McKinsey's Effect on Public Health

Almost two years ago, the Canadian government published a Covid response plan that's largely vague and useless. Who benefits from that?

Canadian Public Health Response Plan

The 3rd edition of the guide was published in March 2022, and it appears to be the most recent edition. They outline the "worst case scenario," and it's pretty much what we're living through right this minute: a large wave with a peak of prolonged duration, concurrent with other respiratory pathogens, with a new variant of concern that has immune escape properties that reduce vaccine effectiveness at a time where people are reluctant to get vaccinated, and a shortage of health care providers. Check, check, and check! 

So when do public health measure kick in??

 They have a pretty great graphic explaining their plan for stopping waves:

Unfortunately it all hinges on that first step, "detect signals," which is all but out the window. In Ontario at least, Ford reduced wastewater surveillance last April (my city doesn't do it at all), and the rapid tests we have were from a supply (BTNX) that fudged their results to make them look like the tests work better than they actually do, resulting in far more undetected cases out there (false negatives). Volunteer organizations, like Moriarty Labs, are using various means to detect signals, but it doesn't appear that public health takes notice of them. They're weakly promoting vaccines but not N95s despite the dire situation in hospitals right now. 

Of interest is shortly after this came out, Pfizer openly acknowledged that removing mask mandates would benefit the company, increase the demand for vaccinations and meds as the primary strategy in May 2022 (page 18) where Angela Hwang, Pfizer's head of biopharmaceuticals, said: 

"We also see that the social--the removal of the mask mandate . . . infections are going to increase, and that's the role that PAXLOVID can play."

Paxlovid is the Covid medication some people can get access to if they find out they have Covid within five days (despite the rapid test fiasco). However, like vaccinations, it can lose effectiveness as the virus mutates.

If you want to screw over the profits of a huge company, start wearing an N95!! It feels like Pfizer won, and vaccinations is all many public health units advise. Here's the front page of my local PH:

In fact, I can't find anything else about Covid on there without doing a deep dive. There's no button for basic information on the virus that continues to dramatically affect the health of the public. 

Nothing. 

Focus on Prevention

Once detected - if detected - the plan that the feds, provinces, and territories came up with to prevent the wave is lengthy yet says very little (page 41) including phrases like "continued use of restrictive community-based measures" and "ensure ongoing response measures" which are clear as mud. It does suggest "use of highly conservative assumptions for defining exposure," which sounds useful, but where and when and to do what?? Then they jump into "use of suitable isolation and quarantine sites" and "gradual, controlled re-opening of settings" without, anywhere, suggesting when and where that should occur. The idea appears to be catching a peak it before it gets too big, but the go to plan in this model appears to be isolation and release. So, from that reading alone, it's no wonder public health doesn't want any detection going on. 

It's like when my school implemented a zero tolerance policy for swearing, briefly, in which kids would be suspended for so much as whispering "shit" to themselves if they dropped their pencil. Suddenly, most teachers became selectively deaf because the punishment didn't fit the crime, and sending so many students - and teachers - to the office each class was more disruptive than it was worth. Public health appears to be governed by a document that advises lockdowns at the first sign of rising cases, so it's no wonder they're working so hard to ignore any detection.

It doesn't mention masks or respirators anywhere on the prevention page of that document, but it does say "high compliance with personal protective measures," which might include N95s (but could mean a variety of things). It also doesn't suggest creating mandates but only establishes the final goal, "having high compliance." Elsewhere in the document, "masks" is the example given to illustrate a public health measure, but they sure make you look for it!

Then the "reduce surge" section is all about vaccines.

In the whole document, the word "mask" is used 10 times, "respirator" and "N95" appear 0 times, "vaccine" shows up 203 times, and "vaccination" 74 times. 

Wouldn't it be something if it were somehow influenced by Pfizer profit-margin?? (foreshadowing!!)

Canada's SAC, Industry Strategy Council, and McKinsey

Anneke did a deep dive on the Special Advisory Committee (SAC) that was assembled to write publication. Long story short, the Pan-Canadian Public Health Network Council (PHN) and the Council of Chief Medical Officers of Health and the Deputy Minister Liaison are all "activated" for any level 3 or 4 emergency, so, Dr. Theresa Tam, Dr. Saqib Shahab (Sask) Dr. Bonnie Henry (BC), etc. It appears to be a typical bureaucratic nightmare that makes sure nobody is on the hook for anything:

Anneke pointed out last April that the heads were all made aware of the severe multi-system damage that could result from even a mild or asymptomatic Covid infection back in July 2020, so they can't say they didn't know how serious Covid is. Her conclusion:

"Fast forward one year later to today and there's no question that eugenics is on full display now across the country with the removal of masks in healthcare/LTC."

I have two quibbles with this conclusion: First, if Pfizer has a hand in here somewhere, maybe through third party lobbying (bribing) officials to focus on vaccines over N95s, then arguably, the intention appears to be profits with deaths merely incidental. Secondly, that's not eugenics per se, i.e. selective breeding to improve the population; it's genocide: inflicting conditions of life calculated to bring about the physical destruction of an identifiable group, including sections of the public distinguished by age, or mental or physical disability. Words are important. Unfortunately, regardless which term is used, it requires "proven intent" to destroy people. Letting people - especially children, the elderly, racialized, and disabled, walk into schools and hospitals and mandatory work assignment completely unprotected knowing there's a harmful pathogen in the air seems on par with letting people starve to death in the Holodomor. A genocide doesn't have to be active murder of people; it can be passively creating conditions that accelerate the spread of disease. One legal advocacy group called the opioid epidemic "legal genocide," and there are many similarities here. So many.

