US Law Authorizes Secretive, National ’Exercises’ Against Public Health ‘Threats’

Global Research – by Robert L Kinney III

A 2019 federal law raises concerns that the U.S. government may be engaging in large-scale COVID-19 ‘drills’ without alerting the public.

Previous articles mentioned that leading up to the reported COVID-19 pandemic, the U.S. federal government made multiple actions on laws governing pandemics, including U.S. laws governing pandemic preparedness “drills and exercises.”

This article will focus on the Pandemic and All-Hazards Preparedness and Advancing Innovation Act of 2019, which was passed by Congress and signed into law on June 24, 2019, only a few months before COVID-19. That law describes requirements for the National Health Security Strategy 2019-2022.

Within the 2019 U.S. Pandemic Act and other laws and documents, one may find language that can be interpreted as potential tip-offs that the U.S. government may have intended to coordinate with international governments and other entities to “convene” a falsified pandemic or somewhat covert pandemic “drill” or “operational exercise.”

The information may be seen as additional support for the claim that the COVID-19 pandemic may be partially or completely falsified.

Pandemic Act enhances gov’t legal authority to prepare for pandemics

A previous article briefly discussed the Pandemic and All-Hazards Preparedness and Advancing Innovation Act of 2019 (henceforth referred to as the “Pandemic Act of 2019”). There may be much more to the Pandemic Act of 2019, and the legal authority it provides, that needs to be discussed. A U.S. federal government summary explains that the Pandemic Act of 2019

amends the Public Health Service Act to build on work the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has undertaken to advance national health security. Amendments include enhancing the authorities of the Secretary [of the Department of Health and Human Services], Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response [ASPR], and the Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to prepare for and respond to public health emergencies. (emphasis added)

Thus, the Pandemic Act of 2019 amends the Public Health Service Act and enhances the authorities of several persons and entities “to prepare for and respond to public health emergencies.” Separately, the U.S. government explains that the Public Health Service Act

forms the foundation of HHS’ [U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’] legal authority for responding to public health emergencies; it authorizes the HHS Secretary to lead all Federal public health and medical response to public health emergencies.

It is important, then, to keep in mind that there is legal authority “to prepare for…public health emergencies;” that legal authority is mentioned in U.S. laws which will be discussed in this article. Among those with legal authority “to prepare for…public health emergencies” is the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response (ASPR).

It is also important to keep in mind some distinctions; there are U.S. federal laws which govern the legal authority of the HHS, CDC, ASPR, NIH, etc., to prepare for and respond to pandemics. Then there are U.S. federal laws which require a U.S. National Health Security Strategy and describe the necessary requirements (“provisions”) to be put in that National Health Security Strategy document.

And it will be elaborated on in a moment that the National Security Strategy 2019-2022 and the Implementation Plan include provisions which could be interpreted as suggesting that “convening” a response to a planned pandemic exercise (potentially a falsified pandemic) is part of the health security preparedness strategy.

Pandemic ‘preparedness’ may be evaluated through gov’t ‘drills…without notice’

One part of U.S. law mentioning the provisions to be put in the National Health Security Strategy is the following:

The National Health Security Strategy shall include provisions in furtherance of…integrating public health and public and private medical capabilities with other first responder systems, including through…the periodic evaluation of Federal, State, local, and tribal preparedness and response capabilities through drills and exercises, including drills and exercises to ensure medical surge capacity for events without notice (emphasis added; paragraph lettering and numbering omitted for ease of reading)

It is interesting to note the use of the words “without notice.” The wording can be interpreted to mean covert and secret pandemic “drills and exercises,” since “without notice” literally means “no notice” of the drill or exercise.

The law does not specify whether without notice refers to before the drill or exercise or both before and after the drill or exercise. As it is written, the law seems to refer to no notice before or after the drill or operational exercise is completed; a drill or exercise which occurs without informing those involved would be a covert or secret drill or exercise.

Another part of U.S. law which should be kept in mind is the law which gives legal authority to the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response (ASPR) within the Department of Health and Human Services to

Carry out drills and operational exercises, in consultation with the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Defense, the Department of Veterans Affairs, and other applicable Federal departments and agencies, as necessary and appropriate, to identify, inform, and address gaps in and policies related to all-hazards medical and public health preparedness and response, including exercises based on…identified threats for which countermeasures are available and for which no countermeasures are available; and…unknown threats for which no countermeasures are available. (42 U.S. Code § 300hh–10; emphasis added)

As it is written above, it appears that when the U.S. laws governing pandemic preparedness mention “preparedness” or something similar, the laws seemingly imply that “drills or operational exercises” may be convened to evaluate such preparedness.

To evaluate federal or national preparedness, a national “drill or operational exercise” may be implied. And, as mentioned above, at least some of those drills or exercises may be carried out “without notice.”

2018 amendment wanted ‘comprehensive, synchronized’ pandemic ‘drills’

Interestingly, before the Pandemic Act of 2019 was passed by Congress, in 2018, multiple versions of what eventually became the Pandemic Act of 2019 were introduced. Rep. Susan Brooks (IN-R) introduced multiple versions in the House of Representatives.

