Follow the Science? How COVID Authoritarians Get It Wrong

[swordfish]

Wait a tick..........Trump was right about a "Wuhan lab leak" after all?  Nooooo - can't be.......He was a conspiracy theorist and a racist to suggest the Chinese could be behind this.....Censorship is king!

(IMHO) It appears the White House is trying to get ahead of this "classified intelligence report" that will be forthcoming as the Republican committee(s) in the House get going.   

https://nypost.com/2023/02/26/covid-lab-leak-is-a-scandal-of-media-and-government-censorship/

The Wall Street Journal reports that the Energy Department has concluded that the COVID pandemic most likely arose from a laboratory leak.

The conclusion is reportedly based on a classified intelligence report recently provided to the White House and key members of Congress. Many will be exploring why the scientific evidence of a lab leak was so slow to emerge from intelligence agencies.

However, for my part, the most alarming aspect was the censorship, not the science.

There will continue to be a debate over the origins of COVID-19, but now there will be an actual debate.

For years, the media and government allied to treat anyone raising a lab theory as one of three possibilities: conspiracy theorist or racists or racist conspiracy theorists.

Academics joined this chorus in marginalizing anyone raising the theory. One study cited the theory as an example of “anti-Chinese racism” and “toxic white masculinity.”

As late as May 2021, the New York Times’ Science and Health reporter Apoorva Mandavilli was calling any mention of the lab theory as “racist.” 

She embodies the model of the new “advocacy journalism” at the Times. Reporters who remained wedded to the dated view of objective journalism were purged from the ranks of The Times long ago.

Mandavilli and others made clear that reporters covering the theory were COVID’s little Bull Connors. She tweeted wistfully “someday we will stop talking about the lab leak theory and maybe even admit its racist roots. But alas, that day is not yet here.”

However, one former New York Times science editor Nicholas Wade chastised his former colleagues for ignoring the obvious evidence supporting a lab theory as well as Chinese efforts to arrest scientists and destroy evidence that could establish the origin.

Others in academia quickly joined the bandwagon to assure the public that there is no scientific basis for their theory, leaving only racist or politics as the motivation behind the theory. In early 2020, with little available evidence, two op-eds in The Lancet in February and Nature Medicine went all-in on the denial front.

The Lancet op-ed stated, “We stand together to strongly condemn conspiracy theories suggesting that Covid-19 does not have a natural origin.”

We were also supposed to forget about massive payments from the Chinese government to American universities and grants of some of these writers to both Chinese interests or even the specific Wuhan lab.

No reference to the lab theory was to be tolerated. When Sen. Tom Cotton (R., Ark.) merely mentioned the possibility in 2020, he was set upon by the usual flash media mob. The Washington Post ridiculed him of repeating a “debunked” coronavirus “conspiracy theory.”

In September 2020, Dr. Li-Meng Yan, a virologist and former postdoctoral fellow at the University of Hong Kong, dared to repeat the theory on Fox News, saying, “I can present solid scientific evidence . . . [that] it is a man-made virus created in the lab.” The left-leaning PolitiFact slammed her and gave her a “pants on fire rating.”

President Joe Biden accused Trump of fanning racism in his criticism of the Chinese government over the pandemic and his Administration reportedly shutdown the State Department investigation into the possible lab origins of the virus. 

When Biden later revived an investigation into the origins, he was denounced as “sugar-coating Trump’s racism.”

The categorical rejection of the lab theory is only the latest media narrative proven to be false. The Russian collusion scandal, the Hunter Biden “Russian Disinformation,” the Lafayette Park “Photo Op” conspiracy, the Nick Sandmann controversy, the Jussie Smollett case, the Migrant Whipping scandal.

On the lab theory, media like the Washington Post piled on senators like Cruz and Cotton for mentioning the lab theory only later to admit that it could be legitimate.

All of those experts and writers who were called racists or suspended by social media were simply forgotten in media coverage.

That is why this is really about censorship.

The media guaranteed that we did not have a full debate over the origins of the virus and attacked those who had the temerity to state the obvious that there was a plausible basis for suspecting the Wuhan lab.

None of this has diminished demands for more censorship. Even after Twitter admitted that it wrongly blocked The New York Post story before the 2020 election, Democratic senators responded by warning the company not to cut back on censorship and even demanded more censorship.

