Coming soon... Viral Pandemic

For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
April 1, 2005

Executive Order: Amendment to E.O. 13295 Relating to Certain Influenza Viruses and Quarantinable Communicable Diseases

By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, including section 361(b) of the Public Health Service Act (42 U.S.C. 264(b)), it is hereby ordered as follows:

Section 1. Based upon the recommendation of the Secretary of Health and Human Services, in consultation with the Surgeon General, and for the purpose set forth in section 1 of Executive Order 13295 of April 4, 2003, section 1 of such order is amended by adding at the end thereof the following new subsection:

"(c) Influenza caused by novel or reemergent influenza viruses that are causing, or have the potential to cause, a pandemic.".

Sec. 2. This order is not intended to, and does not, create any right or benefit, substantive or procedural, enforceable at law or in equity by any party against the United States, its departments, agencies, entities, officers, employees or agents, or any other person.

GEORGE W. BUSH

THE WHITE HOUSE,

April 1, 2005.

# # #

Update 02 September 2009: I accessed and saved the above amendment to E.O. 13295 back on 12 June 2009. Given all the recent chatter concerning the high probability potential for federal, state and local government responses relative to the growing threat of a renewed pandemic of the novel SOI H1N1 virus in the USA, I deem the above to be crucial public information. How many of you have seen this in your local news? How about in the national media? Are you like myself in wondering why not? If so, then the rest of this NEINblog entry may be of considerable interest to you.

My take on the meaning of the above is as follows:

The amendment to E.O. 13295 specifically adds the novel SOI H1N1 Virus to the list of Quarantinable Communicable Diseases identified in E.O. 13295 which grants the Secretary of Health to act with all the powers of the President of the United States pursuant to sections 362 and 364(a) of the Public Health Service Act (42 U.S.C. 265 and 267(a) ) to:

"...prohibit, in whole or in part, the introduction of persons and property from such countries or places as he shall designate in order to avert such danger, and for such period of time as he may deem necessary for such purpose."

and


"...shall control, direct, and manage all United States quarantine stations, grounds, and anchorages, designate their boundaries, and designate thequarantine officers to be in charge thereof. With the approval of the President he shall from time to time select suitable sites for and establish such additional stations, grounds, and anchorages in the States and possessions of the United States as in his judgment are necessary to prevent the introduction of communicable diseases into the States and possessions of the United States."

By which meaneth if you display symptoms of or are determined to be infected by the SOI H1N1 flu virus the government can place you in quarantine indefinitely. When mandatory and priority immunization injections of hospital staff and health care workers begin as recommended back in mid-July 2009 by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Strategic Advisory Group of Experts (SAGE) on Immunization, then I believe we will have an indication and warning (I&W) of pending or imminent government responses as seen in the amended E.O. above. Remember, this is all about the SOI H1N1 virus being an uncontrollable Phase 6 global pandemic.

So, what scale might one imagine that global (i.e. the U.N. and WHO) and national governments actions will amount to in attempting to contain and control this uncontainable and uncontrollable H1N1 virus?

This is where clarity is given to the amended E.O above. Global and national governments are going to act in the only way they can, they are going to act to contain and control John and Jane Q Public (i.e. you and me, the infectees). Global and national governments will act for, and commit this phrase to memory my friends, "the common good in a public health emergency." That's what governments do in "public health emergencies." As developing pandemic conditions warrant they can quarantine entire neighborhoods. They could declare the "public health" equivilent of martial law. They could come into your home or business without a warrant and at will under the full protection of "the law" to "check" on things. They can take those suspected of being infected away. Even someone who coughs or sneezes with nothing more than hay fever or allergies which are common occurances this time of year or with a common cold can be taken away as suspect of being infected as part of the actions deemed necessary or appropriate or required by law in a "public health emergency." Coughing or sneezing can be deemed to be symptomatic of infection by the SOI H1N1 virus.

So the bottom line could well be that for the "common good" your rights as a citizen might stand a good chance of being waived, null and void. It could amount to "you sneeze and you are simultaneously a threat and a victim." That's how things could be during a declared pandemic. We can only hope they government will treat you as they now treat a captured Islamic terrorist and read you your Miranda rights before they legally take you away for an indefinite period of time to a quarantine station.