Mrs. Brooks was reportedly a “moderate” Republican who was considering seeking the gubernatorial nomination from Indiana’s Republican Committee as a successor to Mike Pence. On June 14, 2019, she announced she would not run for re-election to the House of Representatives in 2020, which was reportedly an unexpected shock. (The Pandemic Act of 2019 was passed on June 24, 2019).

One version of the bill sponsored by Mrs. Brooks interestingly proposed amendments to the aforementioned section which gave the ASPR authority to “carry out drills and exercises.” The amendment, emphasized below, with an abridged portion of the old law, reads that the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response (ASPR) shall:

Carry out drills and operational exercises, in consultation with the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Defense…including exercises based on…identified threats for which countermeasures are available and for which no countermeasures are available; and…unknown threats for which no countermeasures are available. Such drills and operations exercises shall be comprehensive, synchronized, and mutually supportive.

And the ASPR shall:

Coordinate with the Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Director of National Intelligence, the Secretary of Homeland Security, the Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs, the Secretary of Defense, and other relevant Federal officials, such as the Secretary of Agriculture, to maintain a current assessment of national security threats and inform preparedness and response capabilities based on the range of the threats that have the potential to result in a public health emergency. (Page 4; proposed amendments are emphasized)

To propose an amendment to the legal authority of U.S. government public health officials to carry out pandemic drills and operational exercises by adding the sentence, “Such drills and operations exercises shall be comprehensive, synchronized, and mutually supportive” is, at minimum, either an attempt to increase/enhance legal authority or specify that the U.S. government believes that it already has the legal authority to carry out large-scale or “comprehensive” pandemic drills and exercises.

In other words, in 2018, about a year before COVID-19, there was a clear intent of some lawmakers to either enhance legal authority or make it known that the legal authority already exists for ASPR and the HHS to “carry out” “comprehensive, synchronized, and mutually supportive” pandemic “drills and exercises” in coordination with the CDC, Director of National Intelligence, National Security Advisor, and others (because “preparedness” may be evaluated with “drills or exercises”).

This may be a big deal, because it may serve as a tip-off as U.S. government officials attempting to ensure that they are legally covered for their future plans of COVID-19 being a falsified pandemic, or a “comprehensive” pandemic drill or “operations exercise” carried out by the ASPR in consultation with the Departments of Defense, Homeland Security, etc.

The second proposed amendment (which was passed in the final Pandemic Act of 2019) also enhances the legal authority the ASPR to “carry out drills and operational exercises” in coordination with the CDC, Director of National Intelligence, the National Security Advisor, because, again, “preparedness…capabilities” may be evaluated with “drills and operations exercises.” United States’ national “preparedness capabilities,” therefore, apparently may be evaluated with a national pandemic “drill or exercise.” (“Pandemic” implies “ongoing” spread of disease; therefore, a pandemic exercise would also likely be ongoing).

Notably, the amendment with the sentence including “comprehensive, synchronized, and mutually supported…” etc. was removed from the final bill, but the next paragraph (“Coordinate with the Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Director of National Intelligence…” etc.) remained in the 2019 law. (S. 1379—38)

Pandemic Act enhances authority for exercises related to pandemic threats from abroad

But the Pandemic Act of 2019 also appears to enhance the U.S. government’s authority for carrying out pandemic “drills and operational exercises” by amending the section regulating the National Health Security Strategy document.

In the Pandemic Act of 2019, the section of the law (42 U.S.C. 300hh–1) which allowed for the National Health Security Strategy to “include provisions” for “the periodic evaluation of federal preparedness…through drills or exercises…without notice” was amended to allow for developing public health “disease situational awareness…and related information technology activities,” improving coordination to respond to outbreaks of “zoonotic diseases,” and permitting “health security threats from abroad to inform [United States’] domestic public health preparedness and response capabilities.” (S. 1379—3)

This may be a big deal also because, remember, federal or national “preparedness” may evaluated with federal or national “drills or operational exercises.” And public health security “disease situational awareness…and related information technology activities” would seemingly include the data of the numbers of cases and deaths from an epidemic or pandemic.

And “zoonotic diseases” includes COVID-19, which reportedly is a “health security threat from abroad.”

In other words, the amendments in the Pandemic Act of 2019 – amendments mentioning “information technology activities,” “zoonotic diseases,” and “health security threats from abroad to inform…preparedness” – could be seen as an attempt to provide legal authority for a pandemic operational exercise enacted by using false “information technology activities” (false death and case data) of a false “zoonotic disease” (COVID-19) which (in this scenario) would be a false “health security threat from abroad” (China).

Those are subtle but significant amendments: the amendments at least indirectly enhance the U.S. government’s authority to carry out pandemic “drills and exercises” by amending requirements to be specified in a separate document, the U.S. National Health Security Strategy document.

The amendments can easily be seen as an attempt to provide more legal authority for U.S. government public health officials and others to falsify a pandemic – or “carry out [pandemic] drills and operational exercises.”