Recently, the Twitter Files revealed an extensive and secret FBI effort to censor citizens on social media.

This included undisclosed efforts by members like Rep. Adam Schiff (D., Cal.) to get Twitter to ban a columnist and target critics. In a House hearing, democratic leaders like Rep. Jamie Raskin (D., Md). called for more censorship and opposed investigations into the censorship efforts.

These same figures in politics and media are just moving on to the next approved narrative.

President Biden previously called for more censorship and accused Big Tech of “killing people” by not censoring more views deemed “COVID misinformation.”

The opposite is true. By suppressing alternative scientific and policy views, the public was denied a full debate over mask efficacy, vaccine side effects, COVID origins and other important issues. Many of those questions are only being recognized as legitimate and worthy of debate.

Censorship does not, as President Biden claims, save lives.

It is more likely to cost lives by protecting approved views from challenge. It does not foster the truth any more than it fosters free speech. Whatever the origin of COVID-19 may be in China, the origins of our censorship scandal is closer to home.

 

 

[swordfish]

Dr. Fauci certainly pushed for and willfully advocated for everything from masks to shutdowns to mRNA vaccines the entire time and for him to say "It wasn't me" is very telling now that he is admitting masks were ineffective and the school shutdowns were wrong........Especially with the facts now coming to light.  The "create an ENTITIY OF EXCITEMENT"  "conspiracy theory" over the mRNA (Universal Flu Vaccine) is becoming more and more relevant.

https://nypost.com/2023/04/26/feeble-fauci-still-wont-take-blame-for-masks-covid-lockdowns-that-hurt-kids/

Anthony Fauci now breezily admits masks only worked 10% of the time and school lockdowns hurt kids, but still refuses to acknowledge he made mistakes.

Instead, he blames everyone else.

“There was a personification of me as a person who essentially closed everything down [but] those were public health recommendations that came from the CDC,” he told CNN Wednesday. 

Former CDC Director Robert Redfield begged to differ: “It’s disappointing that people just don’t take responsibility and accountability for the consequences of their recommendations . . . Tony was clearly an aggressive spokesman for closures, school closures, shutdowns and mandates, and I would argue that all three of those policies were not effective . . . were not optimal for our response . . . We [should not] rewrite history and say the things we did were the right decision when in fact they were suboptimal.”

Failing to admit mistakes is about more than ego. It endangers us for next time. 

Dr. Jay Bhattacharya and fellow sane medicos who have formed the Norfolk Group say a lot of mistakes were made and are calling for an honest, depoliticized evaluation of what went wrong. 

“It’s difficult when you have leaders like Fauci misleading America on a [scientific] consensus when there wasn’t one,” Bhattacharya said last week. But we “need to de-escalate and [conduct] an honest evaluation.”

To that end they have created a list of questions for a future commission of inquiry to analyze America’s response to the pandemic. It’s not about laying blame, but about learning lessons. 

 

 

[Muda69]

20 minutes ago, swordfish said:

Dr. Fauci certainly pushed for and willfully advocated for everything from masks to shutdowns to mRNA vaccines the entire time and for him to say "It wasn't me" is very telling now that he is admitting masks were ineffective and the school shutdowns were wrong........Especially with the facts now coming to light.  The "create an ENTITIY OF EXCITEMENT"  "conspiracy theory" over the mRNA (Universal Flu Vaccine) is becoming more and more relevant.

https://nypost.com/2023/04/26/feeble-fauci-still-wont-take-blame-for-masks-covid-lockdowns-that-hurt-kids/

Anthony Fauci now breezily admits masks only worked 10% of the time and school lockdowns hurt kids, but still refuses to acknowledge he made mistakes.

Instead, he blames everyone else.

“There was a personification of me as a person who essentially closed everything down [but] those were public health recommendations that came from the CDC,” he told CNN Wednesday. 

Former CDC Director Robert Redfield begged to differ: “It’s disappointing that people just don’t take responsibility and accountability for the consequences of their recommendations . . . Tony was clearly an aggressive spokesman for closures, school closures, shutdowns and mandates, and I would argue that all three of those policies were not effective . . . were not optimal for our response . . . We [should not] rewrite history and say the things we did were the right decision when in fact they were suboptimal.”

