Former Biden White House COVID-19 Response Coordinator Dr. Ashish Jha this weekend became the latest denier of the lab theory to do a 180-degree turn. During the interview with CNN’s Dana Bash, Jha admitted that he now believes that the most likely explanation is a lab leak at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. As pundits and politicians quietly admit that the natural mutation theory is not as credible, the courageous scientists who were blacklisted for years remain persona non grata in higher education.
Jha stated:
“This is going to surprise some people. You know, when I went into the White House, my view was, ‘This was almost surely a natural outbreak, maybe a lab leak.’ Based on information I learned and based on information I‘ve seen, I have come to conclude that it is more likely to have been a lab leak.”
I commend Jha for publicly addressing his change. Indeed, everyone in academia, myself included, has had their views evolve.
What should not evolve is the willingness of the scientists and academics to accept dissenting viewpoints. One of my long-standing complaints against figures like Anthony Fauci is that they held prominent positions during the pandemic, but said nothing about the cancel campaigns directed against those experts who disagreed with their views on issues like the origins of COVID-19.
As I discuss in my new book, “The Indispensable Right,” the result is that we never really had a national debate on many of these issues and the massive social and economic costs that resulted.
I spoke at the University of Chicago with Bhattacharya and other dissenting scientists in the front row a couple of years ago. After the event, I asked them how many had been welcomed back to their faculties or associations since the recognition of some of their positions.
They all said that they were still treated as pariahs for challenging the groupthink culture.
For years, figures like Bhattacharya (who was recently awarded the prestigious Intellectual Freedom Award by the American Academy of Sciences and Letters) were hounded and marginalized.
Others opposed Bhattacharya’s right to offer his scientific views, even under oath. For example, in one hearing, Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-Ill.) expressed disgust that Bhattacharya was even allowed to testify as “a purveyor of COVID-19 misinformation.”
Los Angeles Times columnist Michael Hiltzik decried an event associated with Bhattacharya, writing that “we’re living in an upside-down world” because Stanford University allowed dissenting scientists to speak at a scientific forum. Hiltzik also wrote a column titled “The COVID lab leak claim isn’t just an attack on science, but a threat to public health.”
As recently as last year, Hiltzik continued to attack the lab theory.
Bhattacharya’s experience is not unique. When scientists argued that the virus’s origin was likely the Chinese research lab in Wuhan, they were mobbed by the media. That position was denounced by the Washington Post as a “debunked” coronavirus “conspiracy theory.”
The Washington Post denounced Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark) when he raised the theory for “repeat[ing] a fringe theory suggesting that the ongoing spread of a coronavirus is connected to research in the disease-ravaged epicenter of Wuhan, China.”
After Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) mentioned the lab theory, Post Fact Checker Glenn Kessler mocked him: “I fear @tedcruz missed the scientific animation in the video that shows how it is virtually impossible for this virus to jump from the lab. Or the many interviews with actual scientists. We deal in facts, and viewers can judge for themselves.”
The New York Times Science and Health reporter Apoorva Mandavilli called any mention of the lab theory “racist.”
At NPR, an endless stream of segments ran dismissing the lab leak notion, painting it as a debunked conspiracy theory of the far right, including one story titled “Scientists Debunk Lab Accident Theory of Pandemic Emergence.”
I consider it valuable to have voices like Hultzik’s that still challenge the lab theory — just as I thought it was valuable to have lab theorists voice their views. The difference is that critics of the lab theory are not being canceled, but continue to be celebrated for their prior work. To the contrary, figures like Scott Atlas have shown how those educators who helped lead the mob against dissenters still hold positions of power. These figures should not be canceled for holding opposing views, but their conduct in silencing others should be reviewed.
Despite the vindication of scientists on their opposition to policies on the use of surgical masks, the closure of schools, and other issues, there have not been any repercussions for those who enforced the orthodoxy and intolerance during the pandemic in higher education.
The fact is that most are now willing to admit that the lab theory is probably correct, but they are unwilling to forgive those who forced them into that admission.
‘I commend Jha for publicly addressing his change. Indeed, everyone in academia, myself included, has had their views evolve.’
Ha! That’s a good one. Reading the room, fearing losing more elections, and deploying military grade a$$ covering is not ‘evolution’. These people are incapable of self-reflection or honesty, and they would and will do it to us again the second they are given the opportunity.
Forgive me, but why, oh why are generational liberals so naive? Continuing to trust the modern left in any capacity is crossing the river with scorpions on your back. These things don’t just ‘happen’.
Citing the “Great Barrington Declaration” as just an opposing view is hugely deceiving, especially to those who can barely understand how science works.
There were huge flaws in the “Great Barrington Declaration” that pose serious danger to the population at large.
The declaration proposed that vulnerable people (the elderly and medically fragile) could be kept completely isolated and safe, while healthy young people returned to normal life. Epidemiologists noted that society cannot be neatly segregated. Vulnerable people do not live in a vacuum; they share multi-generational households, rely on working-age caregivers, and interact with the public for essential services. Letting the virus rip through the young would inevitably spill over to the old. It would have killed older more vulnerable people faster and in greater numbers.
The strategy assumed that infecting young people would create lasting, durable herd immunity that would permanently stop the virus. This proved to be scientifically incorrect. As we now know, SARS-CoV-2 mutates rapidly, and natural immunity wanes over time. Allowing uncontrolled spread simply created an ideal breeding ground for newer, more infectious variants (like Delta and Omicron) that cause frequent reinfections.
The authors treated the “young and healthy” as entirely safe from the virus. In reality, while young adults faced lower mortality rates than the elderly, their risk of death or severe complications was not negligible. Letting the virus run completely unchecked would have resulted in tens of thousands of preventable deaths among younger demographics, a massive influx of debilitating Long COVID cases, and a high rate of pediatric hospitalizations.
Even if the virus was less fatal to young people, a tiny percentage of millions of infections still results in a massive number of patients. Mainstream medical bodies pointed out that letting the virus spread completely unchecked would have immediately overwhelmed hospitals and intensive care units (ICUs). This would have led to an explosion in preventable deaths, not just from COVID-19, but from car accidents, heart attacks, and cancers that could no longer be treated due to a collapsed healthcare infrastructure.
It was a false choice. A really bad one. It relied on the ignorance of the scientifically illiterate to be able to determine if it was indeed a good idea. Smarter people knew it was already a bad idea.
Yes it mutated. It’s a virus. When we lived in caves the common cold, also a virus, killed people, most likely on a large scale. COVID did and will continue to mutate into a much less deadly pathogen.
The whole point of masking and lockdowns was to prevent as much unnecessary infection as possible to avoid rampant mutations. But those behind the Great Barrington Declaration, were promoting a very irresponsible and largely unscientific approach. They just thought it was better to let the virus spread as much as possible and ‘immunize’ the least vulnerable while leaving the most vulnerable more exposed to higher chances of infection. It was an incredibly bad idea. A dangerous idea.
Masking had zero effect nor did the idiotic six foot BS or lockdown and masking actually made healthy people more susceptible to other respiratory infections. There was no immunization provided to prevent the virus, the same thing could have been provided with the simple monoclonal antibodies. More people were impacted by the “vaccine “ and boosters than by any other vaccine ever presented to our nation, the deaths and impacts were disregarded and hidden in reporting.
It was a big pharmaceutical feeding frenzy…billions of dollars.
Masking becomes less effective when morons and idiots refused to mask up. The more people refusing to mask the less effective it was to those who chose to. The whole point of wearing a mask was not to prevent from getting infected. It was to prevent others from spreading it.
