Most Americans are extremely tired of coronavirus news, but even more exhausted with — and rebelling against — protocols. That, says National Review’s Philip Klein, is thanks to the public-health mafia.

The public-health community is behaving like the Mafia. They come offering protection. They control the politicians. And they threaten businesses that don’t accede to their demands.

Led by boss Anthony Fauci, and comprising many federal, state, and local officials, they have exploited the Covid pandemic to orchestrate a campaign of fear and intimidation to consolidate their power, and they have no plans to give any of it up.

The protection racket is based on the conceit that if we simply do as they command, we will vanquish Covid. It started with the now-infamous “15 days to slow the spread” and the effort to “flatten the curve” to prevent hospitals from being overwhelmed. This quickly turned into six weeks and then months of rolling lockdowns and, in some areas, more than a year of closed schools.

Vaccines, they assured us, were to be the end point of the pandemic. But a year after they became available, and eight months after they have been widely available, the medical Cosa Nostra still insist that people who are fully vaccinated — and boosted — need to wear masks in public (even though they initially convinced people that masks were ineffective).

When the policies that they propose do not produce the promised results, and as one variant after another surfaces, the response is to argue that we have shown insufficient respect to them and that we need to make amends by being more loyal to their guidance.

Americans who love their Liberty have long been standing against this mob rule. But that doesn’t mean punishment — or at least slanderous criticism — isn’t still happening for any who resist. Joe Biden, on the other hand, bows to the wishes of this public-health mafia, and is thus spared of any critique.

And herein lies the essence of the control over political leaders. The current Covid surge, while openly reported on, isn’t being framed as Biden’s fault, because he has agreed to defer to the experts. He is granted protection, and any blame for the persistence of Covid is targeted at those who are challenging his mandates.

Klein isn’t critical of public-health officials for doing their job to “to present the best and most up-to-date evidence to decision-makers and advise them on what they believe to be the best course of action to fight the spread of infectious diseases.” But they shouldn’t behave as mobsters, and elected officials shouldn’t cede all authority to them.

He concludes:

What needs to change is that elected leaders have to learn to stand up to the public-health mob.

National Review subscribers can read the whole thing here.