The government, at all levels, has done particularly severe damage in 2020.  In the United States, the lockdowns and mask mandates have mostly come from governors and mayors.  The federal government, under the Trump administration, has taken a federalist approach on these things, meaning the decisions have been left to state and local governments.

This doesn’t mean that the federal government hasn’t caused tremendous harm with regard to the coronavirus and reactions to the coronavirus.  Of course, the government has spent trillions of additional dollars, which has been financed by debt and inflation.  But even when it comes specifically to medical care, the federal government has done great damage.

The shutting down of private businesses has perhaps been the most surprising aspect of all of this. It has severely damaged the principle of property rights when governors and mayors get to decide what is essential and what is not.

This can’t all be blamed on the mayors and governors though.  The legislatures of state and city governments have largely allowed these dictatorial measures to take place.  But beyond this, the governors and mayors have gotten away with it to a large extent because public opinion has allowed it.  A majority of Americans bought into the fear of a virus and were willing to give up liberty for some perceived safety.

Even if you think the coronavirus was a major threat to humanity, it is no excuse to allow the state to interfere with voluntary associations.  If someone wants to risk going to a store or a hair salon or a bar, they should be allowed to take that risk as a free individual.

Still, despite the lockdowns happening at a state and local level, and despite the widespread fear in the population, things would have been much better had it not been for the federal government.  In fact, it is possible that almost none of this would have happened.

The Alphabet Agencies

First, the widespread fear was largely a result of the U.S. federal government.  There are lockdowns and panic worldwide, but a lot of countries and governments copy what happens in the U.S.  Unfortunately, while other countries copied what was happening in the U.S. and originally in parts of China, the measures were even stricter because of people even more willing to give up liberty.  The U.S. looks pretty good these days compared to Australia or England.

While the news originated in China, it was the U.S. government that really ramped up the fear.  Between the CDC and the FDA and the NIH, we heard non-stop about this deadly virus, and life all of a sudden changed dramatically in March.  The establishment media pointed to all of the “experts”, which means handpicked government experts.  So we got a lifetime bureaucrat in Dr. Fauci, and we also got to hear a lot from Bill Gates who specializes in viruses.  I thought Gates’ specialty was getting computer viruses, but apparently he is attracted to people viruses as well.  Gates is a top funder of the World Health Organization, another entity that has sold a lot of fear with the virus.

There has been a lot of propaganda.  It all flows down to your local news station.  But let’s be clear that it largely comes from the top, which is really the U.S. government.  And remember that Trump is only one small aspect of the U.S. federal government.  We live in an administrative state.  Trump can’t drain the swamp without at least trying to drain some of the administrative state.

Aside from getting Trump out of office, there are politicians and bureaucrats who have incentives to play up the virus.  It gives them power.  It gives them prestige.  It gives them a crisis to deal with.  In some cases, it may give them money.

The powers-that-be had many impacts in promoting the coronavirus.  Some of it had long been in place, while there were other measures specifically targeting this virus.

One easily identifiable thing is that Medicare paid more to hospitals for coronavirus patients. Medicare paid a lot more for patients put on a ventilator.  While not every doctor is corrupt, it is an incentive for doctors who are corrupt or who are just apathetic and willing to go along.  I’m sure many hundreds, probably thousands, unnecessarily died in New York because of this.  The doctors were just drugging up patients and throwing them on ventilators to die, even for some who probably didn’t even have coronavirus. We’ll see if anyone is held to account in the future for what was essentially murder.

Next, you have the CDC with its phony statistics.  They told doctors and hospitals from early on that if a patient dies with COVID-19, then they should be counted as COVID-19.  In other words, when you have someone who is 90 years of age and dying of cancer, they could be marked as a COVID death if they tested positive for COVID or even just showed symptoms of it.

It’s not a coincidence when almost all of the people supposedly dying of COVID probably would have died around the same time anyway (with the exception of some who went into some of the deadly New York City hospitals).  You could declare a pandemic of the sniffles if you attribute the sniffles as the cause of death to anyone who dies who had to wipe his nose within a week of his dying.

But most people sat at home and watched the ticker of deaths on the news with little curiosity as to who was actually dying.  They also didn’t bother to look up how many people died of heart disease that day, or how many people died of cancer.  This was propaganda intentionally put out by the CDC.

And how about the FDA? It has been known that the FDA delays life-saving medicines for years while people unnecessarily die. The FDA wants a medicine to be deemed completely safe, even if it would save more lives than cause harm. Of course, this goes out the window when it comes to their precious vaccines that they like to promote.

In 2020 though, the FDA took it a step farther and has made it difficult to get hydroxychloroquine as a treatment for coronavirus.  In spite of many doctors reporting its successful use, the FDA could have none of that.  They need 100% safety, unless it is a vaccine, in which case it can be rushed to market.  Of course, this drug has been used widely for malaria (and other coronaviruses) for decades and has little in side effects.  If competition were actually allowed, maybe most people would realize that a coronavirus is treatable and not deadly at all to any relatively healthy person.

Beyond this, there are many long-term things that have served to make this much worse.  As a libertarian, I am against government licensing, including for doctors.  This does not mean I am against licensing, but it shouldn’t be mandated by the state, and it shouldn’t be issued by the state.

Government licensure is one of the primary reasons that the market in medical care doesn’t seem to be functioning correctly.  The fear of license revocation is why many doctors will not use or promote alternative therapies that are not establishment approved.

Again, this takes away competition.  It also tends to silence many doctors who do not believe the hype of the virus. I know of several doctors who think this whole thing is a sham.  But we’re told we have to listen to the experts, which again are the handpicked experts by the establishment trying to promote a narrative.

The administrative state is massive and deep.  There are many ways it has caused great damage to our medical care system. I have only touched on a few major things that have caused great harm in the year 2020.  But the history is long and deep, and I’m sure there are many things that I am completely unaware of that serve to worsen the situation.

So while people, particularly business owners, should get mad at mayors and governors for shutting things down, there is a lot of blame to be placed in Washington DC.  These are major structural problems.  The best long-term solution is to defund these alphabet agencies that have caused so much havoc.