The coronavirus situation has ushered in a series of events that would probably make George Orwell look on in stunned disbelief and how Orwellian society has become in one year.
From draconian lockdowns, destruction of careers and businesses and vaccine passports to live your life, the violations to personal freedom have been immense.
But the Pentagon now has a new idea which is supposed to be for your safety, but sounds like something from a science fiction nightmare, that involves implanting a microchip into your body, The Daily Mail reported.
Pentagon scientists working inside a secretive unit set up at the height of the Cold War have created a microchip to be inserted under the skin, which will detect COVID-19 infection, and a revolutionary filter that can remove the virus from the blood when attached to a dialysis machine.
The team at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) have been working for years on preventing and ending pandemics.
They assess the issues and come up with ingenious solutions, which at times appear more from a science fiction novel than a working laboratory.
One of their recent inventions, they told “60 Minutes” on Sunday night, was a microchip which detects COVID infection in an individual before it can become an outbreak.
Pentagon officials told “60 Minutes” that the Pentagon is not interested in tracking your every move, but it is certain to be a terrifying prospect to many.
Army infectious disease doctor, Retired Colonel Matt Hepburn, showed “60 Minutes” what appeared to be a tissue-like gel, that would test your blood continuously.
“You put it underneath your skin and what that tells you is that there are chemical reactions going on inside the body, and that signal means you are going to have symptoms tomorrow,” the colonel said.
“It’s like a ‘check engine’ light,” he said.
“Sailors would get the signal, then self-administer a blood draw and test themselves on site. We can have that information in three to five minutes. As you truncate that time, as you diagnose and treat, what you do is you stop the infection in its tracks,” he said.
Another invention of the team is a device that, when placed on a dialysis machine, removes the virus and replaces it with blood. It was recently used on a military spouse known as Patient 16 who had organ failure and septic shock.
“’You pass it through, and it takes the virus out, and puts the blood back in,” he said.
The patient made a full recovery within days.
Dr Kayvon Modjarrad, another scientist who was interviewed, said that he is currently working on a vaccine that would protect against all coronaviruses, present and future.
“This is not science fiction, this is science fact,” he said to “60 Minutes”
“We have the tools, we have the technology, to do this all right now,” he said.
He said that they want to inoculate people against viruses that have not even been discovered yet.
“Killer viruses that we haven’t seen or even imagined, we’ll be protected against,” he said.
But military members are likely to be skeptical of the new microchip, as many are hesitant to take the vaccine because they are frightened of it including a microchip designed to track them, The New York Times reported.
“The Army tells me what, how and when to do almost everything,” Sgt. Tracey Carroll, who is based at Fort Sill in Oklahoma, said. “They finally asked me to do something and I actually have a choice, so I said no.”
“Sergeant Carroll, 24, represents a broad swath of members of the military — a largely young, healthy set of Americans from every corner of the nation — who are declining to get the shot, which for now is optional among personnel. They cite an array of political and health-related concern,” The Times said.