Last Friday, the CDC (U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) changed its guidelines concerning the ways the Covid-19 virus spreads; on Monday, one business day later, the government agency changed again and reverted to its previous guidelines (see “CDC Removes Guidelines Saying Coronavirus Can Spread from Tiny Air Particles,” Wall Street Journal, September 21, 2020). Who will believe these politically-tainted public health bureaucrats?

Mistrust is justified not only by the catastrophic performance of governments in the Covid-19 crisis, mirroring the general failure of central planners in economic history, and the constant turnarounds of public health agencies, but also by the fact that for several decades, public health experts and activists have been falling in line behind any measure that would increase state power as their philosophy drifted towards a concept of public health as total government care. A paper of mine developing this point should soon be published by the Reason Foundation.

(The featured image of this post is the only one representative of central planning—although not meant to be so—that I could find in the politically-correct stock images service I subscribe to!)