillon and your canned food, because if it gets bad the next time (and sadly, there is very likely to be a next time), we're pretty much on our own.  So get in the bunker.

Covid backlash hobbles public health and future pandemic response

"The movement to curtail public health powers successfully tapped into a populist rejection of pandemic measures following widespread anger and confusion over the government response to covid. Grass-roots-backed candidates ran for county commissions and local health boards on the platform of dismantling health departments’ authority. Republican legislators and attorneys general, religious liberty groups and the legal arms of libertarian think tanks filed lawsuits and wrote new laws modeled after legislation promoted by groups such as the American Legislative Exchange Council, a conservative, corporate-backed influence in statehouses across the country."

(ALEC is a menace to the American public, by the way.)

"The push to dismantle the nation’s public health system was ramping up in the summer of 2020 — months into a widespread shutdown of restaurants, workplaces and schools — when the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, hosted a virtual forum on how state legislatures could curtail governors’ shutdown powers.

On tap were representatives from the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) as well as a think tank and legal support group.

The message was clear: The government reaction to covid is a threat to individual liberties that must be stopped.

“You have to narrowly define the authorities of the governor and make it very clear to society and to the courts that certain things are to be protected, such as individual and constitutional liberties,” said Jonathon Hauenschild, who had worked on model legislation for ALEC, according to a video recording of the July 2020 forum."

Well, when the next pandemic gets going, I can hope that people that work for ALEC are some of the first to get it.