China Flu Corruption

I was recently involved in a discussion about corruption during COVID-19. Here's my response.

Tom Wolf, the governor of Pennsylvania during the time of the plague, decided to shut down all "nonessential" businesses. Governor Wolfe's family owned a cabinetry business that, mysteriously, was deemed essential and was not closed. (Couloumbis & Mahon, 2021)

A second incident was that COVID-positive patients were placed in elder-care facilities (old-age homes). PA's secretary of health, Richard Levine, also known as Rachel Levine (pronouns are he/she) was behind this decision. His own mother was in one of those elder-care facilities, and he decided to move her into a hotel before placing COVID-positive patients there (McKelvey, 2021). Meanwhile, people in the elder-care homes or in hospitals were not allowed visits from their family members.

Another incident was that Walmart stores (or at least the ones closest to me) closed-off their home gardening centers. All the small gardening stores were deemed nonessential, so this was one of the few businesses carrying seeds and fertilizer, and they stopped selling those products.

A fourth incident came with the vaccine mandate, under which many active-duty military personnel were discharged, and many employees were dismissed from their jobs. I fell into the latter category, even though I was working 100% remote. They must have thought that COVID-19 can be spread over Zoom calls!

Fortunately for the veterans, this policy has been reversed, and all members of the active or reserve military who were discharged for refusing the vaccine were reinstated with former rank and full back pay and benefits (The White House, 2025). Unfortunately for civilians, the Supreme Court ruled that the vaccine mandate was unconstitutional for most professions (Mello, 2022), but didn’t leave a means of redress for those who were terminated.

Besides violations of the freedom of assembly there were also numerous violations of the freedom of religion. One notable example occurred on Easter 2020 in Louisville, Kentucky, when a church was operating a “drive-in church service in accordance with the Centers for Disease Control’s social distancing guidelines.” Louisville’s mayor wanted to shut down all Easter services, but a temporary restraining order came through on Holy Saturday allowing services to continue. (Snedeker, 2025)

Consider the situation: there were the store closures, mask mandates, the toilet paper famine, stores shifting from cash to credit card, and the fiery but mostly peaceful protests. We had state governments closing church services. Now we have stores interfering with people's right to grow their own food - that was a loud alarm.

Some of us refused to wear masks even from day one, and several of us formed anti-masking groups and began shopping – who would imagine that shopping could be an act of civil disobedience! We started forming bonds based on shared beliefs and shared experiences.

The people with whom I usually associate are either active duty military or veterans. Those individuals are mostly preppers or survivalists, so the toilet paper famine didn't affect us. I still maintain my bonds with them, but the anti-maskers and anti-vaxxers are a different breed. I started raising my standards of what constitutes valid and effective responses to government overreach due to them.

If anything can be said about corruption during COVID, it is that it demonstrated how eager agencies whose primary purpose is not law-enforcement, such as businesses or the military, were willing to play along, either as enforcers or as propagandists (Tales from SYL Ranch DARKROOM, 2021). From events early in my life I knew that universities were more than willing to pin a sheriff’s badge on their chests, but COVID made me understand that the rot – the willingness to be unethical and corrupt – is far more systemic and widespread.

Can’t wait for somebody to say that I should forgive and forget. My response will be: “I’m not Jesus and I don’t have alzheimer's.”

 

Bibliography

Couloumbis, A. & Mahon, E. (30 March 2020). Gov. Tom Wolf’s former business keeps operating during coronavirus shutdown despite losing state waiver. Spotlight PA. https://www.spotlightpa.org/news/2020/03/pennsylvania-coronavirus-life-sustaining-wolf-home-products-waiver/

McKelvey, W. (2021, 24 February). Health Secretary Rachel Levine’s removal of mom from care home amid epidemic draws scrutiny. Penn Live. https://www.pennlive.com/news/2020/05/health-secretary-rachel-levines-removal-of-mom-from-care-home-amid-epidemic-draws-scrutiny.html

Mello, M. et al. (2022, 20 January). A Look at the Supreme Court Ruling in Vaccination Mandates. Legal Aggregate. Stanford Law School. https://law.stanford.edu/2022/01/20/a-look-at-the-supreme-court-ruling-on-vaccination-mandates/

Snedeker, G. (2025, 26 March). COVID Closure of Churches. New Civil Liberties Alliance. https://nclalegal.org/covid-closure-of-churches/

Tales From SYL Ranch DARKROOM. (2021, 29 September). Stephen Colbert's Vomit-Inducing "The Vax-Scene" (Remastered to 4K/60fps) [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mq76QSlRiPo

The White House. (2025, 27 January). Fact Sheet: President Donald J. Trump Reinstates Service Members Discharged for Refusing the COVID Vaccine. https://www.whitehouse.gov/fact-sheets/2025/01/fact-sheet-president-donald-j-trump-reinstates-service-members-discharged-for-refusing-the-covid-vaccine/