Nobody claimed masks were going to be 100% effective. The whole point of wearing masks and maintaining a 6ft distance was to reduce as much as possible the chances of transmission to another person. That’s it. Wearing a mask did not and was not meant to completely stop the virus. It reduced the likely hood of transmission. It’s the same reason why people who cover their mouths when they sneeze reduce the chance of spreading a cold or flu simply by covering their mouths instead of just allowing a full blown sneeze into the vicinity of other people. It was just basic precaution turned into a conspiracy theory because of pure ignorance.
The virus is not transmitted through the air. Masks only minimized spittle droplets from those infected, a cough or sneeze.
They did ZERO, if someone sneezed or coughed on you that was in the infectious stage, you were exposed regardless of mask. Washing your hands and not touching your face or eyes was far more effective. Sheep gotta sheep.
A novel idea, if you’re sick stay home.
8 ball.
Now we know for sure that you have completely lost your mind, when you say that COVID is not transmitted through the air.
It is a respiratory virus that infects the respiratory tract, causing respiratory symptoms and pneumonia. It gets into the respiratory tract through the air that we breath.
If it is not transmitted through the air, then how exactly is it transmitted?????
It was not transmitted through air. Body fluids
Inhalation of air containing moisture droplets from a sneeze or cough from a sick person. That is substantially different than airborne transmission of a virus. If it had been airborne a mask would have been meaningless unless they were full fit mask of the correct micron.
The only person that should have worn masks were those that were already sick or in the infectious category.
Passive transmission through contact with contaminated bodily fluids. Like I said, if you’re sick, stay home.
“The only person that should have worn masks were those that were already sick or in the infectious category.”
Well Duh, the majority of those who were contagious did NOT know they were contagious until it was too late. That is why there were mask mandates and strong encouragement for wearing them. Just because one felt “fine” did not mean they were not contagious. That was the point of the mask. To minimize the spread as much as possible. It was never meant to prevent or stop transmission fully.
“That’s why there were strong mask mandates,” it was ridiculous, wear a mask as you go out to eat, as if the virus won’t know as you remove it to dine! Little kids forced to go through that crap, people driving around in their cars alone masked, I even saw people swimming in the ocean with masks on. The masks were useless for anything other than buffering spittle and a false sense of security for the thumb suckers.
Like I said, washing one’s hands and using hand sanitizer provided much better protection than ever wearing a mask. Hospitals were receiving funding based upon Covid deaths, everyone that died at that time was due to Covid.
Fauci funded creating that shit, he covered his own butt in everything he did thereafter. He should spend the rest of his short life in prison.
Anonymous – A virus is generally called Airborne when not only is it found in the droplets when you cough and sneeze, but it is found in your breath as you exhale. Is it in incredibly fine water droplets or just free floating in the air ? Do not know.
What I do know is that even if the infected person never sneezes or coughs if you are in a 12x12x8 room breething the same air as they do for 15 minutes – you have likely been infected and if you do not get covid that will be a combination of random chance and a strong immune system.
it was airborne. No disease spreads this fast to this many people solely through sneezes and coughs
“it was airborne. No disease spreads this fast to this many people solely through sneezes and coughs”
I think this is a definitional problem. Measles is airborne because the virus can stay in the air for so long. It doesn’t dry out with the droplet. COVID-19 dries out much quicker; transmission occurs mostly while the liquid exists.
The answer: Classic airborne measles, not COVID-19. Today’s non-classic definition of airborne: measles and COVID-19.
“Masking becomes less effective when morons and idiots refused to mask up. ”
No they become less effective over time and number of exposures – it is simple math.
Anyone who can calculae compound interest can KNOW without a doubt that If you have gone two weeks with a mask and avoided covid – it is NOT the mask.
Further N95 masks were ineffective over time and multiple exposures. Every single time you encounter someone with Covid in an N95 mask you have about a 23% chance of getting infected – 5 exposures and if you do not have covid you have a very strong immune system – you almost certainly have antibodies indicating that Covid get through the door.
And whatever good can be said for N95 masks – everything else was worse than useless. And that is what most people were wearing.
“The more people refusing to mask the less effective it was to those who chose to.”
Nope.
“The whole point of wearing a mask was not to prevent from getting infected. It was to prevent others from spreading it.”
There is not and never was a point.
BTW this word play about getting infected vs spreading it is nonsense.
Cloth masks are nothing. N95 masks are a filter =- the work the same either direction. If they work one way they work the other.
“Nobody claimed masks were going to be 100% effective. ”
Nobody claimed thay were 98.5% effective either – and that is the effectiveness that you need to sustain to slow and stop a disease with a transmission rate of 2.5-3.5. Oh and no matter what the effectiveness is PER EXPOSURE. By the 6th exposure in an N95 mask – you have been infected.
“The whole point of wearing masks and maintaining a 6ft distance was to reduce as much as possible the chances of transmission to another person.”
It was also the point of closing gyms and churches and outdoor events and ….
But it did not work for any of those.
There is no documented transmission of Covid outside. It is likely possible, but very difficult. Sunlight kills Covid. UVC kills covid.
Aside from sunlight – outside people do not share the same air – unless they are practically kissing.
Schools are by law mandated to change air frequently – most stores do the same . They bring fresh air in constantrly from the outside and exhaust the aid in the building If you are in a bedroom with someone who has covid you will likely be infected in 15 minutes. If you are in a school classroom – likely never.
Most all the idiotic claims YOU made and are now repeating – were KNOWN false at the time.
This nonsesne was not about stopping covid – that was never possible.
It was aboud stupid virtue signalling.
It was about sociopathincally forcing your will on others.
“That’s it. Wearing a mask did not and was not meant to completely stop the virus. It reduced the likely hood of transmission.”
To have any public value it must in combination with other measure exceed 98.5% effectiveness.
That is mathematically impossible.
You keep saying “it was not meant to …” Correct, but mathematically it makes ZERO contribution to the required 98.5% effctiveness level to get from slowing covid such that it would be with us for ever to actually defaeting covid and saving lives.
Sustained effectiveness of 98.5% – will elminate covid. Anything less makes it worse not better.
In FACT the close you get without succeeding the MORE likely it is to be arround forever.
” It’s the same reason why people who cover their mouths when they sneeze reduce the chance of spreading a cold or flu simply by covering their mouths instead of just allowing a full blown sneeze into the vicinity of other people.”
The transmission rate of the flu is 1.1 to 1.4 – that is several orders of magniture lower than covid.
And BTW masks proved ineffective against the flue in all 11 RCT’s before covid.
” It was just basic precaution turned into a conspiracy theory because of pure ignorance.”
Sopmething that does not and can not work is not a precaution . It is a talisman. It is stupider than wearing a bag of garlic to ward off vampires.
And if you can not get the transmission rate significantly below 1.0 you actually make things WORSE.
NO masks etc do NOT prevent mutations. Two things drive mutations – Time, and hosts with other infections.
It is what we did that is irresponsible and unscientific.
AGAIN the GBD actually proposed the state of the art for centuries. Yet our “experts” idiotically want off and did something NEVER TRIED, that was easy to see would predictably fail.
You seem to be under the belief that repeating the obviously false nonsense of people who have lied to us over and over proves something.
Fauxi was told that Covid likely was man made in Jan 2020 by several peers and subordinates. He rapidlyh went to work killing that off – quietly blackmailing people until a few weeks later even though the evidence of a man made source is even morfe compelling, the drum beat with Fauxi as the conductor is Wet Markets in Wuhan.
No evidence mind you. Just the chinese must be eating bats.
