The Shielding Approach

Featured image by Gary Todd. Follow the link for more of this artist’s work.

I generally am skeptical of conspiracy theories. When someone tells me about this thing being connected to some larger group of people that are given near god-like powers, I tend to disbelieve. Real-life tends to be much more boring than the movies.

But… this kind of stuff gets me looking at the tin foil a little more seriously.

On the CDC website as of this morning, there is an article titled, Interim Operational Considerations for Implementing the Shielding Approach to Prevent COVID-19 Infections in Humanitarian Settings. This article was last updated in July, and the idea that the government, under the guise of “humanitarian” services, are considering hypothetical situations for implementation, “focused on camps, displaced populations and low-resource settings.” This stuff gets my skin crawling.

So what does that mean? Well, according to the CDC websites, the “Shielding Approach” is a concept in which the aim is “to reduce the number of severe COCID-19 cases by limiting contact between individuals at higher risk of developing severe disease (‘high-risk’), and the general population (‘low-risk’).” It goes on to talk about temporary relocation of the high-risk individuals into safe zones at one of three levels, with minimal contact with low-risk residents, including family members.

Stop and think for just a moment. In this pandemic, we’ve been told to stay away from others. We’ve been told to keep away from high-risk individuals, which is why we couldn’t open small businesses, gyms, restaurants, or many places that weren’t large corporations. But this hypothetical approach goes beyond that. “For this reason, the shielding approach suggests physically separating high-risk individuals from the general population to prioritize the use of the limited available resources and avoid implementing long-term containment measures among the general population.”

Sticking to the CDC, they consider obesity a risk factor (follow the link for source material).

Just to pull back to reality, this is all theoretical, and that it is not proven, hasn’t been tested, has no evidence to support it, and is, as of right now, unimplemented. Theoretical work makes quite a number of assumptions, and real-life implementation will never go as planned. I do hope and believe that this theoretical approach would meet with such blowback to make it unfeasible.

But going down this article, the more worried I become that the people making these considerations have little connection to real life. If you are working, and are physically relocated to a green zone, as this article suggests, you would not be able to leave the green zone. You would not have a job, you would not be able to see your family, you would not be able to leave. You would be confined to an area with no recourse or ability to challenge the confinement. This is akin to internment, which in today’s culture is looked at as another stain upon this country’s history. But when push comes to shove, we turn a blind eye to these types of tactics in order to give ourselves the sense of security.

And this theoretical approach can encompass more than the relatively small population of elderly people. According to the article, “in some humanitarian settings more than one quarter of the population may fall under high risk categories^13,14,15 based on underlying medical conditions which may increase a person’s risk for severe COVID-19 illness which include chronic kidney disease, obesity, serious heart conditions, sickle cell disease, and type 2 diabetes.”

These camps would also engage in segregation, or would be open to it. They have provisions to consider camps with multiple ethnicities. The dystopian miasma is starting to set in.

“The shielding approach is an ambitious undertaking, which may prove effective in preventing COVID-19 infection among high-risk populations if well managed.” The sad reality is that the government can’t manage anything well. Politicians are not doctors for the most part. Doctors tend to think in accordance with their expertise. Everyone in government is separated from the people. Nothing is perfect, no plan will be implemented perfectly. And if you still believe that the government is operating with the best of intentions, you should take a moment to reflect. A government that is big enough to give you everything is strong enough to take it all away.