Failing to admit mistakes is about more than ego. It endangers us for next time. 

Dr. Jay Bhattacharya and fellow sane medicos who have formed the Norfolk Group say a lot of mistakes were made and are calling for an honest, depoliticized evaluation of what went wrong. 

“It’s difficult when you have leaders like Fauci misleading America on a [scientific] consensus when there wasn’t one,” Bhattacharya said last week. But we “need to de-escalate and [conduct] an honest evaluation.”

To that end they have created a list of questions for a future commission of inquiry to analyze America’s response to the pandemic. It’s not about laying blame, but about learning lessons. 

 

 

I'm not surprised now is the time Fauci is trying to distance himself from the decisions he and others at the CDC either strongly influenced or outright made for the country.    What a coward.

 

[Muda69]

Lab Leak Theory: 1, Misinformation Cops: 0

https://reason.com/2023/06/21/lab-leak-theory-confirmed-ben-hu-wuhan-china-covid/

Quote

The lab leak theory of COVID-19's origins gained tremendous legitimacy this week as The Wall Street Journal confirmed independent reports that the earliest outbreak occurred at the Wuhan Institute of Virology in November 2019.

"Patients zero" are now presumed to be three Chinese scientists, including Ben Hu, who worked extensively on gain-of-function research (the manipulation of viruses to make them more dangerous), which was funded by grants from the U.S. government. Those cases occurred in November 2019—well before the Huanan wet market outbreak favored by some in the scientific community as the more likely origin story—and they occurred among the very people one would predict if the virus originated in a lab. This is quite damning, to say the least. Anyone still clinging to an animal origin theory—remember the pangolins and raccoon dogs?—is running up against Occam's razor.

Assuming the intelligence reports are accurate and that Hu and his colleagues did contract the earliest cases of COVID-19, the implications are huge. This would mean that substandard safety protocols at the Wuhan lab probably unleashed a killer pathogen on the rest of the planet, and the Chinese government attempted to cover it up.

China is hardly the only government on the hook; the lab leak also means that research paid for by U.S. tax dollars—and vouched for by coronavirus czar Anthony Fauci, the nation's foremost gain-of-function advocate—is partly to blame for a pandemic that killed millions of people worldwide. Fauci, the very person tasked with leading the U.S. response to COVID-19, was in charge of the government agency that gave Hu, the gain-of-function researcher initially sickened with the disease, millions of dollars to experiment with bat coronaviruses.

Information on the central role played by Fauci's National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) was made public by the White Coat Waste Project, a watchdog group that uses public records requests to scrutinize federal funding of science. The Journal cited the organization's work, writing that it confirmed Hu's receipt of U.S. funding.

Concerned about the potential for catastrophic harm, the Obama administration paused federal funding of gain-of-function research in 2014. In late 2022, Fauci sat for a seven-hour deposition, admitting that exceptions had been made for gain-of-function research deemed vital to government scientists. In any case, the pause ended in 2017. Meanwhile, numerous authorities, including the U.S. Embassy in Beijing, have raised concerns about negligence at the Wuhan lab over the years. Vanity Fair and ProPublica described the lab as a "biocomplex in crisis."

If this sounds like a recipe for disaster, well, here we are.

The confirmation of the label leak theory would also mean that all the mainstream journalists, establishment scientists, and social media moderators who derided its adherents as conspiracy theorists were stunningly wrong. This should serve as a potent lesson to all the entities—many of them state-funded—that have made policing alleged misinformation their seminal issue.

Said cops including some of the most influential voices in the scientific community and expert commentariat. The New York Times' lead coronavirus reporter, Apoorva Mandavilli, previously described the lab leak theory as having racist roots. Vaccine scientist Peter Hotez criticized the comedian Jon Stewart for daring to raise the issue on an episode of Stephen Colbert's show. CNN medical analyst Leana Wen lamented the theory's likelihood of inspiring anti-Chinese animus. Others in the media called the lab leak a "fringe conspiracy."

Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, vigorously banned and suppressed posts about the lab leak before finally abandoning this policy as the theory gained some mainstream acceptance toward the latter half of 2021. As revealed by the Facebook Files, Reason's report on the communication between social media companies and federal health bureaucrats, Facebook took its COVID-19 content cues from the government. All of this behavior—these efforts to shame or suppress individuals who were asking questions about the preferred narratives of government scientists—now seems incredibly short-sighted.

The Biden administration has committed to declassifying intelligence related to the origins of COVID-19, consistent with bipartisan legislation signed earlier this year. Frustratingly, the feds have missed the congressionally imposed deadline, which was last weekend. It is long past time for President Joe Biden and federal health officials to tell the American people the truth so that all responsible parties can ultimately be held accountable; despite the assumptions of so many media commentators, the lab leak theory does not have unilaterally anti-Chinese implications—on the contrary, it is the explanation for COVID-19 that incriminates the U.S. government as well.

 

Whose going to prison for this?  Most likely no one.  Again.

 

[swordfish]

[swordfish]

[Muda69]

https://reason.com/2023/09/05/university-of-michigan-covid-rules-exile-positive-cases/

Quote

Students who test positive for COVID-19 at the University of Michigan this fall will be forced in many cases to leave campus—an extreme measure that may well encourage sick people to avoid seeking medical attention at all.

Jay Bhattacharya, a professor of medicine and health policy at Stanford University who has frequently challenged prevailing orthodoxies about pandemic restrictions, called attention to the policies on X, describing them as "cruel."

 

According to the Care and Isolation section of the university's website, students are required to report a positive COVID-19 test to the health authorities—unless, of course, they tested vis-à-vis the school's medical system, in which case the authorities already have the result. The university will then contact the students to discuss their isolation; importantly, students living in dormitories are required to temporarily move out, even if they reside in single units.

The rules suggest that students should return home, especially if they can get there without using public transportation. While the university specifies that students should consider returning home if there they have access to their own bedrooms and bathrooms, it does not acknowledge that sending students home may be the very worst idea of all, given that their parents are probably at greater risk of a negative COVID-19 outcome than their college roommates.

The rules are so extreme and disruptive that many students will probably avoid taking COVID-19 tests, even if they are seriously ill. Imagine a student who presumes he has a bacterial infection and desperately needs antibiotics; does he dare risk going to the university hospital and testing positive for COVID-19, especially if that means ejection from his dormitory?

Instead of creating a police state to punish students for contracting COVID-19—something that is, let's face it, wholly unavoidable—perhaps university health officials could work harder to provide accommodations for students who get sick and voluntarily agree to quarantine. Alas, the website notes that "isolation spaces on campus are extremely limited." Making them less limited seems like a better use of time than hunting down COVID-positive students and exiling them from campus.

The university did not respond to a request for comment.

 

[temptation]

4 hours ago, Muda69 said:

https://reason.com/2023/09/05/university-of-michigan-covid-rules-exile-positive-cases/

 

Wow.

[Muda69]

[swordfish]

Oh - Sure....Nothing to see here, just routine virus / science stuff the experts know what they are doing......

Yeah - everyone ready for the next one? - when the "Great Reset" needs a booster shot......

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-12665249/Chinas-discovered-EIGHT-never-seen-viruses-plan-experiment-them.html

Chinese scientists discover EIGHT never-before-seen viruses... and now they plan to experiment with them

• EXCL: Scientists found new pathogens in rodents on an isolated tropical island
• READ MORE: Fauci says he has nightmares about the 'next inevitable pandemic'

[swordfish]

Ready to give up some more freedom when (not if) the next p(l)andemic hits?

https://www.who.int/news/item/20-09-2023-who-welcomes-historic-commitment-by-world-leaders-for-greater-collaboration--governance-and-investment-to-prevent--prepare-for-and-respond-to-future-pandemics

WHO welcomes historic commitment by world leaders for greater collaboration, governance and investment to prevent, prepare for and respond to future pandemics

20 September 2023 

News release

 

The World Health Organization welcomed today’s historic commitment shown by global leaders, at the United Nations General Assembly, to strengthen the international cooperation, coordination, governance and investment needed to prevent a repeat of the devastating health and socioeconomic impact caused by COVID-19, make the world better prepared for future pandemic, and get back on track to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals.

“The first-ever head of state summit on pandemic prevention, preparedness and response is a historic milestone in the urgent drive to make all people of the world safer, and better protected from the devastating impacts of pandemics,” said Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO Director-General. “I welcome this commitment by world leaders to provide the political support and direction needed so that WHO, governments and all involved can protect people’s health and take concrete steps towards investing in local capacities, ensuring equity and supporting the global emergency health architecture that the world needs.”

The political declaration, approved by Mr Dennis Francis, President of the 78^th United Nations General Assembly, and the result of negotiations under the able leadership of Ambassadors Gilad Erdan of Israel and Omar Hilale of Morocco, underscored the pivotal role played by WHO as the “directing and coordinating authority on international health,” and the need to “commit further to sustainable financing that provides adequate and predictable funding to the World Health Organization, which enables it to have the resources needed to fulfil its core functions.”

“The lived experience of people who suffered through the COVID-19 pandemic must be at the forefront of our minds going forward in order to realize the clear direction provided by world leaders,” said Dr Tedros. “We must learn how to protect our communities better and to engage, inform and empower them to be part of the solution. We need to build stronger clinical care systems that can save lives. Doing so requires concrete actions to ensure equitable access to medical countermeasures, sustainable and adequate financing, empowered and engaged communities and robust, trained and equipped health workers.”

“The devastating impacts of COVID-19 demonstrated why the world needs a more collaborative, cohesive and equitable approach to preventing, preparing for and responding to pandemics,” said Dr Tedros. 

Dr Tedros said governments and multilateral partners have already commenced building the foundations for a safer world, with the establishment of the Pandemic Fund, the WHO Hub for Pandemic and Epidemic Intelligence, the WHO BioHub to voluntarily share novel biological materials, and the mRNA vaccine technology transfer hub.

However, Dr Tedros added that the political declaration approved on Wednesday called for further strengthening of the global health emergency architecture to better protect the world from a repeat of COVID-19.

Among numerous measures required, the political declaration recognized the need for Member States to:

• Conclude negotiations on a WHO convention, agreement or other international instrument on pandemic prevention, preparedness and response, otherwise known as the Pandemic Accord, and continue their work to make targeted amendments to the International Health Regulations (2005) by May 2024;
• In line with the Pandemic Accord process, ensure the sustainable, affordable, fair, equitable, effective, efficient and timely access to medical countermeasures, including vaccines, diagnostics, therapeutics and other health products;
• Take measures to counter and address the negative impacts of health-related misinformation, disinformation, hate speech and stigmatization, especially on social media platforms, on people’s physical and mental health, including countering vaccine hesitancy in the context of pandemic prevention, preparedness and response and to foster trust in public health systems and authorities, including by increasing public health education, literacy and awareness, while recognizing that the effective engagement of stakeholders requires access to timely, accurate and evidence-based information and awareness raising including through the use of digital health tools;
• To protect our communities through investing in primary health care and other health system measures, as part of a commitment to universal health coverage, so to ensure robust national health systems are in place to respond to future pandemics;
• Invest in ensuring WHO is strengthened to the level needed to play its role in responding to pandemic threats. Sustainable financing of WHO, and national health systems, is essential for making the world safer;
• Strengthen health workforce and rapid response capacities, surveillance and supply systems, and local manufacturing abilities, to enable and empower all countries to have the ability to meet their own needs to prevent, prepare for and respond to pandemics.
• Scale up health system capacities to address pandemic threats in low- and lower-middle income countries, especially across Africa;
• Counter and address the negative impacts of health-related misinformation, disinformation, hate speech and stigmatization, especially on social media platforms, on people’s physical and mental health, in order to strengthen pandemic prevention, preparedness and response, and foster trust in public health systems and authorities;
• Leverage the potential of the multilateral system and scale up the multisectoral approach needed to improve pandemic prevention, preparedness and response, due to the multifaceted causes and consequences of pandemics, which support attainment of the Sustainable Development Goals.

Following today’s approval of the political declaration by the UN General Assembly president, leaders of United Nations Member States delivered statements on the critical importance of pandemic prevention, preparedness and response and the need for a robust, coordinated and comprehensive global health emergency architecture.

 

[Muda69]

17 hours ago, swordfish said:

 

 with the establishment of the Pandemic Fund,

 

It's as much about the money as it is the restriction of personal freedoms.