So why would Fauxi look to shift the Narrative ? Could it be that he continued illegally funding GOF research even after Obama ordered it ended ?
Even if Covid was NOT the product of that specific research – Fauxi’s funding of GOF was going to come out and he could go to jail.
But it is even worse than that – Fauxi was partly funding the GOF research that was occuring in Wuhan that likely lead to Covid.
And in January 2020 Fauxi KNEW that. As likely did many of those whose arms he was twisting – some of whom were involved, others were aware and atleast partly complicit, nearly all would have suffered in one way or the other even if Fauxi did not threaten them if the virus was tied to WIV.
While Fauxi was and this is documented twisting arms. He did not have to twist very far. If the entire global public health system was not literally involved in the likely creation of Covid, They were All going to suffer if global medical research was scrutinized.
It is not that hard to twist the arms of people who even if they are not directly complicit, and even if they can not have their funding cut off by Fauxi who was the self admitted do Corlean of infectious disease research – would still be tarred and feathered just for proximity.
What is always surprising is the stupid positions the modern left takes.
Covid has made billions for big pharma. While they had nothing to do with creating Covid – they have made a fortune from it and they have engaged in massive rent seeking to continue to profit.
I have no problem with big pharma or big pharma profiting – But I have huge problems with doing so off the tax payer.
Yet here we are with those of you on the left defending big pharma, defending unethical medical research. Defending the torture of animals, and reckless and illegal research.
And the reason for all of this – to protect and idiotic stupid narative that does not fly no matter how you slice it that Trump somehow killed millions.
If there was a hint of a ghost of a dime of Trump money funding GOF research – you would be impeaching him right now.
So let me be clear
Trump DID Batch Covid – by Following Fauxi and the rest of the medical establishments advice for too long.
I can partly hold Trump accountable for some of the egregious deprivations of liberty that were done to us for no good reasons during covid – but for the fact that even worse was done by you, by the far left.
And it should also be mentioned that the individuals who concocted the Great Barrington Declaration had no standing in the medical field.
Jay Bhattacharya falsely holds himself out as a physician. However, he is an economist who just happens to have graduated from medical school in 1997. He went straight from medical school to a Ph.D. program in economics, and has held academic positions as an economist. He never did an internship, never did a residency and has never held a license to practice medicine. He has had no postgraduate clinical training of any kind and therefore cannot be considered to be a physician. His medical knowledge is that of a 4th year medical student from 1997.
Martin Kuldorff is a mathematician.
Sunetra Gupta is a zoologist.
The point is that no practicing physicians were willing to sign on to the absurd Great Barrington Declaration.
Do you have any idea how stupid you sound?
“Sunetra Gupta is a zoologist.”
She is an epidemiologist at the University of Oxford, where she heads a team of experts who specialize in animal disease transmission.
Care to try again?
Sam,
You might want to double-check Sunetra Gupta’s official profile at the University of Oxford before trying to be a contrarian.
She is a Professor of Theoretical Epidemiology, but her chair and her entire lab are explicitly housed within the Department of Zoology (now part of the Department of Biology). Epidemiology at Oxford is routinely studied from an evolutionary biology and zoological framework. The person who called her a zoologist was 100% factually correct about her institutional department.
“The person who called her a zoologist was 100% factually correct about her institutional department.”
And 100% wrong at calling her unqualified.
Poor X doesn’t understand how Sumetra Guptahe difference between British and American professional credentials.
“Gupta is a professor of theoretical epidemiology in the Department of Zoology at the University of Oxford, where she leads a team of infectious disease epidemiologists.”
Wow, she leads a “team of epidemiologists,” and her official title (based on her Ph.D. in Epidemiology.”
“Sunetra Gupta holds a PhD in epidemiology from Imperial College London, and she is a professor of theoretical epidemiology at the University of Oxford, where she leads research on infectious diseases.”
St. Anthony is NOT a mathemetican and it is MATH more than anything you need to know whether what you are doing will be effective.
And that’s why every Swede died.
X
You should bit your tongue regarding Covid – is there ANYTHING that you were actually right about ?
Fauxi lied and was responsible for millions of deaths. Aside fromt he FACT that his public Policy;s were net harmful and we will pay forever because Covid has become endemic. Separately he funded the research that lead to the development of Covid and ultimatgely to the lab leak.
But for the fact that Fauxi was illegally fuinding research and moving it to China and Ukraine to avoid the reach of US law, millions of people would be alive. While he is not alone in culpability – he is the head of the snake. But for him – this would not have happened.
Next – long long long before Fauxi’s Diaries most of use KNEW that the initial reaction of scientists – especially those close to Fauxi was this was a lab leak. They exchanged emails with each other openly noting that the genetics of this thing were highly unlikely to come from nature.
Fauxi went to work RAPIDLY and Squelched that. Why ? Possibly politically in the left right sense. But almost certainty because he was deeply involved in funding research into Bat Corona Viruses and in moving that research to Wuhan china to circumvent US laws prohibiting Gain Of Function research.
Most of the above was known by the end of March 2020, Fauxi’s deep involvement in GOF research and specifically Bat Corona Viruses took a bit longer to uncover – but it was still known before the end of the year.
But lets presume all the above was not known or even not true.
Science does not work by consensus – and certainly not in only a few days.
The publicly expressed view of publicly employed or publicly dependent scientists shifted RAPIDLY from “likely man made”
to without a doubt from nature – very nearly overnight.
In actual science that NEVER happens. Real science involves exploring multiple possible scenarios, testing each against the evidence,
debating this – usually publicly and SLOWLY a consensus form as scientists are convinced by ARGUMENTS.
What does not happen is calling esteemed scientists that disagree Quacks. Silencing them, censoring them and others.
That is NOT science.
Dr. Jha has finally come around – EXCEPT that should have occurred by July 2020 – I have no problems with Dr. Jha weighing the evidence and changing his mind. That is how actual science works.
The problem is that Jha would have been called a Quack had he changed his mind when the evidence CLEARLY did not support the “direct from nature”claim.
You rant about the Great Barrington declaration – the FACT is while not perfect it was the BEST science of that moment – FAR better than the $hitty science being sold by people like Fauxi with his paws leveraging funding and reputations world wide.
The big issue with the great barrington declaration is that it never should have been necessary – The scientists who signed it are some of the best in the field. Baktarya is far more qualified than Fauxi. Baktarya just was not the Government paid bureaucrat with a megaphone and control over a great deal of research funding throughout the world and a willingness to use it to silence dissent who was doing so to cover up his own culpability.
This is again why Sicence is conducated with FACTS and DATA and Argument in public without censorship or silencing disagreement.
I would further note that the epidemiologists at BEST were experts on public health – they were NOT experts of economics as an example.
There are very very very few problems – particularly public problems that do not run across multiple disciplines – particularly economics.
Further it is not and never has been the job of scientists to tell us what to do. Value judgements – like how much effort is it worth expending to solve a specific problem are NOT scientific judgments – they are economic ones.
There were myriads of consequences – both of the disease and of the public policies. Suicides went up, Drug overdoses went up.
Crime initially went down but then went up. The Economy lost $1T in GDP almost overnight.
People stopped coming to the hospital with anything except Covid – Cancer treatments were delays, cancer screenings were delayed.
Traffic when down, highway deaths went down.
Again lots and lots of consequences that had NOTHING to do with the narrow expertise of people like Fauxi.
This is why we do not empower “experts” to solve our problems – Experts provide advice, and we consult multiple experts in many fields and make decisions based on totality of the circumstances.
