I won't be surprised if you say WTF after reading about the Shielding Approach.

The topic in this article is unbelievable but true. For some reason, the words “Final Solution” and “Auschwitz” keep surfacing from my subconscious as I read about the shielding approach.

This article quotes from the CDC webpage, Interim Operational Considerations for Implementing the Shielding Approach to Prevent COVID-19 Infections in Humanitarian Settings.

I guess the Centers for Disease Control will be emphasizing Control as its main thrust.

What is Shielding?

The shielding approach aims to reduce the number of severe COVID-19 cases by limiting contact between individuals at higher risk of developing severe disease (“high-risk”) and the general population (“low-risk”).

High-risk individuals would be temporarily relocated to safe or “green zones” established at the household, neighborhood, camp/sector or community level depending on the context and setting.^1,2

They would have minimal contact with family members and other low-risk residents.

Who are the high-risk individuals? If you click on footnote one, you will go to an article from the London School of Hygiene, Guidance for the prevention of COVID-19 infections among high-risk individuals in camps and camp-like settings. In it, you will see who are the high-risk individuals, which I copied and pasted below.

Recommended inclusion criteria for shielding.

Below are the people that should be in the ~~concentration camps~~ shielding facilities, the inclusion criteria, and the current ~~absence of~~ evidence and risk-mitigating assumptions.

Age 60 years old and above

The risk of death from COVID-19 seems to increase with age, particularly among people aged 70 years and above. We suggest extending the age criterion to 60 years or above (a more meaningful proxy of biological age in most camp settings) until the evidence becomes available.

People with Non-Communicable Diseases

People with Hypertension; diabetes; cardiovascular disease; Chronic respiratory diseases (e.g., COPD, asthma); chronic kidney disease; cancer (leukemia, lymphoma, myeloma OR currently or recently on chemotherapy treatment for any cancer type)

HIV/AIDS Known HIV-positive status

There is no evidence suggesting a higher risk of COVID-19 among people living with HIV. However, HIV+ patients are at increased risk of infections (11,12). Until evidence becomes available, we suggest including all people with known HIV+ status (differentiating stages of HIV infection among people might be challenging for the community).

Tuberculosis

Active or latent tuberculosis may increase susceptibility to COVID-19 and disease severity (13). However, TB patients will need dedicated isolation arrangements.

Sidenote: Do you know what the health insurance industry calls the above groups? High utilizers.

Pregnancy

To date, there is no evidence that pregnancy increases the risk of severe outcomes from COVID-19. However, pregnant women suffering from acute malnutrition may be particularly vulnerable to severe COVID-19 disease. Screening for acute malnutrition is included as part of the minimum package of services to be provided during antenatal care visits, thus should not imply additional workload. Therefore, we suggest including acutely malnourished pregnant women until the evidence becomes available.

Other immunodeficiency conditions

- Severe immuno-deficiency diseases
- Sickle cell disease (excluding sickle cell trait)
- On immunosuppressive treatment for any other reason

To date, there is no evidence of an association between immunodeficiency and severe outcomes from COVID-19. However, people having immuno-deficiency conditions or on immunosuppressive treatment (e.g., high dose steroids) are known to be more susceptible to infections. Therefore, we suggest including people having immune-deficiency conditions until evidence becomes available.

Other chronic infections
- Hepatitis B infection, Hepatitis C infection – To date, there is no evidence of an association between chronic infectious diseases such as hepatitis B or hepatitis C and severe outcomes from COVID-19. However, these diseases impair organ function and may thus complicate COVID-19 progression. Therefore, we suggest including people with Hepatitis B or Hepatitis C until evidence becomes available.

Note that for HIV/AIDS, pregnancy, other immunodeficiency conditions, and other chronic infections, it mentions that they have no scientific evidence that putting them in the shielding program will protect them from COVID-19. However, they will still include them until the “data,” “science,” or “evidence” will become available.

Mandating something to the population without evidence? Is that the same as masking, social distancing, lockdowns, the RT-PCR test for COVID-19, and its vaccines?

“Until evidence becomes available” should be translated to “We’ll make it up as we go along.

