Where the lockdown-justifying myth of impending ventilator shortages came from, and how it was propagated

As long as we’re thinking about how the virus insanity began, let’s cast our mind back to a small but crucial pandemic sub-plot.

Ventilators and their scarcity were probably the most important argument for pursuing mass containment of Covid, and departing from the milder mitigationist plans that had been wargamed as late as Event 201 in October of 2019.

The Ventilator Argument held that extreme measures were necessary, because SARS-CoV-2 placed unusual and unexpected demands on hospital resources, and without drastic measures, ventilator reserves in every country would be rapidly exhausted. Beyond ventilators and claims of their impending shortage, it was actually hard for anyone to develop a coherent defence of lockdowns, and this is why it is worth exploring where the Ventilator Argument came from and how it developed across the earliest months of the pandemic.

There are four key moments to consider. Together, they paint an intriguing picture about where lockdowns originated and how they were marketed to Western governments.