It was clear to anyone with a brain by May 2020 that not only were the public policies to thwart Covid not going to work – but that stopping Covid was mathematically impossible. And that the policies we were following would increase rather than decrease deaths.
But most of us did not hear that – because public debate was censored, Because highly capable experts – better than those with the megaphones were being called quacks and ignored when they raised the alarm.
John Say,
Let’s break down the sheer amount of historical and scientific BS packed into this post:
The Funding Lie: Dr. Fauci did not “illegally fund” research in Ukraine or China to bypass U.S. laws. The NIH gave a standard, fully legal, peer-reviewed sub-grant to EcoHealth Alliance to study bat coronaviruses in the wild because Wuhan was the global epicenter for them. Both the NIH and independent watchdogs have repeatedly confirmed this research did not—and genetically could not—have created SARS-CoV-2. The virus’s genetic backbone is entirely different from any virus cataloged or studied at that lab. You provide zero proof of your claims. None.
The Evolving Science: You claim science “never shifts rapidly overnight.” It absolutely does when a novel genome is sequenced for the very first time. In late January 2020, scientists looked at a raw data sheet and threw out initial hypotheses. Within days of running deep genomic sequencing, they found the virus lacked any signatures of human engineering or selective mapping, which they published openly in Nature Medicine. That isn’t a cover-up; that is a real-time reaction to new data.
The Collateral Myths: You claim suicides went up due to public health policies. This is factually false. According to final CDC data, U.S. suicide rates actually droppedin 2020 during the height of the lockdowns. While delayed cancer screenings and economic hits were real, tragic costs, public health officials weren’t acting as “Philosopher Kings”—they were trying to prevent an immediate collapse of the ICU infrastructure, which would have caused millions more preventable deaths from routine emergencies.
As usual you hang on to wild conspiracy theories and anecdotal evidence as “real” evidence without providing a shred of proof.
“Let’s break down…”
Another copycat tactic from commenters who deflated X himself with, “Let’s compare this with…” and “Let’s look at…”, etc.
I DARE mr. X to point out a comment he made at least a year ago where he used that “Let’s” starter.
” The NIH gave a standard, fully legal, peer-reviewed sub-grant to EcoHealth Alliance to study bat coronaviruses in the wild because Wuhan was the global epicenter for them. Both the NIH and independent watchdogs have repeatedly confirmed this research did not—and genetically could not—have created SARS-CoV-2. The virus’s genetic backbone is entirely different from any virus cataloged or studied at that lab. You provide zero proof of your claims. None.”
ROFL
You really do not know your stuff. Nop one was sent to bat caves 1000lkm from Wuhan to study Bat Corona Viruses.
Wuhan is NOT a global epicenter for either Bats of Bat Coronaviruses. But the WIV is a research laboratory engaged in Gain Of Function Research – that is taking natural viruses and enhancing them. There are absolutely myriads of possible reasons for such research – BioWeapons is one. But there are actually many possible legitimate reasons. That does not change the FACT that Obama ORDERED and end to all US Funding of GOF research – because it is DANGEROUS.
There have been numeorus “lab leaks” – in most instances these prove hamrless or infect only one person or are thwarted before the leaked virus gets into the public.
But the reason for Obama’s order was that a dangerous leak of a super virus was INEVITABLE – only a question of time.
Fauxi can claim all the independent watchdogs and oversite and …. that he wants. The FACT is it was GOF reseaerch he was funding and that was a crime.
Are all these others you claim who were “overseeing this” complicit ? Probably – either that or their were decieved, or it is just the normal left wing nut pal corruption.
As has been known for some time but is proven beyond any doubt by Fauxi’s diaries – Fauxi was approving thengs and then making demands of letters of recomendation or votes for Cash awards TO HIMSELF, All this nonsense was incredibly incestuous.
Fauxi approved funding for unnecescary animal research on Beagles conducted in foreign countries – that was also a violation of US law.
So you think all the people receiving funding for heinous research by Fauxi are going to turn on him ?
Of Course not. Fauxi’s illegal research in Wuhan – which started in the US was NOT the only unethical or illegal conduct when was engaged in.
And he was NOT alone in this – while he was a significant part of approving funding – he did not do the research create the grants, no as you admit was he the only one approving these things. Lots of people were making money, and when things go south they circled the wagons.
You claim this independent review nonsense – but the fact is that this is just one giant racket.
This is also why the uproar over shutting done USAID.
DO you really think there is no oversight there ?
Do you really think that the money was actually going to anything useful ?
But then I guess you left wing nuts think that merely spending money accomplishes something.
In the last 25 years of the 20th century the US spent $1T in foreign aid to Africa.
the net benefit to Africa ? Zero.
All of this is just a less obvious version of the Quality Learing Center.
You keep citing people who blessed what Fauxi did as if they are “independent”.
They are all part of the same self licking ice cream cone.
I am carping on the illegal – because this resulted in millions of deaths.
But if Obama had blessed GOF research – Fauxi and companies actions would be legal
But no less corrupt or immoral and no less dangerous.
“The Evolving Science: You claim science “never shifts rapidly overnight.” It absolutely does when a novel genome is sequenced for the very first time. ”
Nope – it takes years even decades to determine what sequences of genes mean.
WE are quite capable of rapidly sequencing DNA and RNA today, and we can make some EASY observations – like I have never seen that before in nature”
But sequencing a genome is NOT understanding it.
Just as taking the head bolts off an engine is not designing one.
“In late January 2020, scientists looked at a raw data sheet and threw out initial hypotheses. ”
Nope, TRhey told fauxi the sequences was likely man made and not natural and Fauxi said
“think again” and they grasp that he cut cut off their funding and their balls and that even those who were NOT part of the
GOF research were still all tied to unethical research that was coming to light if anyone looked closely at this
so all the insiders changed their tune.
Though there is more to it than this.
After JFK was assassinated LBJ called up Hoover and said he needed to investigate the crap out of the shooting as fast as possible and that the conclusion was going to be “Oswald acted alone”. LBJ then called Sen, Russel and said he was going to be on the Warren commission and it was his job to keep Warren from going anywhere except Oswald acted alone. Russel hated Warren and did not want this. LBJ told him he had no choice – Warren had to head the commission and the result had to be Oswald acted alone.
So you do not think this is some conspiracy – LBJ had many of his phone calls recorded – these were older Wire recordings – before tape or iphones or …
Regardless, these calls were made public a decade or so ago.
Was LBJ covering up his own involvement ? I do not think so.
But look at the choices:
1) The russians did it – WWIII
2) The Cubans did it – WWIII
3). The Mob did it – near civil war in the US
4). The CIA did it – a crisis that would make watergate look tiny.
Every possibility that is NOT Oswald acted alone is a complete and total national disaster.
We have the same here too.
Fauxi and the people close to him have a reason to cover up – because they are culpable or because they are involved in other unethical programs.
But the entire Global public health system is going to choose Chinese wet markets over a Lab Leak no matter what the truth it.
There is no need for a conspiracy.
I loath LBJ – but he was absolutely correct – There is no answer to the LBJ assassination aside from Oswald acted alone that is no like dropping a nuclear bomb of Washington. It does not matter whether it is true or not – the result must be Oswald acted alone.
The same is true to a lessor degree here.
First establishing a lab leak does not just screw Fauxi and the NIH, and those involved in the lab leak. It does not just screw Gain of Function research, it does not just screw government funded unethical research. It screws the entire public heatlh sector. Funding will be cut all over
Trump cut WHO funding over this. What happens when the leaders of most of the countries in the world think this was a lab leak.
Chinese is implicated, the US is implicated – most government research becomes suspect, the entire global public health domain dies rapidly.
