The Countermeasures Coup
... and the 'Biodefense' Bureaucracy
“Military Medical Leaders Discuss Vaccine Development Against Coronavirus” 5 March 2020
[Please watch the U.S. Department of Defense video dated 5 March 2020 via the link at the end of this post. And for background see our "Biodefense Boondoggle" post from 6 January 2024.]
Update: Thank you to JJ Couey for his analysis today - and for his shout-out to DemocracyManifest - after we alerted him to the video of the Pentagon press briefing of 5 March 2020!
The Great Preset and the Countermeasures Coup
According to Wikipedia (our bold):
Operation Warp Speed (OWS) was a public–private partnership initiated by the United States government to facilitate and accelerate the development, manufacturing, and distribution of COVID-19 vaccines, therapeutics, and diagnostics. The first news report of Operation Warp Speed was on April 29, 2020, and the program was officially announced on May 15, 2020.
Operation Warp Speed, initially funded with about $10 billion from the CARES Act (Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security) passed by the United States Congress on March 27, 2020, was an interagency program that included components of… the Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Defense [and other federal agencies and private firms].
In fact, Operation Warp Speed was pre-announced to the public by the Pentagon on 5 March 2020 - before lockdowns! - including details of an established “international infrastructure” to facilitate a “whole of government” - and “whole of DoD” - military-led intervention to fast-track the development and deployment of medical countermeasures (MCMs) for civilians, from diagnostics through to vaccines. This ostensible ‘biodefense’ mission - as explained in this extraordinary press briefing - involved the activation and acceleration of a complex regime of partnerships between “government, industry and academia”.
[For context, see the short 2019 JPEO-CBRN Defense video - “Medical Rapid Response” - outlining “Rapid Response Partnerships” in our post from 5 January 2024.]
The U.S. Army experts who fronted the cameras on 5 March 2020 even predicted that Covid-19 would be probably be “seasonal” - requiring ongoing medical countermeasures!
In retrospect, this was a key political event in the Covid Response timeline - ie. prior to President Trump’s 15 Day national lockdown and the wider lockstep response in countries across the West and around the world. Concurrently, the pseudo-suppression of “the lab leak hypothesis” by high-level ‘outbreak’/ vaccine experts was both a contributor to and diversion from the evolving (and pre-planned) political situation. Note that Sir Jeremy Farrar (of WHO-Wellcome-CEPI-SAGE renown) later claimed he’d held grave fears that a deliberate act of ‘bioterrorism’ was the basis of the so-called “proximal origin” of Covid-19, which led to his off-the-record discussions with the heads of Five Eyes intelligence agencies.
[For background, see our “Plotting the Pandemic” post from 18 January 2024.]
Before watching the video of the Pentagon press briefing from 5 March 2020 it is worth reviewing the ‘National Security’ context - or rather, pretext - in which it was staged, as reported by mainstream media in early 2020.
The 'National Security' Set-Up
In late March 2020 the Washington Post revealed in its “National Security” section that U.S. intelligence sources had warned about “a likely pandemic” in the preceding months. In other words, the press was already seeding the ‘biodefense’ narrative of a possible (deliberate) ‘lab origin’.
Source : https://www.washingtonpost.com/
Likewise, an opinion piece in the same publication several days later noted that “National Security” officials in the Trump administration (in particular, deputy national security advisor Matthew Pottinger) had been very active behind the scenes throughout January and February 2020.
Source: https://www.washingtonpost.com/
In Australia, the supposed “National Security” basis for the Covid Response was more visible in terms of occasional mainstream media reports in early 2020:
Source: https://www.theaustralian.com.au/
This framing was more explicit with the declaration of a “Human Biosecurity Emergency” by Australia’s Morrison government on 18 March 2020 - the first time these sweeping powers under the Commonwealth Biosecurity Act 2015 had ever been invoked.
Source: https://www.abc.net.au/listen
But for the most part across the Anglosphere, news stories highlighted ‘white coat’ public health experts as opposed to ‘national security’ intelligence officials.
Weaponizing the "Whole of Government": A Militarized Medical Mission
On this background of ‘national security’ two related media events took place in the U.S. on March 3 and March 5 2020, respectively: Trump’s visit to the NIH Vaccine Research Center and a Pentagon press briefing on vaccine development.
Source: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-coronavirus-roundtable-nih-vaccine-research-center-today-live-stream-2020-03-03/
On 5 March 2020, Americans - and others watching - were alerted to the true nature of the end-goal of the Covid Response by Brigadier General Michael Talley, commander of the U.S. Army Medical Research and Development Command:
Source: https://www.defense.gov/News/News-Stories/Article/Article/2103732/army-medical-personnel-describe-efforts-to-develop-coronavirus-vaccine/
The term “whole of government" was used no less than five times by members of the military panel in outlining the DoD’s plan for the rapid development of medical countermeasures at-scale - from diagnostic tests to vaccines - using an established “international infrastructure” for research, and working in both the “interagency space” and in collaboration with partners in industry and academia. This was entirely consistent with the Pentagon’s ‘Pandemic X’ plans and the governance structure of the International MCM Consortium under the U.S-led CBRN Defense Cooperative Program.
[See our “Pentagon’s Pandemic X” post from 5 February 2024]
In retrospect, this extraordinary event exemplified the so-called “policy coup” by the ‘biodefense enterprise’ as it shifted gears in real time - with the media on board to document the pre-determined chain of events as it unfolded.
This was rent-seeking writ large: a pre-planned ‘crisis’ with ‘stakeholders’ to fix it.
The framework for Operation Covid-19 revealed in the pre-Covid JPEO-CBRN Defense “Medical Rapid Response” video and discussed at the Pentagon press briefing on 5 March 2020 was subsequently outlined in this JPEO-CBRN Defense “Whole of Government Support to Covid-19” 2023 infographic:
JPEO-CBRN Defense Whole of Government Support to Covid-19
Source: https://www.jpeocbrnd.osd.mil/
Looking back, the attractive public-private-partnership ‘carrot’ of a vaccine solution was presented to Commander-in-Chief Donald Trump - and the leaders of countries in the U.S-led “International MCM Consortium” such as Australia - before early March 2020.
And the ‘stick’ of Wuhan-style nationwide lockdowns* - in effect, martial law using a ‘biodefense’ pretext - was yet to come.
Postscript (*): Debbie Lerman used the excellent formulation “quarantine-until-vaccine” in a January 2023 article entitled “Lockdowns Were Counterterrorism, Not Public Health”.
Update #2 (5 hours after posting):
Note that "pandemic", "pandemic potential" and "pandemic preparedness" are not mentioned by members of the expert panel in this 50 minute video recording in contrast to the detailed discussion about accelerated countermeasures to "protect the citizens of the world" on 5 March 2020.
Also - just 10 days before nationwide lockdowns - Dr Nelson Michael provides reassurance that this is "a low risk infection... to the American public... even in the absence of a vaccine".
U.S. Department of Defense links for 5 March 2020:
Department of Defense 5 March 2020 - video with closed captions:
“Military Medical Leaders Discuss Vaccine Development Against Coronavirus”
Source: https://www.defense.gov/Multimedia/Videos/
Department of Defense 5 March 2020 - news article: