COVID revisited

jon-nyc

I agree he’s not the villain. Remember Trump gave him an award on his last day in office.

Public health officials are not blameless though. I had this to say next door. Fauci’s personal involvement varies over the four.

I don’t blame him for the evolving messaging as we learned more. I don’t blame him for recommending lockdowns, public health officials are by nature conservative.

I blame him and other public health officials for four things, which ultimately hurt them and their credibility.

The proximal origins paper and the actions around it which seem to have been designed to stigmatize even the discussion of a lab leak origin.
The ‘regulatory bank shots’ where they tell you a lie so that you’ll behave in a way they want you to (eg early advice to not buy masks which they later reversed when supply chains recovered)
The exceptions to Covid restrictions granted for approved political purposes. That ruined their credibility for a generation.
The attempts, only partially thwarted, to prioritize certain races in vaccine distribution even at the cost of net higher deaths as long as those deaths occurred among less favored races.

jon-nyc

(Don’t take any of the above to indicate any support whatsoever for Rand Paul’s attempted show trial)

Mik

Too much bloodlust in the far right.

ShiroKuro

@Mik said:

Too much bloodlust in the far right.

Yes indeed.

Bernard

We may never get to the bottom of it. It seems too much a coincidence to me that my cousin ended up in hospital in December of 2019 with respiratory problems. His illness, whatever it was--the doctors didn't know--progressed rapidly. He was told he'd be on a respirator for the rest off his life. He was 72ish. He died in January 2020--a month after symptoms appeared. I have never spoken to his wife about it, but the last time I saw her was at his funeral.

Then there are the December 2019 case(s) that appeared in Italy. Even though the official story is that the first US case was documented on Jan. 20, 2020, it seems to me that the virus was making it's way around the world before then. And it seems likely to me that's what my cousin died of.

jon-nyc

That’s sad. I too lost a cousin though well into the pandemic. My sister’s best friend died of “flu” in January 2020. Almost certainly it was Covid.

Rontuner

My son and now daughter in law were the sickest they've ever been around Xmas 2019. She was working front desk at a downtown Chicago hotel and I'd bet there were cases going around here long before that first documented case.

AndyD

We just rolled out eyes at the non-takers and no-maskers, for whatever reason they gave, and muttered quietly "Darwinism in action".
Guess that we are far more trusting of our NHS.

Little doubt that it came from a Wuhan laboratory is there?
Our first known case in November 2019:

jon-nyc

My understanding is the technical virological evidence on either explanation is circumstantial.

The human evidence is more damning though and points to a lab leak. Like when the lab permanently took their virus database offline in the fall of 2019.

As one wag put it, "Why would bat-virus scientists working at a bat-virus lab hide bat-virus data during a local bat-virus outbreak?"

AndyD

No cross over animal from bat to human has been found.
Is it just a massive coincidence the market at the hub of the pandemic is so close to the Wuhan Institue of Virolgy?

CIA and FBI both say it was laboratory sourced.
Yet:
https://theconversation.com/the-covid-lab-leak-theory-is-dead-heres-how-we-know-the-virus-came-from-a-wuhan-market-188163

wtg

@AndyD said:

CIA and FBI both say it was laboratory sourced.

Not arguing that it didn't come from the lab, but when did the CIA and FBI determine that? The Conversation article you linked is from 2022. Just wondering if it's an apples to apples comparison....

jon-nyc

@andyd

I agree with you that it’s the most likely scenario. I’m just saying there is still no proof either way. At least until the CCP makes it available.

Rontuner

Neither CIA or FBI could be politically motivated, right???

jon-nyc

@Rontuner said:

Neither CIA or FBI could be politically motivated, right???

Certainly less so than the NIH.

FWIW, it was Biden's FBI and CIA.

AndyD

I reckon we'll never see conclusive evidence. It'll remain a conveniently ambiguous historical mystery.

I'll try to find the newspaper article that persuaded me it was a laboratory leak.

AndyD

@wtg said:

CIA and FBI both say it was laboratory sourced.

Not arguing that it didn't come from the lab, but when did the CIA and FBI determine that?
....

CIA Jan 2025, FBI Feb 2023

I can't find the newspaper article with everyhing on a timeline, but the following is my quick review on the Wuhan biological warfare research institue, the criminally negligent accidental escape of the covid virus, and the start of the CCP cover up and obfuscation:

...there was no cellphone activity in a high-security portion of the Wuhan Institute of Virology from Oct. 7 through Oct. 24, 2019, and that there may have been a "hazardous event" sometime between Oct. 6 and Oct. 11.

... three researchers from the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) had fallen ill with Covid-19 in November 2019 and were admitted to hospital...

This predates the 7 market sourced cases reported by Dr. Li, the Chinese opthalmologist on 30th December 2019. He was silenced by Chinese authorities, caught covid in January and unfortunarely died.

A Jan. 24 study published in the medical journal The Lancet found that three of the first four cases — including the first known case — didn't provide a documented link to the Wuhan wet market.

The bats that carry the family of coronaviruses linked to the new strain aren't found within 100 miles of Wuhan — but they were studied in both labs.

Photos and videos have emerged of researchers at both labs collecting samples from bats without wearing protective gear, which experts say poses a risk of human infection.

A U.S. State Department expert who visited the WIV in 2018 wrote in a cable reported by The Washington Post: "During interactions with scientists at the WIV laboratory, [U.S. diplomats] noted the new lab has a serious shortage of appropriately trained technicians and investigators needed to safely operate this high-containment laboratory."

And the cover up...
According to Senate Intelligence Committee member Tom Cotton, R-Ark., the Chinese military posted its top epidemiologist to the WIV in January.
The Shanghai laboratory where researchers published the world's first genome sequence of the coronavirus was shut down Jan. 12, according to The South China Morning Post.
According to U.S. intelligence assessments, including one published by the Department of Homeland Security and reviewed by NBC News, the Chinese government initially covered up the severity of the outbreak. Government officials threatened doctors who warned their colleagues about the virus, weren't candid about human-to-human transmission...

So, 1 million US deaths later, and up to 40 million worldwide, the CCP continues to try to save face.

Daniel

Actually, all US intelligence services concluded some time ago that it came from the lab in China.

Fauci is a psychopath hiding behind the mask of secular saint. Fauci aka as quote "I am science" has a preemptive pardon. He didn't deserve it (is this actually legal?) but certainly needs it.

He arranged the funding for this research and then profited after the predictable result of it.

WTF-Beta

COVID revisited