Fauxi did not need to twist arms very hard.
“Within days of running deep genomic sequencing, they found the virus lacked any signatures of human engineering or selective mapping,”
ROFL – it is amaxing how you can spray the OPPOSITE of the truth, the reason that nearly everyone OUTSIDE the global public health cabal has been saying this is engineered is because NOTHING in nature looks like this.
“which they published openly in Nature Medicine. ”
ROFL – when is the last time Nature published anything that was true ?
“That isn’t a cover-up; that is a real-time reaction to new data.”
It is the very date you claim is new that everyone outside the global public health cabal has looked at and said – this sucker in man made.
BTW the very fact that it mutates this fast is also evidence it is man made – it is also the prime evidence that Omicron was likely engineered as a antidote of sorts.
The vaccine does not work. The rate at which the virus was becoming less lethal was too slow – Delta was significantly MORE LETHAL than Wuhan Covid.
The easiest way to kill off lethal Covid was to engineer and even more infectuous variant that was much less lethal. Omicorn appeared in South Africa in Nov 2022.
It was several thousand itterations from the original Wuhan Covid, But it was a branch of the original wuhan covid NOT anyh of the subsequent variants,
Its only relation to Delta was through Wuhan Covid – the in the wild variants of Covid were only a vew hundred permutaitons away from Wuhan covid.
Why ? Because viruses mutate slowly in nature and in humans. Rapid mutation requires labs where you can run through many generations of short lived animals like humanized mice in a very short time frame. you can not move as fast in humans.
Regardless the same thing is true of the far greater biologival difference between Covid and RATG13 – we know Covid came from RATG13 – I am not aware of any disagreement on that. But nowhere on earth do NAY intermediaries exist. and Covid is not closely related to RATG13 – there are thousands of mutaions between them.
In human terms that is as if Homo Sapiens derived from Home Neanderthalis yesterday – not between 300-900,000 years ago.
“The Collateral Myths: You claim suicides went up due to public health policies. This is factually false. According to final CDC data, U.S. suicide rates actually droppedin 2020 during the height of the lockdowns.”
Nope.
” While delayed cancer screenings and economic hits were real, tragic costs, public health officials weren’t acting as “Philosopher Kings”—they were trying to prevent an immediate collapse of the ICU infrastructure, which would have caused millions more preventable deaths from routine emergencies.”
You keep using the word preventable – as if it is within a million miles of True.
The initial transmission rate of Wuhan Covid was 2.5-3.5.
Find any example anywhere EVER where humans have reduced the transmission rate of an airborne virus below 1.0 ?
It does not happen EVER.
Yes they were playing “philosopher king”
They were trying something that was easy to prove would not work, to accomplish something that we have never ever come close to accomplishing before.
The only instances ever where we have accomplished what we are talking about here is with Vaccines. That is why Trump bet Huge on Project Warp speed.
Buit vaccines do not work on viruses that mutate rapidly. In fact while there are occasional diseases that vaccines are incredibly effective against.
Those are are. We have no vaccine for the common cold.
Regardless, when you have a virus that does not mutate fast that antibodies can be developed against and that the half life of immunity is decades – Then and only then can you knock the transmission rate down.
Regardless you are spewing nonsense.
Anyone with a simple computer model can tell you that to reduce the number of covid deaths you must do something that has never ever been done before and you must do it very quickly. AND that every single think in your long list of public policies targeted at doing exactly that did not come within a factor of 1000 of working.
Over time the transmission rate of Covid went UP not down. Making the task even harder.
The FACT is from the moment that covid leaked out of the lab and was not contained quickly in china, about 1/3 of the world was going to eventually be infected.
Absolutely nothing on earth was going to change that.
What COULD be done is we COULD have protected those most at risk of dying.
But you can not do so by trying to stop Covid everywhere – that is impossible.
You can do it by focusing on protecting ONLY those most likely to die from Covid and otherwise burning the disease through the planet as fast as possible – and hoping that it does not become endemic – which is 10,000 times more likely as you try to SLOW IT DOWN.
Liutterally Everything done by global health “exports” was completely Wrong.
Absent bad policies the likelyhood of Covid becoming endemic was LOW – Where is the 1918 spanish flu ? the Hong Kong flu ? Any of myriads of other epidemics.
The diseases that stay with us forever have mostly been with us in some form forever.
New disease run accross the world rapidly and as immunity rises they die. The half life of immunity to Covid is between 6 and 18 months. If you want it to burn out – it MUST run throgh the world FAST.
Further if you are trying to protect the most vulnerable you can only do so for a short time.
I told you masks are 77% effective PER EXPOSURE. You can mask an old person and if you isolate them and you burn through covid quickly you will save MANY of them with masks and some of the other policies you pushed. – But only if they are narrowly targeted at the most vulnerable.
Something that is 77% effective per exposure Will give people a a 50:50 chance of avoiding Covid after 2 exposures. But it will not work for ever.
5 or size exposures and the aggregate effectiveness is Zero and the person gets covid and if they are vulnerable – they likely die.
You can not protect those at risk by protecting everyone.
The woprst thing you can do is slow the progression of the disease through the world.
Lets see the GBD says in essence – lets return to doing what we have done for centuries – that works about as well as we can hope – which is not well.
And You conclude that uis evil and that we should jump to something no one has ever tried before because it has a great deangfer of making the disease endemic – which it has, and which is premised on claims like “overloading the health care system” – which are preposterous – because we have known for centuries how to avoid that.
Not only have we known – but early on Health officials in places like NYC were setting up to do exactly that – to treat Covid in tents in Central park or in Javits center or in Hospital ships – ANYWHERE EXCEPT in our hospitals where the people most likely to be killed by Covid were.
US hospitals were never near being overrun. Why ? Because there never were enough very serious covid cases AND because people avoided hospitals like the plague
Which itself created more health problems and deaths.
No the GBD was not dangerous. Would it have saved lives ? With certainty the death rate would have been lower. But probably only 10-20% lower.
The FACT is there is just not much you can do about a highly contagious fatal disease.
But as always the left demands that we do something – even something stupid that will predictably fail – just to be seen as doiing something.
Virtue signally is var more important than actually saving lives – easpecially when you get to virtue signal – but others have to do the work and suffer the consequences.
X first I doubt any rational expert said what you claim.
Next it is obvious utter nonsense.
The multi generational family with Grandma in the same house as mom and dad, and the kids is quite rare today. We have people moving to senior communities in their 50’s.
BY CHOICE. Even among communities like the amish where there are real multigenerational families – the grandparents live in a separate home on the farm.
Regardless, you would think that Covid is the first epidemic that humans have ever experienced ?
Even during the Spanish Flu in 1918 the unhealthy separated as best as they could from the sick – and that is despite the fact that the Spanish Flu was unusual in that if killed the healthy while only mildly infecting the weak.
Regardless although the pronounced targeting of the unhealthy in Covid is unusual. Nearly all communicable disease kill primarily unhealthy people with no immunity.
That is nothing new. The GBD’s approach is actaully what we have been doing for centiruies.
The flatten the curve nonsense is from a 2008 science fair project and was never tried before and likely never will It was a predictable failure that rests on false premises – which you keep repeating.
You can not ever accidentally overwhelm the healthcare system with a disease you can not treat – Because there is no treatment. For centuries we have protected our hospitals from epidemics by treating the “fever” victims in separate often makeshift fascilities mostly without the best of our healthcare professionals – because you do not need “experts” to treat something that has no treatment. And even if there was a treatment – if you have an isolated fascility for 2000 people with the same disease – you can teach a homeless person how to care for the people in the fascility in a few hours. You do not need nor want the best of your healthcare system working to treat something that a monkedy can learn how to deal with.
