– “Coronavirus seems to be more about societal control than public health.”
Epidemics have always been about both.
– “What is the reason for inflicting strict control at this time?”
The mathematical epidemiologists on SAGE finally managed to wake them up to the fact that if they didn’t do something, the hospitals would be overwhelmed by a factor of about ten and the entire population would realise that they’re continually being betrayed.
But having realised that they were going to have to enforce social restrictions, and then realising that they also had to keep everyone out of the Houses of Parliament, the government suddenly further realised that they had the perfect excuse to leap into dictatorship mode – pure opportunism; never let a good crisis go to waste.
– “our rulers […] are smart people with access to better quality information than is available to us”
(1) There’s smart and smart; being good at grabbing power doesn’t mean they’re any good at handling a real crisis.
(2) Science is essentially public; the best information is available to all. The advantage governments do have is extensive staff to sift and collate it for them – not that they usually take any notice of it.
– “Could it be they are preparing for managing the aforementioned famine and collapse, because they know it is now imminent?”
I think it’s more subconscious. After all, we’ve all been living with this gloomy knowledge for decades, but politicians have feared to do anything about it, because governments don’t really hold power, no one does. The real power is the systemic power of money, and hardly anyone is bold enough to oppose it. Starve individually now, or starve collectively later? Oh I know, let’s just forget the latter for now; deal with it later. And later. And later…