Outgoing National Institutes of Health Director Francis Collins performed a cheesy and clownish song praising health bureaucrats and wondering when the COVID-19 pandemic restrictions, which agencies such as his have recommended, will end.
Collins, who led the National Insitute of Health for 12 years after being appointed by former President Barack Obama, announced his resignation in October. He celebrated the end of his dozen years by singing a cringey COVID-themed song focused on praising health bureaucrats and “the science.”
“This is really a song for you, for all of us who have been going through this pandemic and trying to imagine how’s it going to feel when we’re finally past that. What will that be like? We’re going to get there and you’re going to help us get there,” Collins said before breaking into song.
Collins then strummed out a twisted version of “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” titled “Somewhere Past the Pandemic.”
Somewere past the pandemic when we’re free
There’s a life I remember full of activity
Somewhere past the pandemic masks will come off.
No more need for a nose swab every time we cough
“Somewhere” shouldn’t be too far off. Like other health bureaucrats, Collins engaged in political hackery by moving the goalposts to suit whatever agenda fit that week’s pandemic narrative. First, he advocated for lockdowns and excessive masking even for children, which he admitted was based on anecdotes instead of data, to slow the spread and end the pandemic.
When the COVID jab became available, Collins advocated for mandates — the same ones that are now halted by federal judges but caused many people to lose their jobs or make a medical decision they didn’t want to — as the way to end the pandemic. Now that individuals who have received both of their coronavirus shots are contracting and spreading the virus, he’s promoting boosters.
In another verse of his quirky and propaganda-filled song, Collins lamented that “COVID’s toll has hit and sent us reeling” but claimed that health bureaucrats such as himself and U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Xavier Becerra “will help to make the pathway clear to find the true healing.”
Somewhere past the pandemic life will resume.
We’ll all complain about the traffic, forgetting how we hated Zoom
Somewhere past the pandemic we’ll hug our friends
And thank the people in science that brought pandemic’s end
Collins concluded the song by thanking his partners at the Department of Health and Human Services for a “great” 12 years.
“Let’s end COVID now,” Collins sang, clinging to the last note like it was his vaccine passport.
Farewell, Dr. Collins. I’m afraid you and your tyrannical COVID impulses won’t be missed.