Nothing like the lifting of the DEM SWORD OF DAMOCLESE once the Biden Heavy Handed Communists (oops, I mean Socialists) are no longer in power for the former Bidenesta’s to have an epiphany that includes a recanting of the Gospel! I believe it is also called LYING WHORES FINDING JESUS? Bah haha!!!
Turley defends controversial figures like Jay Bhattacharya and Scott Atlas, lamenting that they were “hounded and marginalized” or called “purveyors of misinformation.” Well duh, they were pushing a really bad idea at the time. Smarter people knew it was a bad idea. Just because it is different does not mean it is automatically a good idea.
Turley plays a shell game with why these scientists faced severe pushback. They were not criticized by the public health community because they asked questions about the virus’s origins; they were criticized because they aggressively championed the Great Barrington Declaration. This document advocated for “focused protection”—essentially letting the virus rip through the younger population to achieve natural herd immunity before vaccines were available. Mainstream epidemiologists overwhelmingly rejected this approach because it would have caused catastrophic, unmanageable mortality rates.. Their idea as to let millions die to allow the rest to gain immunity. Turley falsely reframes a pushback against a dangerous public policy proposal as “censorship of origin theories.” They essentially promoted the idea of purging the weak to save the strong through “natural means”.
This is shockingly ignorant. You immediately lose all credibility when you lead with, “they were pushing a really bad idea at the time.” You immediately follow with the term, “vaccine.”
There was never a vaccine. There is no vaccine. To claim today that there is just shows your shocking ignorance.
Masks were worthless, we knew this at the time, but the government decided to gaslight us and the CDC deleted studies showing the worthlessness of masks from their own website. But to point this out was a “conspiracy theory.”
6-foot rule was worthless. A 1950s theory that was debunked in the 1980s. Yet to point that out was a “conspiracy theory.”
Shutting down schools. Worse than worthless, actively harmful.
The “shot” will stop the spread. Wait, I mean it will prevent transmission. Not that either? Ok, it’ll reduce the severity of the virus (completely unproveable so it can’t be wrong!). Side effects? Nah, it doesn’t have any of those! Those healthy young men dropping dead? Completely normal!
X – you often word vomit stupid things on this website. But this is a strange hill to die on. Everything about COVID destroyed all credibility the medical community had. They will never be trusted again. The term “expert” has become a punchline. Truly you are the best GOTV for the GOP around. I wish I could bring you to events. You would energize people to support the GOP wherever you go!
Speaking of ignorance,
Claiming there is “no vaccine” is just flat-out denial of basic biology. mRNA and viral vector technologies are legally, scientifically, and medically classified as vaccines because they stimulate an immune response to prevent severe disease. No scientist ever claimed they were 100% foolproof against transmission, but they did save millions of lives by keeping people out of ICUs.
As for your other points: the CDC never “deleted studies proving masks are worthless”—that is a recycled internet myth. The 6-foot rule was a baseline mitigation tool, not an absolute barrier, because public health responses adapt as new airborne data emerges. While school closures had real societal costs, they were implemented before vaccines existed to prevent a complete collapse of our healthcare system. Turning a complex global health crisis into a partisan cheering section doesn’t make you right; it just shows you care more about political theater than historical accuracy.
“Turley defends controversial figures like Jay Bhattacharya and Scott Atlas”
The only controversy is that idiots like YOU demonized competent experts who were Right while sainting incompetent ones that were wrong.
Neither Jay Bhattacharya nor Scott Atlas are “controversial.
“lamenting that they were “hounded and marginalized” or called “purveyors of misinformation.” Well duh, they were pushing a really bad idea at the time. ”
The truth is never a bad idea. Further when instead of refuting someone you resort to ad hominem that is a strong sign you KNOW they are correct.
“Smarter people knew it was a bad idea. ” – Yes the same idiots who funded the development of a engineered virus that infected over a Billion and killed millions – those
smart people” then proposed to correct their malfeasance with an approach that rejected centuries of past experience and substitutes a decade old science fair project that was not even mathematically sound.
Yes, We are supposed to take their word over experts who are saying – Do what has always worked in the past.
“Just because it is different does not mean it is automatically a good idea.” The GBD is not “different” it is essentialy what we have done for centuries.
The flatten the curve nonsense that we followed is what is “different” – and it was not even mathematically sound from the start.
“Turley plays a shell game with why these scientists faced severe pushback. ”
More word games. Disagree with them if you wish – have the public debate.
What you call pushback – was not the reasoned counter argugments you claim – it was demonization, censorship and silencing.
It is what those with power do when they are wrong to those who challenge them. And that is why Turley is “defending” them.
“They were not criticized by the public health community because they asked questions about the virus’s origins;”
Jay Bhattacharya and Scott Atlas were not associated with challenging the virus’s origens.
They were leaders in trying to stop the idiotic approach to public health policy that Fauxi and is ilk wrought upon the world.
What the so called government public health exports foist upon us was NEVER going to work – it could not come close to the mathematically required effectiveness to work.
Worse still it was an apprach that when it failed would result in MORE no less deaths.
We have discussed curves before – MANY things distribute on a bell curve – measures seeking to reduce the spread of an infectious disease DO NOT.
If you reduce the transmission rate of a deadly virus but you FAIL to get it below 1 – the result is that is stays arround much longer and you have to protect the most vulnerable longer with tools that are ineffective – the result is MORE deaths – not less.
We keep debating Masks – though all the other tools work similarly. N95 masks do reduce your chance of getting covid when you are exposed to covid. But their effectiveness is such that with enough exposures you will eventually get covid.
Masks DO NOT WORK as a part of any public health program to reduce the transmission rate below 1.
But they CAN reduce deaths among the most vulnerable ONLY if you can also reduce the number of times the most vulnerable are exposed.
Any public health measures that reduce the transmission rate without getting it below 1 will make result in MORE deaths not less,
Because the most vulnerable will be exposed more and eventually their masks will fail.
The exact same analysis works for pretty much all public health measures saint Fauxi and company foist on us.
” they were criticized because they aggressively championed the Great Barrington Declaration.”
No they were attackiung the people – not the proposal. That is what left wing nuts do when they do not have an argument.
That and word games.
” This document advocated for “focused protection”—essentially letting the virus rip through the younger population to achieve natural herd immunity before vaccines were available.” – very losing speaking correct.
” Mainstream epidemiologists overwhelmingly rejected this approach because it would have caused catastrophic, unmanageable mortality rates.”
Nope Jay Bhattacharya and Scott Atlas ARE the mainstream – Fauxi and company are NOT – they are just the ones with power.
Regardless this is not about “mainstream” – Einstein was not “mainstream” – he was right. Regardless your claim is OBVIOUSLY false.
“Focused protection” results in lower mortality. Would you debate that if we could take every person over 65 and every person with one or more comorbidities and transport them to another planet where there was no COVID that we would cut covid deaths by a factor of about 50 ?
Covid is only lethal for a tiny fraction of the population. It kills an incredibly small number of healthy people under 65. I do not beleive there was a single death of anyone under 18 in the US that did not have a serious health problem – NOT ONE. My recollection was that total deaths under 24 were a bit over 100 but when I checked the CDC data it was significantly UNDER 100. And again those were all people with health problems. Many many times more people under 24 died of car accidents or drug overdoses or suicide during covid.
Conversely if you are over 85 and you get Covid you have a 1 in 3 chance of dying.