If COVID-19 is a falsified pandemic, it would have probably required falsified federal “information technology activities” (data) like COVID-19 death counts and COVID-19 cases. Pandemic laws in the U.S. already allowed for federal pandemic “drills and exercises.”

Thus, those amendments in the Pandemic Act of 2019 could be read as U.S. public health officials attempting to make sure their upcoming falsified COVID-19 pandemic “operational exercise” was legal.

To summarize: the 2018 proposed (and then rejected) amendments to allow for “comprehensive, synchronized, and mutually supported” pandemic drills and operations exercises combined with the Pandemic Act of 2019 approved amendments which enhance the ASPR’s authority to carry out pandemic drills and exercises could be seen as an attempt by certain U.S. federal government officials to legally cover themselves for an intended upcoming pandemic “drill or exercise…without notice” at the federal/national level; in this case, such a falsified pandemic may be COVID-19. (Other provisions further discuss international coordination, but those will not be mentioned here).

National health strategy includes objective to ‘convene’ a national response

Now, space does not permit much more discussion, but there are significant statements in the National Health Security Strategy 2019-2022 and the Implementation Plan which could be read as additional tip-offs or mention of a foreseen national pandemic operational exercise (which could potentially be the falsification of the COVID-19 pandemic).

In the U.S. government’s own words the National Health Security Strategy Implementation Plan

guides whole-of government action to support federal, and state, local, tribal, and territorial (SLTT) partners—as well as public and private partners, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), academia, professional associations, communities, families/family units, and individuals—to advance the capabilities needed toaddress current risks and prepare for an array of new, evolving threats. (Page 1; emphasis added)

And how is the U.S. government guided to “prepare for” pandemics? Under objective 1, the Implementation Plan explains:

Achieve a unified, whole-of-government approach in preparing and responding to health security threats by evaluating and integrating federalresources to bolster SLTT public health and health care capacity, includingcommunity, family/family unit, and individual resilience, incident management, information management, countermeasures and mitigation, surge management, and biosurveillance. (Page 3; emphasis added)

So the National Health Security Strategy 2019-2022 Implementation Plan mentions “evaluating…federal resources.” But, how is this “evaluation” performed? One has to remember 42 U.S.C. 300hh–1 (discussed above) to answer that question:

the periodic evaluation of Federal, State, local, and tribal preparedness and response capabilities [may be achieved] through drills and exercises, including drills and exercises to ensure medical surge capacity for events without notice

And the 2019-2022 Implementation Plan may indeed subtly imply future plans for a national pandemic exercise, as underneath Objective 1, the Implementation Plan reads:

Provide the leadership to improve national preparedness and convene a unified, national response to public health emergencies and disasters (Page 3; emphasis added)

The wording may be read as an order or a directive: objective 1 is achieved by “improv[ing] national preparedness and conven[ing] a unified national response to public health emergencies and disasters.” When studying U.S. government documents, one may find that the word “convene” is often used as a directive to perform an intended action.

An example is the November 4, 2016 President Obama Executive Order on Advancing the Global Health Security Agenda. President Obama wrote:

…I hereby direct the National Security Council staff, in accordance with the procedures and requirements in Presidential Policy Directive 1 (or any successor directive), to convene a GHSA Interagency Review Council (Council) to perform the responsibilities described in this order…

More government documents, including one from the Department of Health and Human Services, have “convene” used as a directive of an intended future action.

Is the wording “convene a unified, national response…” in the National Health Security Strategy 2019-2022 Implementation Plan a subtle directive to evaluate preparedness for a pandemic or other public health emergency with a national pandemic drill or operational exercise?

The National Health Security Strategy 2019-2022 implements the Public Health Services Act and the amendments made to it, and those are U.S. laws. Including such wording “convene a national response” in a strategy required by law may make one wonder if the intent is to use the wording as legal authority to convene a falsified pandemic drill or exercise.

The National Health Security Strategy 2019-2022 (which is distinct from the Implementation Plan) uses similar language; under the “Strategic Approach” title, the following subtitle is given:

Convene a Unified, National Response and Recovery to Public Health Emergencies and Disasters (Page 10)

The document proceeds by explaining the ASPR’s and the HHS’ authority to prepare and respond to public health emergencies. Remember, “preparing” for pandemics may include “evaluation…through drills and exercises” and potentially “drills and exercises…without notice.”

So it seems that the National Health Security Strategy 2019-2022 may also be subtly mentioning a potential national pandemic drill or operational exercise.

There is still more that could be mentioned here which suggests the possibility that U.S. government public health, national security, intelligence community, and other officials were preparing for a long-term national and international pandemic “drill or operational exercise.”

It is still possible that multiple major coincidences occurred before and in conjunction with COVID-19; however, it is necessary to continue looking into the possibility that COVID-19 is actually a falsified pandemic carried out under the purported legal authority of U.S. government officials to evaluate pandemic preparedness with pandemic drills or operational exercises.

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