Conclusion: Public (not medical) health requires a robust democracy.

From my April 2022 paper COVID-19 Emergency Powers: The New Zealand State, Medical Capture & the Role of Strategic Ignorance

This paper concludes that the combination of rapid output of legislation and flawed policy process have produced deficient COVID-19 legislation that was never democratically accountable. This paper suggests that all COVID-19 legislation is repealed and provisional consent for mRNA genetic vaccines is withdrawn.

The triple tragedy of this pandemic, is that those that wanted to develop a natural immunity buffer from natural infection, were refused this opportunity, on pain of economic and social exclusion. Not at-risk groups were forcefully coerced to accept risk of adverse harm from the novel mRNA technology that skipped most of the clinical trials normally required to assure public safety. Finally, those who were at risk were not given the choice of early multitarget treatment that might have reduced their risk of hospitalisation and death.

The Unite Campaign has demanded that everyone must be vaccinated to protect the vulnerable, even if the mRNA genetic vaccine could not assure prevention of hospitalisation and death, as vaccine waning occurs differently by age and health status. The demand (and mandate coercion) shepherded Kiwis to accept the novel medical intervention and police the perceived ‘vaccine status’ of those around them.

The assumption of global vaccination appears to have been embedded in policy from the earliest stages, when contracts were first signed for (at least) 2 doses of the Pfizer BNT162b2 genetic vaccine for every citizen, and when papers advancing the elimination strategy were published.

The novel mRNA genetic vaccine had a dubious, if not terrible, safety record from the first 6 months of data production that conventionally would have prevented authorisation of the drug.

In the absence of early treatment, a state-manufactured Catch-22 dilemma continues to be imposed on vulnerable groups at most risk from COVID-19 and of vaccine failure from the now out of date genetic vaccine. For the aged and infirm and for those suffering from severe and overlapping multimorbidities, mRNA vaccination is of the essence because there is no public recognition of other options. Yet vulnerable people may experience vaccine failure within a relatively short period of time, and they may be more at risk of an adverse event from the mRNA treatment.

Without the knowledge of home-based early treatments can prevent hospitalisation and death, these people have every right to be terrified and defensive if questions are raised by ‘outsiders’ regarding the safety and efficacy of the mRNA gene therapy.

As Sars-Cov-2 continues to circulate, the respiratory virus may be reducing in pathogenicity due to increasing natural immunity, or it may be increasing in pathogenicity as it infects vaccinated people with weaker immune systems. But our science system is not set up to do controversial research.

This paper recommends a public pivot, to establish policy that prioritises the developmental origins of health and disease; and officially recognises that dominant single disease narratives which underpin policy, medical practice and scientific research in health are profoundly misleading.

Multimorbiditiy is the norm in New Zealand today.

Chronic disease commonly entails a cascade of overlapping health conditions that are drivenby early childhood, poor political and regulatory stewardship of technologies and pollution, and inequality.

Whether for communicable or non-communicable disease, being aged and infirm and suffering from severe and overlapping multimorbidities, are the primary drivers of hospitalisation and death.

Understanding how the state co-opted institutions to support the Unite Campaign, while placing a chill on dissidents is critical if civil society is to remain safe from exploitation, and democratic nations are to remain resilient and democratically accountable. Accelerating deployment of technologies at global scale and digitisation, and the difficulty in ensuring transparency and accountability from opaque technologies create opportunities for appropriation of power by large institutional interests at a cost of democratic life and rights protection.

Lacking awareness and implementation of independent research and analysis to inform policy, the biggest concern is the precedent the Unite Against Covid tactics create for future pandemic scenarios. New Zealand’s response must be independent and there must be robust debate, in order to counter powerful local and global narratives of those with vested financial and political interests.

Medical & surveillance technologies & the capture of the WHO.

In December, talks commenced for an ‘historic global accord on pandemic prevention, preparedness and response.’ However there are concerns that digital identity systems, close relationships with digital software providers and pharmaceutical industries may result in the WHO’s proposal being more about surveillance and control and less about the protection of health and prevention of hospitalisation and death.

The World Health Organisation is increasingly financially dependent on private interests who often earmark donations, dictating the WHO’s priorities and action agenda. The non-profit GAVI has outsize influence on the WHO and GAVIs policy interests are closely tied to GAVIs private funders.

Entrepreneur Bill Gates is viewed as having outsize interest through the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and his interests directly concern the deployment of technology, rather than the conventional concerns of public health authorities, including the protection of local food systems, drinking water and wellbeing.

The Gates foundation ties donations to specific agendas the WHO is required to comply with; the foundation funds GAVI and the foundation set up COVAX. In addition, the large vaccine developers’ group COVAX, an effective ‘vaccine buyers’ and distribution club’ are intricately tied into and partner policy development with institutions including the World Bank and the World Health Organization. These players are incentivised to situate risk as a medical solution rather than health-based solution.

COVAX has been described as a ‘super public private partnership’ focussed on the single disease, ‘privilege technological solutions over attention to health systems and structural determinants of health, monitor themselves, and heavily advocate their own successes.’

In addition, other global initiatives led by private charities frequently lack the transparency of publicly developed global agencies. The World Government Summit Organization has been put in place to shape the future of governments – to influence policy. Focus is not on democracy, but on technology, trade, security and surveillance. The World Government Summit brings together powerful actors, including the World Economic Forum, and Trade Organization, and members include all the large institutional advisors including Deloitte, Accenture, McKinsey and Company and BCG.