The core to the GBD is IT IS PHYSICALLY IMPOSSIBLE TO PROTECT THE ENTIRE POPULATION. Trying to do so will not only fail but it will risk covid becoming endemic – which si what has happened AND it will result in MORE deaths – because we only have imperfect protection even for the most vulnerable, so every additional day covid is arround increases the total number of deaths as poor protection slowly fails.
Whether you like it or not the GBD is not a new theory – it is a centuries old approach and it is mathematically correct.
It does not try to do what is obviously impossible. it does as well as possible what is actually possible.
“Their idea as to let millions die to allow the rest to gain immunity.”
Nope – and again a stupid mischaracterization.
The term “herd immunity” was bandied about alot. While it is a very real thing and it is acheivable. That is NOT actually how things work.
In the US there were about 100M covid infections – that is less than 1/3 of the people. It is a very very very rare diseas that Ever infects more than 1/3 of a population.
What of the other 2/3rd ? Some are naturally immune, some are sufficiently isolated that the disease does not get to them, Some were exposed but not strongly and managed to fight it off. Put simply a large portion of people in a normal epidemic are not going to get infected even if you do nothing. That is not herd immunity. That is just the nature of the way infectious diseases work.
We have discussed the fact that masks are only 77% effective. But doing absolutely nothing ALSO has an effectiveness.
Have two people – one infected interact and the other is not going to get covid 100% of the time. There are many factors that go into to that, but it is why it is very rare to have a disease that infects EVERYONE. Even Covid did not do that.
We get the flu every year. The flu typically has a transmission rate of 1.1-1.4 – far less than covid. At best only 20% of people get vaccinated against the flu and the flu vaccine is only about 30% effective – yet we do not get 350M flu cases a year – without doing anything – the vast majority of people do not get the flu and the flu dies out.
That is not “herd immunity” it is just the way diseases spread.
The Flu burns out every year – without coming close to “herd immunity”
Every other epidemic that ever was has also burned out – before reaching herd immunity.
The disease passes through a community like a tidal wave – and then moves on. But it does not infect everyone as it passes through.
We see this with the flu – we saw this with Covid.
When you “flatten the curve” – you do not get a tidal wave AND you do not get the disease moving on.
If you disrupt the flow of the “wave” through the population – if you slow the spread down enough, the disease becomes endemic – it stays – like the common cold and it never goes away.
And that is exactly what happened with Covid.
Not only did YOU kill people by engaging in illegal and unethical research – but YOUR idiotic approach to public health has given us a new disease that is never leaving.
We have had flu epidemics for more than a century. We have never had the same flu twice. A specific flu comes, it goes – sometimes there are two waves, but it always leaves and never to return.
” Turley falsely reframes a pushback against a dangerous public policy proposal as “censorship of origin theories.” ”
TGurley is not reframing anything – you are pushback as in serious debate over ideas is not censorship – censorship is what actually happened – not pushback
“They essentially promoted the idea of purging the weak to save the strong through “natural means”.”
Now your just flat out lying.
The SPECIFICALLY propose PROTYECTING ONLY the weak – because the strong would survive.
That is the OPPOSITE of what you claim.
BTW Everyone who has survived covid did so through “natural means” .
Only since 2022 has there been any approved treatment – Paxlovid – and that only for the most vulnerable, because paxlovid is toxic.
Al the public health measures did not work – except to make covid endemic.
The vaccine has been a failure. The post mortem is still being done, but almost no country is recomending it for kids.
Many countries have dropped it entirely and a few are still recomending it for the most vulnerable.
There is ample evidence that the vaccine itself is very dangerous, and we know it is not very effective.
For most people the risk from the vaccine is greater than the risk from covid. It is entirely possible that is true for all people.
McCarthy was proven right too. Yet he is still vilified.
Turley frames Jha’s interview as an admission that the natural mutation theory is “not as credible” and asserts that lab leak proponents have been “vindicated.”
Wow, talk about dishonesty. Turley falsely implies that the scientific debate is over and that the lab leak theory is now the definitive fact. In reality, the U.S. intelligence community and global scientific bodies remain sharply divided, with some agencies leaning toward a natural spillover and others toward a low-to-moderate confidence lab leak. Dr. Jha himself emphasized the baseline reality: “No one in America knows for sure. Anyone telling you they do is selling you something… Reasonable people can look at the same evidence and disagree.” Turley erases this explicitly stated nuance to manufacture a false sense of absolute consensus.
“In reality, the U.S. intelligence community and global scientific bodies remain sharply divided, with some agencies leaning toward a natural spillover and others toward a low-to-moderate confidence lab leak.”
Leaked internal docs show YOU ARE A LIAR. Even those (like Fauchi) who publicly advocated for the wet market theory knew that lab leak was infinitely more likely.
Now the environment allows for them to come forward with what they always thought without losing the chance to go to parties. Our own intelligence organs supported lab leak but were prohibited from stating that publicly. There was only 1 correct theory under Biden, the LIE.
Just take the “L” on this one. To continue to piss into the wind on this debunked and known lie is just you embarrassing yourself.
Screaming “LIAR” in all caps doesn’t magically rewrite declassified U.S. intelligence reports.
The ODNI has repeatedly stated that there is no consensus on the pandemic’s origins. Even the agencies that favor the lab leak theory—like the Department of Energy—have explicitly designated their assessments as “low confidence”. Meanwhile, the vast majority of peer-reviewed virologists and global health bodies still point to overwhelming evidence of an animal origin at the Wuhan wet market. Calling a well-documented, ongoing scientific and intelligence split a “debunked lie” is just a projection of your own partisan bias. Maybe YOU should take the L on this one.
What’s the intermediate animal host?
Why do none of the hundreds of other sarbecoviruses have a furin cleavage site?
Why did the only natural spillover of a bat virus collected 600-900 miles away occur in the home of the Wuhan Institute of Virology, which Fauci gave taxpayer dollars to conduct gain of function research on bat viruses, using Daszak’s EcoHealth Alliance as a conduit?
Dr. Ashish Jha, conceding the lab leak may be the likely answer, admitting to this change in point of view, that is what a intellectual is.
Michael Hiltzik on the other hand, is not.
The question is, does he truly believe in his point of view? Or is his ego getting in the way?
Turley describes Dr. Ashish Jha as a former “denier of the lab theory” who performed a sudden “180-degree turn”.
This is a disingenuous misrepresentation of Dr. Jha’s consistent position. As Jha explicitly clarified directly after the interview, this view isn’t new—he has held it since his time working in the White House. Furthermore, in the very quote Turley provides, Jha notes his initial view was that it was a “natural outbreak, maybe a lab leak.” Going from considering a lab leak as a secondary possibility to viewing it as a stronger circumstantial probability based on non-transparent Chinese data is an evaluation of evolving evidence—not a hypocritical flip-flop.
It does not matter what people believe. The lab leak theory has been shown to be wrong multiple times. None of the data supports it and all the data supports natural.
Science does not accept “dissenting” viewpoints that contradict the data. Same way science would not accept a flat earther.
Look! An expert has spoken!
“It now appears using epi data and genomic data that the first infection was in early December and was not connected to the market.”
— Dr. Anthony Fauci, 26 January 2020
@Upstate
I am positive my wife and I had it January of 2020. We were over it, and without any special intervention by the time of lockdown and likely immune *the entire time* afterward. Didn’t have so much as a sniffle after that, and we were not going out of our way to honor ‘the rules’.
It was madness, all of it, and there is no way it was not coordinated, IMO. I could’ve been cancelled or worse for saying any of that in the wrong place, at the time.
