In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, governments around the world adopted a variety of policies expanding the scope of their power...
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In early 2020, COVID-19 emerged from China. In response, and at the urging of the World Health Organization (WHO), governments across the globe, including those in the United States, kicked into high gear their regulatory machinery. Citizens were ordered to stay-at-home and, as designated by officials, shutter all schools and “non-essential” businesses, restrict travel, and ban religious, sports and other events.

However, on October 4th, world-renowned epidemiologists Martin Kulldorff (Harvard U.), Sunetra Gupta (Oxford U.), and Jay Bhattacharya (Stanford U.) and 35 other top scientists released the Great Barrington Declaration ([link removed]) , noting that, “Current lockdown policies are producing devastating effects on short and long-term public health. . . . Keeping students out of school is a grave injustice. . . . Adopting measures to protect the vulnerable should be the central aim of public health responses to COVID-19. . . . Those who are not vulnerable should immediately be allowed to resume life as normal.” To date, 9,900 medical and public health scientists and 26,000 medical practitioners have signed the Declaration.

Within one week, the WHO suddenly reversed its support for lockdowns ([link removed]) , contradicting claims just six months earlier. WHO envoy David Nabarro stated that, “We in the World Health Organization do not advocate lockdowns as the primary means of control of this virus. . . . Lockdowns just have one consequence that you must never, ever belittle, and that is making poor people an awful lot poorer.”

Now, the Independent Institute is releasing a shocking new article on the alarming extension of government power in the U.S.—the long-term consequences of which are devastating to civil society, economic welfare and the rule of law. So say the authors in The Independent Review, the peer-reviewed journal on political economy of the Independent Institute (Oakland, CA).

In “Infectious Diseases and Government Growth,” ([link removed]) Christopher J. Coyne ([link removed]) —Co-Editor of the journal—Nathan P. Goodman ([link removed]) , and Abigail Deveraux ([link removed]) make the compelling case that regulations designed to combat the pandemic have required new draconian and unconstitutional forms of the state’s police powers—surveillance, extraordinary fines, exclusion of citizens from government services, and the use of physical force against violators.

To make matters worse, the history of government control warns us that these increases in government power may well not be retracted after the pandemic—to the great detriment to economic and civil liberties, other and more severe health risks, and overall human well-being.

Please join with us on Friday and read the full article about infectious diseases and government growth!
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