Politicians and corporate leaders have repeatedly used shock doctrine strategies during the Covid years. The British government crafted a “high-priority lane” to produce masks and other pandemic protective gear that looked very much like a chance to line the pockets of friends and donors (yielding, in some cases, unusable equipment). When the chronically under-resourced National Health Service (NHS) became overwhelmed by Covid and other health crises at the end of 2022, the Tory government smuggled in various forms of private care as supposed solutions—with fears that a fuller auctioning off of Britain’s cherished NHS could be in store. There have been similar attempts at backdoor health care privatization in several Canadian provinces, once again using pandemic-overwhelm as the excuse. And in the name of preventing further “learning loss,” the right-wing government in Ontario tried to strip public-sector education workers of their legal right to strike—one of countless attacks on public schools that took place under cover of crisis. In India, meanwhile, the government launched a series of historic attacks on economic protections for the country’s farmers during the pandemic, which it eventually had to withdraw after waves of protests. Several governments, including those of Serbia and Greece, used the crisis to bolster security powers and crack down on opponents. China’s extreme “zero Covid” policies represented a severe attack on labor rights, with workers unable to leave their factories for weeks.

XREF: Directly illustrates the 'shock doctrine' thesis Naomi Klein originally developed, applying it to the pandemic era. SEED: Could fuel an essay surveying pandemic-era power grabs across multiple countries as a pattern rather than isolated incidents.

Naomi Klein, Doppelganger, loc. 477