James,
Agreed.
“One way” arrows on grocery store floors, the six foot rule (that even now they admit just kinda appeared with no science backing), the forced vaccines or lose your job, people driving by themselves in their cars wearing a mask, people doubling up on masks, two weeks to flaten the curve that turned into two years, it was all absurd.
And then when the data began showing the survival rate were something like 99.998% but they would not even look at that science and just keep the lockdowns going. By then, the rest of us knew it was all BS. The data also showed the elderly with comorbidities were the ones most likely to die from it.
In the end it turned out The Great Barrington Declaration was right all the long: Protect the very young, the very old, those with compromised immunity. The rest of us, get on with our lives.
It was funny to watch when the governor re-opened the state economy, which was a joke in the first place. No reason given, just an announcement on X and on the governors website, “We are open!” We all said to ourselves and others, “That is it? We went through all of this and poof! Just like that! It is over?”
“The rest of us, get on with our lives.”
Exactly.
The Left’s mindless fear mongering amounted to:
OMG! Tomorrow, we’re all gonna die of Alzheimer’s.
Well, not really. That disease cripples a very small group of individuals with very specific characteristics.
“The lab leak theory has been shown to be wrong multiple times.”–@Sally
@Sally: then how about providing multiple (or, at least a few) citations showing that “[the] lab leak theory has been shown to be wrong multiple times” please?
This should be an easy request to fulfill if there are so many papers on the topic.
I have many times. It does not matter, MAGAs just ignore them.
So much for Nullius in Verba, eh pinhead?
Right question; wrong audience.
Maybe even the wrong author given that Horace was likely a flat-earther and a geocentrist.
-g
What’s the intermediate animal host?
Masked palm civet for SARS.
Dromedary camel for MERS
??? for SARS-CoV-2
Sally, science will consider dissenting viewpoints until they go through the peer review process. Dissenting viewpoints are tested and compared with other data first before either being accepted or rejected.
The majority consensus already considered and reviewed the theories behind the Great Barrington Declaration and showed why it was the absolute wrong approach. They had every right to propose that approach and despite the Professor’s claims they were not censored. They were still able to post their view like anyone else. The difference is once it was determined it was a bad idea it was THEN objected as a serious consideration. Turley equates that as censorship. Which is why his characterization of the rejection in his view is censorship.
“. . . missed the scientific animation in the video that shows how it is virtually impossible for this virus to jump from the lab.” (“Fact Checker” Kessler)
Let me get this straight:
A person working at the Wuhan lab *cannot* contract the virus. Then that person *cannot* leave the lab and go to, say, a wet market. Then that person *cannot* transmit the virus to another person (or *animal*) at the wet market.
And all those “cannots” are “proven” by “scientific animation” (which, by the way, is make believe).
Genius. Pure genius.
That would not explain the genetic samples taken from the market. Also the first outbreaks were not among lab employees or their close contacts.
“That would not explain the genetic samples taken from the market.”
You can’t be that dense.
My scenario explains exactly that.
Do we really know that? IIRC our Chinese friends in Wuhan were less than forthcoming with information in 2020. Stories circulated that lab records were destroyed en masse. None of us have any info to confirm or deny that. But we do know Wuhan was doing some work at the behest of the USA- a bad look now but horrendous in 2020 as this unfolded.
Genetic samples taken from the market?
Which animal?
Which stall?
Purveyor’s name and address?
Being a good s@@tlib means never having to say you are sorry.
antonio
Trump never says he’s sorry.
Why should he. Not a doctor, but did all the could to try and find a cure.
You’re right, he’s not a doctor. He’s just a moron.
The moratorium against gain of function research ended in December 2017 when the NIH resumed funding. It is not too difficult to imagine that everything possible would have been done to hide the likelihood that the COVID-19 SARS virus was accidentally released from a laboratory which the citizens of the United States was funding through their Tax dollars. It’s like finding out the truth of why of the recommended compliment 64 life boats on the Titanic was ultimately reduced to 16, or that the Lusitania was carrying contraband explosives when it was torpedo and sunk in 1915.
Fauci must be punished with crushing tariffs.
Agreed. And after that, NYC and LA, too. They like taxes. Let them eat tariffs.
Gee, maybe in a few more years they can connect the dots that it was intentional to subvert a Trump second term.
Yep
I have long thought that as well. Speculation about it is as old as the lab leak theory itself. But unless evidence of it is in currently classified U.S. govt documents that might one day be declassified and released (and I think any such release would be extremely unlikely), we will probably never learn whether it is true. Of course, the Chinese govt must know for sure, but they will never, ever release any confirmation of an unintentional lab leak, much less of an intentional one. We probably know as much about it right now as we will ever know.
Res ipsa loquitor, as our host calls it. Like a trout in the milk.
There’s a difference between the people who caused the problem then dictated sometimes silly remedies that they didn’t personally follow and those responsible for treating the victims. Never confuse the two. People are angry at the former not the latter. The people responsible for treating the victims should understand why the victims are angry.
Pointing to and condemning boogeyman like Trump or RFK is just a distraction. They didn’t build and spread the virus. “The experts” did.
The people who took a harmless bat virus and juiced it up with illegal gain of function research in a 3rd rate virology lab in China then recommended ventilators and a vaccine they just happen to have ready for sale soon after the pandemic started. These people are not credible. They are culpable.
They told us the virus came from bats and pangolins in a wet market down the street from the lab with screen door security. They have never found a wild or domesticated animal, of any sort, with the virus to this day. They are still looking; or so they say.
Everything they told us about the vaccine was a lie. Most notably and most importantly the vaccine does not stop transmission or lesson severity. They admit this. This is not debatable.
They kept the country locked down and the kids out of school for far too long. They told us that racism was as big, or bigger, problem than the virus and encouraged deranged people to violently protest and burn businesses, whos owners were already suffering, for more than a year. Many small businesses closed and never recovered.
They cancelled and ruined the livelihoods of people who disagreed. Many of the dissenters had more degrees and experience than the cowards running the show.
Big box stores could operate; but small businesses were crushed. Much of the PPP money, allocated for small business was stolen.
The sick and elderly were the most susceptible to the virus and were also the most brutally punished. Multiple governor’s and health officials sent sick patients back into nursing homes infecting more people and killing 10’s of thousands. Visitation was stopped. Funerals were discouraged and/or outlawed. Shame on us. Shame on them.
They mocked the dead by giving one criminal 5, star studded, funerals followed by the erection of multiple monuments.
The cowards running the show exempted themselves from any of the demands or consequences and refuse to apologize to this day. Unbelievably Congress exempted themselves from vaccine mandates.
People who would arrest fellow citizens outdoors and insist that you wipe down and disinfect groceries got everything wrong; yet they still insist on respect and praise to this day. G_d help us if we are hit by a similar or worse virus again. The people behind “the science” have ruined their credibility. The living victims of their overreach and incompetence will not soon forget. The crime is too big to describe in any simple post. We are absolutely fuc_ed if it happens again.
Life as a stooge is much more comfortable, especially in academia.
every person and government official who fired people, should be fired and have any and pension TAKEN!
democrats are evil
it is basically like chasing Nazis post war
With in six months of the out break, all the non Fauci data points to a lab leak. And it did not take top long to figure that the shots did not work & getting booster made no sense. Not verified YET, but more babies born of Covid vaccinated parents are having deformities. Fauci & company committed crimes against humanity & we need a Military Tribunal to make things right.
We still don’t know the long term effects these monsters have unleashed with their greed and criminal overreach
Galileo is laughing himself silly.