ON or about Saturday morning, 25 April 2009, the first indications of an H1N1 viral outbreak were being reported as print media headlines and broadcast media talking heads appeared to be vacillating from breathless, fearful stammering to clarion calls about something wicked this way comes from South of the Border. To this very minute, ten days later on the 5th of May/Cinco de Mayo, the reporting continues to vacillate from it's much ado about nothing, to the threat is not as great as we first thought, to a W.H.O. Phase 6 pandemic is still a distinct possibility.

The initial reports were replete with phrases like: W.H.O. declares swine flu emergency, pandemic alert, serious situation, unable to be contained, public health emergency. Within a single day the crisis went from Mexico City to New York City and beyond. Such is the nature of virus propagation in an age of non-stop intercontinental commercial air traffic. Mexico City today, Madrid in mere hours, Melbourne and Christchurch by midnight tomorrow. America was concerned because the threat reporting was as urgent as anything we've seen in recent years.

On 26 April the White House announced they were looking into it as President Barack Hussein Obama was probably somewhere on a back nine of The Courses golf course at Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland. This was about a week after Obama's own scare having been the guest of famed Mexican archaeologist Felipe Solis in Mexico City on 16 April. Mexican newspapers reported that Felipe contracted the H1N1 virus the next day and died a week later. Perhaps this explains why the American media went gaga - their Obamessiah came just that close to contracting and potentially croaking from the pig flu? Well, to be honest, I'm not really sure about that because as quickly as that story was circulated it was pooh-poohed and denied as false. Ay caramba!

So it went and so I watched this event unfold for the next couple of days, ever mindful that in Matthew 24 Jesus foretold of such pestilences, among other dire events such as wars, famines and earthquakes, occurring all over the world with ever increasing frequency and severity in these last days, as signs preceding His second coming. Jesus' description of these pestilences was clearly to global, pandemic-type outbreaks of disease. Since we're in the "season" of His coming, let's take a look at relatively recent history through some research I have conducted.

• In 1918-19 there was the so-called Spanish Flu which killed tens of millions of otherwise healthy people, primarily young adults to mature adults in mid-life. The victims were said to report feeling ill in the morning and were dead by nightfall.
• Then there was the Asian Flu outbreak which began in the Far East during February 1957, quickly became a global, two-wave pandemic, and did not fully subside until March 1958. In the United States alone nearly 70,000 people were killed by this virus or medical complications arising from it.
• Ten years later, in early 1968, the Hong Kong Flu, a genetic relative of the Asian Flu, erupted and became a pandemic and thereafter continued on in small contagion waves through to 1972. Nearly 34,000 died.
• And just over ten years ago, in 1997 and then in 1999, in came the Avian Flu, more commonly known as Bird Flu. This outbreak consisted of, respectively, two novel strains: the H5N1 and the H9N2. A global pandemic did not ensue but this particular virus remains feared by epidemiologists the world over due to its ability to infect human beings and ability to morph (i.e. reassortment/recombination of its genetic composition) into other lethal viral strains.

Note that the period after WWI through to the post-WWII era there was no great viral pandemic. Humanity was forced into the business of slaughtering itself (50 million+) during those years on a scale which puts the deaths caused by viral pandemics to shame. This, again according to the Bible, is "par for the course," so to speak. Wars have killed and will yet kill more human beings than all pestilences, earthquakes, and famines combined, even though famines and pestilences usually follow in very short order behind a war.

It also appears that following the end of WWII a global pandemic, or threat of a pandemic began to occur just about every ten years, increasing in frequency of late to a near permanent state of a viral outbreak or some other disease grabbing global headlines. Think about recent reports on HIV, AIDS, SARS, bubonic plague, hantavirus, never before seen strains of encephalitis, all manner of infectious diseases. We, as a species, are sick and getting sicker.

So, as I continue to track this new H1N1 strain, I will continue to be ever mindful that the next great war (and the rumor of an even greater war following it) appears poised to erupt in the Middle East with little or no further warning, thereby grabbing the headlines and the talking heads attention as this current pandemic continues its march through the population, and with the epidemiologists of the world uncertain whether it will subside or come back in a more deadly wave of contagion. One thing is for certain, all of the viral strains of the 20th Century are alive and well in the 21st Century, and this latest H1N1 has some facet of the genetic code of each of its predecessors within it.

You may now proceed on your merry way or you can stop for a moment this evening and talk to the Father about these things. Listen to what He has to say, it will save your life for all eternity.