One group that the CDC did not mention are unvaccinated people. However, in one of the sources for the CDC guidelines, Guidance on protecting people who are clinically extremely vulnerable from COVID-19 from GOV.UK, it says

Everyone on the Shielded Patient List should already have been offered a COVID-19 vaccine.

Where are the Shielding Facilities?

Household (HH) Level:

A specific room/area is designated for high-risk individuals who are physically isolated from other HH members.

Neighborhood Level:

There is a designated shelter/group of shelters (max 5-10 households) within a small camp or area where high-risk members are grouped together. Neighbors “swap” households to accommodate high-risk individuals.

Camp/Sector Level:

A group of shelters such as schools, community buildings within a camp/sector (max 50 high-risk individuals per single green zone) where high-risk individuals are physically isolated together.

Pack enough clothes for 6 months

How long will you be there to be shielded? CDC mentions below.

Timeline considerations

Consideration: Plan for an extended duration of implementation time, at least 6 months.

Screenshot from the same CDC document, Guidance for the prevention of COVID-19 infections among high-risk individuals in camps and camp-like settings. .”

CDC has been thoughtful enough to think about the creature comforts to make your stay as comfortable as possible. They thought of Protection, Social/Cultural/Religious Practices, and Mental Health.

There is one thing that I did not see anywhere in the document. There is no mention of consent. How will they convince or haul people into their camps? Trains? Will the SS military be involved? What if people say no? Will it be at gunpoint then?

Another point that caught my eye is,

Shielding strategies need to consider sociocultural gender norms in order to adequately assess and address risks to individuals, particularly women and girls.

Restrictive gender norms may be exacerbated by isolation strategies such as shielding.

Restrictive gender norms? Hmm? Is restrictive gender norm about girls and women having their own sleeping quarters, dressing rooms, toilets, and showers?

Those are the questions that the CDC should address before paranoid conspiracy theorists start making up stories about shielding.

What does the CDC think of Shielding?

This is what the CDC says in their summary. Highlights are mine. My comments are in parenthesis.

The shielding approach is an ambitious undertaking, (no kidding) which may prove effective in preventing COVID-19 infection among high-risk populations if well managed.

While the premise is based on mitigation strategies used in the United Kingdom, there is no empirical evidence whether this approach will increase, decrease or have no effect on morbidity and mortality during the COVID-19 epidemic in various humanitarian settings. (so why are you going to spend millions and displace thousands of people without their consent to do it?)

This document highlights a) risks and challenges of implementing this approach, b) need for additional resources in areas with limited or reduced capacity, c) indefinite timeline, and d) possible short-term and long-term adverse consequences. (Adverse consequences is a definite)

Readers outside the US and UK don’t think that this will not come to your shores. The health agencies in your countries look at the CDC like Moses coming down from the mountain with the Ten Commandments.

Let me close with a quote from The Gulag Archipelago by Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn,

“And how we burned in the camps later, thinking: What would things have been like if every Security operative, when he went out at night to make an arrest, had been uncertain whether he would return alive and had to say good-bye to his family?

Or if, during periods of mass arrests, as for example in Leningrad, when they arrested a quarter of the entire city, people had not simply sat there in their lairs, paling with terror at every bang of the downstairs door and at every step on the staircase, but had understood they had nothing left to lose and had boldly set up in the downstairs hall an ambush of half a dozen people with axes, hammers, pokers, or whatever else was at hand?…

The Organs would very quickly have suffered a shortage of officers and transport and, notwithstanding all of Stalin’s thirst, the cursed machine would have ground to a halt!

If…if…We didn’t love freedom enough. And even more – we had no awareness of the real situation….

We purely and simply deserved everything that happened afterward.”

Today is August 9. August 9, 1942, St Teresa Benedicta of the Cross was put to death by gas in Auschwitz.

Edith Stein (religious name Saint Teresia Benedicta a Cruce OCD; also known as Saint Teresa Benedicta of the Cross or Saint Edith Stein; 12 October 1891 – 9 August 1942) was a German Jewish philosopher who converted to Catholicism and became a Discalced Carmelite nun. She is canonized as a martyr and saint of the Catholic Church, and she is one of six co-patron saints of Europe.

DrJesseSantiano.com does not promote violence except for self-defense.

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I won’t be surprised if you say WTF after reading about the Shielding Approach.

What is Shielding?