The neoliberal attack on responses to the pandemic

The Daily Poster, (rated as high fact accuracy, solid left bias, but not quite extreme left) reports on how the hard core neoliberal Koch-funded propaganda national network has worked diligently against responding to the pandemic. The authors postulate that at least in part the Koch empire was responding to the fall in oil prices that occurred in 2020 when lockdowns were in place. The article, How The Koch Network Hijacked The War On COVID, comments:

As Omicron surges, a shadowy institute filled with fringe doctors appears to be part of big business’ two-year strategy to legitimize attacks on pandemic interventions.

Earlier this month, as the Omicron variant began to spread, a small liberal arts school on a tree-lined campus in Michigan called Hillsdale College announced it was launching an Academy for Science and Freedom to “educate the American people about the free exchange of scientific ideas and the proper relationship between freedom and science in the pursuit of truth.”

The academy was inspired by the pandemic. “As we reflect on the worst public health fiasco in history, our pandemic response has unveiled serious issues with how science is administered,” noted the college president in a press release.

But the venture isn't exactly an effort to apply science to the COVID-19 crisis. The so-called “fiasco” was government pandemic measures like mask and vaccine mandates, contact tracing, and lockdowns.

Hillsdale is a conservative Christian institution with ties to the Trump administration. And the scholars behind the academy — Scott Atlas, Jay Bhattacharya, and Martin Kulldorff — are connected to right-wing dark money attacking public health measures.

The trio also has ties to the Great Barrington Declaration, a widely-rebuked yet influential missive that encouraged governments to adopt a “herd immunity” policy letting COVID-19 spread largely unchecked, even as the virus has killed more than 800,000 Americans.

The academy is the newest initiative designed to provide intellectual cover to a nearly two-year campaign by right-wing and big business interests to force a return to normalcy to boost corporate profits amid a pandemic that is now surging once again thanks to Omicron.

That campaign’s most recent success came earlier this month when Senate Republicans and a handful of Democrats joined together to pass a symbolic measure to repeal a Biden administration rule requiring large corporations to mandate vaccines or regular COVID tests for workers.

This is the story of how that corporate-bankrolled campaign originally started, and how it has continued to supplant public health experts and hijack the governmental response to the pandemic.

The article goes on to point out that lockdowns drove down cases in the U.S., arguably saving millions of lives globally. Those pandemic responses disrupted the economy. An economic analysis indicated that hardest-hit industries would take years to recover. The fossil fuel industry was particularly hard hit, but has since significantly recovered. 

Business groups, especially fossil fuel interests, targeted public health measures that threatened their bottom lines. Chief among them were groups tied to billionaire Charles Koch, owner of Koch Industries, the largest privately held fossil fuel company in the world.

The radical right propaganda war on public health measures began on March 20, 2020. The right-wing nonprofit founded by Charles and David Koch, Americans For Prosperity, issued a press release calling on states to stay open for business: “We can achieve public health without depriving the people most in need of the products and services provided by businesses across the country,” it read.

A few weeks later, the American Legislative Exchange Council, a business lobbying group partially funded by Koch Industries, published a letter asking Trump to enable states to reopen. The letter was signed by over 200 state legislators and “stakeholders” that included leaders from Koch-funded groups, e.g., the Texas Public Policy Foundation and the James Madison Institute. To fight its propaganda war, the Koch network also relied on the anti-government Tea Party movement's astroturf roadmap. This was funded by dark money to foment and coordinate anti-lockdown protests.

In October of 2020, the Great Barrington Declaration was released. It argued: “The most compassionate approach that balances the risks and benefits of reaching herd immunity is to allow those who are at minimal risk of death to live their lives normally to build up immunity to the virus through natural infection.” The authors were three epidemiologists at three major universities. They argued that governments should allow younger, healthier people to become infected with COVID-19 to reach herd immunity, while protecting elderly and other vulnerable people. The declaration’s website claims the letter has since been signed by more than 2,700 “Medical and Public Health Scientists,” and “none of the authors or co-signers received any money, honoraria, stipend, or salary from anyone.” 

The article points out that the Barrington declaration (i) came from right-wing dark money and corporate interests, and (ii) many of the signatories aren’t verified. 

According to one source, in the US alone, there are over 120,000 medical and life scientists. That 2,700 worldwide means a small minority of experts agree with the Barrington declaration. That sounds like the ~2-3% of climate scientists who deny human caused climate change and the radical right cites as proof there's nothing to worry about. The carbon energy sector, and most libertarians, conservatives and Republican elites always love that ~2-3% when it protects their profits. 

We have seen the lies attached to this kind of profit-motivated propaganda ploy many ties with affected industries questioning (i) human carbon pollution not causing climate change, (ii) cigarettes being harmless and not causing cancer, (iii) plastics being recyclable and not any concern, (iv) private sector being better than government for running utilities, (v) car makers questioning seat belts, and (vi) etc. 

Question: Is it a reasonable conclusion from this article that hard core neoliberal ideologues are indifferent to human suffering and death if it threatens profits?