Aside: Isn't it about time the Criminal Code adds Socio-Economic Status to its list of identifiable groups?? The young, old, disabled, and racialized are being hit hardest, but the primary distinction is poverty. Anyway...

The reason I'm seeing Anneke's post now is that she recently added an addendum:

"The SAC on Covid-19 was in lockstep with the economic recovery even prior to May 2020 when Canada's Industry Strategy Council was formally announced. . . . And here's my comprehensive thread about all things Industry Strategy Council and powerful stakeholders and their collective and pervasive influence on Canadian pandemic policies - especially in keeping kids in school and women/minorities/marginalized groups at work."

I summarized that thread back in June: "Why We're Not Keeping Kids Safe from Covid." It's largely about the Industry Strategy Council's collusion with McKinsey & Co. The revelation Anneke is making for us here is that the Industry Strategy and McKinsey were clearly influencing the SAC. This was also explained by Arijit Chakravarty in October: a McKinsey white paper from March 2022 made it clear that efforts to manage and direct public feelings are specifically intended to promote a return to pre-pandemic patterns of work and consumption. "This 'moral calm'--a sort of manufactured consent--impedes risk mitigation by promoting the underestimation of a threat. Soothing public messaging during disasters can often lead to an increased death toll." 

McKinsey is a consulting firm serving almost all of the biggest companies in the world, known - more and more - for the unsavoury work they do to promote (or "turbocharge" sales of) fossil fuels, tobacco, and opioids, and well connected with some autocratic regimes. From a review of When McKinsey Comes to Town:

"McKinsey was rife with conflicts of interest in which it advised multiple companies within a sector and, more disconcertingly, regulators alongside the companies they oversaw. Over the years, its cost-cutting recommendations downplayed safety concerns at U.S. Steel, Disneyland and American immigration centers, and shorted insurance policy holders of billions of dollars in claims . . . advised opioid-makers to target 'high abuse-risk patients' and urge health-care providers to increase prescriptions. . . . It concocted a plan to issue rebates to pharmacies for every 'OxyContin overdose attributable to pills they sold.' McKinsey did all of this while advising the FDA."

That article also explains that the "ethos governing professional circles effectively shields their members from pangs of conscience." That's the brilliance of bureaucracies that Hannah Arendt talked about so much in Eichmann in Jerusalem and Origins of Totalitarianism. The system allows for people to skirt any responsibility, not just legally, but in their own conscience. Eichmann oversaw the murder of millions of Jewish people in the Shoah, yet he was comfortably and authentically able to view himself as a hard worker who did a great job of following instructions! IT'S EXACTLY WHAT PUBLIC HEALTH IS DOING! The system allows all the people involved to be divorced enough from the outcomes of their decisions to actually make policies that effectively kill and disable children AND allow all the medical professionals involved to sleep well at night! 

Of course McKinsey is working with Pfizer. According to Fierce Pharma, Pfizer "hired Aamir Malik from McKinsey & Company as its chief business innovation officer" in August 2021. McKinsey features many Pfizer execs on their website, including Angela Hwang from that gleeful quote above and Lidia Fonseca, Pfizer's Chief Digital and Tech Officer, and the CFO of Pfizer, Frank D'Amelio. Like with fossil fuels, tobacco, and opioids, McKinsey doesn't give a fuck about your health and well being. They care about their partners, Pfizer, making a buck off vaccines and Paxlovid. Of course McKinsey likely has media by the balls, and this is why so much media is about how silly it is for people to still wear N95s. It's quite possibly why many school boards and public health messaging is along the lines of "please try to be nice to the weirdos still wearing masks"! The more you actually protect yourself and your family with an N95 and filtration units and by cracking a window whenever possible, the more money they stand to lose. 

This company convinced you to smoke 'em if you got 'em, and convinced doctors to overprescribe opioids, and they are escalating climate change until the cow keel over! Don't think they're above overtly and intentionally convincing everyone that Covid is safe and mild and that masks don't work and are unnecessary in order to push vaccines and Paxlovid as the only options. Get vaccinated for sure, but also wear an N95 to avoid ever needing Paxlovid. 

Check out John Oliver's takedown of McKinsey last October if you've got 26 minutes, and remember to pfuck over Pfizer with an N95!!

 

ETA: this video from More Perfect Union and McKinsey's formula for creating a "new normal" back in 2020 with stages of Resolve, Resilience, and Return, followed by Reimagination and Reform.   

in "the path to the next normal. . . . Government leaders may face an acutely painful 'Sophie's choice': mitigating the resurgent risk to lives versus the risk to the population's health that could follow another sharp economic pullback." They advise to protect all employees with masks and hand sanitizer throughout, but they also push the economy and profits first at every turn. 

COVID BASICS: (1-3 from Dr. Joe Vipond): This is what should be on the prevention page of that Canadian document!!

"1. Covid is predominantly airborne. [It can cross a room in minutes and linger for hours.]

2. Over 50% of transmission is from asymptomatic people. [They feel perfectly healthy!!]

3. Long Covid is real and impacts a substantial number of people." And...

4. Vaccines help reduce severity of cases, but can't eliminate transmission, and they wane in effectiveness within months because Covid mutates so fast (because of all the spread!).

5.  N95s trap Covid using inertial impaction, diffusion, interception, and electrostatic attraction. They really work!!

6. Covid's the #3 killer in Canada, and we don't know how many people it has disabled. Avoid being one of them. There is no effective treatment for Long Covid, only prevention. Be wise with N95s!