The World Economic Forum (WEF) is dedicated to shaping the ‘global agenda’ and ‘advance progress’ and have ‘no commercial interest’, yet it’s influence on global governance does not extend to iterating the challenge for democracy in navigating an increasingly opaque and privatised technological world. The WEF board and member organisations reflect private interests. Focus is on digitization and technological revolution, however, if global digital platforms lack a robust framework of transparency and autonomy, private institutions will exert outsize influence, to the disadvantage of more complex issues relating to human rights, and human and environmental health.

In closing, twelve major themes have been identified in this paper, that suggest how overlapping cultures, norms and ways of operating, enabled the COVID-19 rollout to be deployed to the detriment of democratic and public health norms. These themes draw attention to the application of strategic tactics that limited the rights of New Zealanders, produced extensive health harms and eroded public trust in governance institutions.

The 12 themes are summarised as follows:

1. Narrow interpretations of science have been harnessed. Internal modelling shaped risk to secure public consent and justify restrictive laws and mandates, while peer reviewed science drawing attention to uncertainty and risk was ignored.

2. Fundamental and historically recognised public health norms have disintegrated. Principles of public health recognise that society must both protect aged and vulnerable populations, and the young and healthy. The principle of informed consent is in place to balance individual risk from medication.

3. Discussion of erosion of democratic norms will always be complex. The overarching legislation was not publicly consulted upon before receiving Royal Assent but established the legislative platform for an unprecedented expansion of powers. The Hon David Parker put the driving legislation in place; however, as Attorney General, Parker was asked for assurance that the same legislation did not restrict human rights.

4. Uncomfortable truths about a novel medical intervention have been sidelined. The mRNA genetic vaccines were neither safe nor effective (they were never approved based on prevention of hospitalisation or death) from an early stage. Many of the international institutions the New Zealand government has depended on, have commercial conflicts of interest.

5. There has always been a less coercive strategy that would protect vulnerable groups. Early treatments prevent hospitalisation and death yet this knowledge has been suppressed. Focussed protection strategies recommended protection of high risk and vulnerable groups to prevent the public health harms of lockdowns where negative consequences may outweigh benefits. There were alternatives to a vaccine-only strategy, while promoting autonomy, protecting human rights and enabling medical choice which could prevent stress on the hospital system.

6. Unprecedented state funding dismantled a critical media. State reporting has mirrored government press releases and predominantly focussed on case counts and vaccine take-up. There has been an absence of critical reporting relating to mandates and vaccine efficacy and safety.

7. Public institutions have been engaged to critique and discredit dissenting groups. From February 2020 it was evident that the government foreshadowed contestation, due to persistent antinomies between case-oriented state messaging, contradictory information on risk embedded in the scientific literature. The Disinformation Project, appeared to be installed within Te Pūnaha Matatini for this purpose.

8. Medicalised cultures leave little room to counter the case/infection rate, vaccinate, mask and isolate narrative. Legacy funding cultures direct researchers to medical expertise. This has left little space for autonomous collegial interaction across scientific and clinical communities that could be critical of pro-genetic vaccine narratives. Scientific, public health, ethical and legal experts that could talk to transdisciplinary complex socio-legal and socio-technical aspects have been silent. Not only are fundamental democratic norms collateral, but a utilitarian, medicalised approach has rendered fundamental public health norms impotent.

9. The state’s tactical approach has been accompanied by an unprecedented expansion of state power. Despite the knowledge of the infection fatality rate in July 2021, in the second half of 2021 government Ministers released a barrage of policies and laws at an unprecedented pace, deploying narrow-in-scope modelling while eliding public discussion of infection fatality rate and risk by age and health status. Policy and legislation was constructed to funnel the public to global acceptance of a medical intervention, a novel genetic vaccine rather than prioritising health.

10. The executive, legislative and judiciary has worked in concert to aggregate state power. The executive, legislative (Parliament) and the judiciary co-operated to facilitate and promote vaccination, masking and mandates. These activities suggest that New Zealand lacks effective checks and balances to restrain the arbitrary use of state power. Uncertainty in judicial decisions have weighed support in favour of mandates. Without a language that gives political and public actors permission to make values-based decisions and to be uncertain, science can be deployed to enhance state power.

11. The public must accept a medical intervention in order to engage in social and economic life. Privacy has eroded, as vaccine passports and track and trace have been normalised throughout the population. Acceptance of a medical intervention in order to secure a freedom pass to economic and social life represents an erosion of fundamental democratic and human rights norms.

12. Lacking appropriate public interest stewardship, future pandemics and the development of digital identity systems risk erosion of democracy. The state’s intention to fold the vaccine passports into the Digital Identity Services Trust Framework Bill (see the UK’s version) is apparent. Digital identity involves important values-based questions of rights and privacy; and concern the related dilemma of increasingly unfettered institutional power (public and private, local and global). Such issues have remained outside consideration in public-facing government communications. The WHO clearly intends for vaccine passes to be used in future pandemics, yet close relationships with vaccine producers generate opportunities for exploitation.

Next: Unprecedented lawmaking, unprecedient public consultation. Schedule of fast paced legislation for which there was little or no public consultation.