Washington DC, USA - FEBRUARY 10 2021: President Joe Biden delivers remarks to Department of Defense personnel, with Vice President Kamala Harris and Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III.

4 Years into the COVID-19 Pandemic: Where We Stand

By Jennifer S. Bard

The White House is preparing to shut down their COVID Task Force this May, in conjunction with ending the public health emergency — the latest in a series of astounding and shortsighted decisions that put individual Americans at as great a risk from serious harm as a result of catching COVID-19 as at any stage in the pandemic.

By declaring the pandemic over by fiat, the government is giving up the fight when they should be redoubling their efforts. Not only is COVID still very much with us, but all existing methods of preventing infection have either been severely weakened by the virus’ mutations, or simply abandoned. Additionally, more is known of the harm COVID causes past the initial infection.

There is nothing vague or subtle about the “end” of a disease outbreak. Either cases actually disappear, as with seasonal influenza, or they are dramatically reduced through a vaccine that prevents further transmission, as happened with measles and polio. Neither event has happened here. Instead, like HIV, which continues to be an ongoing public health emergency, the virus continues to infect and mutate.

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Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Georgia, Atlanta USA March 6, 2020.

For Whom Does the CDC Think it Works?

By Jennifer S. Bard

As weekly deaths from COVID in the U.S. soar into thousands, monkeypox continues to spread, and New York reports the country’s first case of paralytic polio since 1979, it is fair to question the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)’s effectiveness and ability to achieve its mission to “to protect America from health, safety and security threats” and its pledge to “base all public health decisions on the highest quality scientific data that is derived openly and objectively” and “place the benefits to society above the benefits to our institution.”

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hand opening white plastic pvc window at home.

It’s Time for the Federal Government to Get Back to Protecting the Nation Against COVID-19

By Jennifer S. Bard

Over the past two years, the Supreme Court has shown unprecedented hostility to efforts by both state and federal government to stop the spread of what every day turns out to be an even more deadly pandemic.

These decisions are devastating, and likely signal a continued attack on government authority, but they are not a reason to give up.

The federal government can still use its vast resources to slow the spread and continued mutation of the virus, by telling people what it knows of the danger, and what it knows about how to mitigate it.

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A half face dust mask and HEPA filter over white background.

Being an Adult in the Face of Omicron

By Jennifer S. Bard

To those who believe that the federal government is a benign force doing the best they can to fight the COVID-19 pandemic and keep us all safe, I have two words of advice: Grow up.

Neither the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), or Dr. Fauci should be anthropomorphized into a benevolent but perhaps out-of-touch parental figure. They are not.

As a matter of law, the government, in contrast to your parents, or school, or perhaps even your employer, does not have a fiduciary duty to protect your (or any individual’s) health and safety. As the Supreme Court said in Deshaney v. Winnebago Country Dept of Social Services, 489 U.S. 189 (1980) and again in Castlerock v. Gonzales, 545 U.S. 748 (2005), individuals do not have an enforceable right to government protection unless the state itself creates the danger. Their duty, if it exists, is to the public in general, which can encompass many factors beyond any one person’s health.

Just knowing that the government, duly elected or not, has no obligation to protect you or your family should be enough to look at its pandemic guidance as minimum, rather than maximum, standards. It should also encourage you to be proactive in taking precautions beyond those “recommended,” rather than seeing these minimal standards as unwarranted restrictions that can be negotiated down.

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Freeway on-ramp

The Government Needs to Construct On, Not Off, Ramps to Combat the Latest Wave of COVID

By Jennifer S. Bard

Over the past two weeks, the news coming in about the spread of COVID-19 has been eerily familiar. Cases are rising all over Europe, not just in under-vaccinated Eastern European countries, but in England, the Netherlands, and Germany — all of whom have much higher rates of vaccination than the U.S. At the same time, cases across the U.S., including in cities like LA, DC, and Chicago have stopped falling, and are rising rapidly in the Mountain West, including the Navajo Nation. Hospitals in Colorado have already reached crisis capacity.

Whether the increase is attributable to the emergence of yet another variant, or perhaps is a natural artifact of waning immunity, it is very real and demands a level of attention from our federal government that, once again, it is failing to provide.

Yet in the face of now too familiar signs of resurgence, already being called a “Fifth Wave,” not only are the usual minimizers advocating reducing existing measures to prevent spread, but cities and states are rolling back what few protections remain intact. It is in the face of this foolish movement to drop our guard that the federal government is, again, failing to use the powers it has beyond vaccine mandates to create much needed on-ramps for mitigation measures as the country heads into winter.

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Bill of Health - two girls wearing masks in school bump firsts during covid-19 pandemic

Educators, ELLs, and COVID-19

By Bailey Kennedy, J.D.

Longstanding obligations meet new challenges

In 1974, the Supreme Court held in Lau v. Nichols that the San Francisco school district had failed to provide Chinese-speaking students in the district with “a meaningful opportunity to participate in the educational program.” This case still remains a touchstone in the body of law requiring English language instruction in federally-funded schools to children whose first language is not English. However, the coronavirus crisis and the ensuing move to online education by many school districts across the country has made it more difficult for states to fulfill their obligations to this vulnerable population of students.

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