Why did senior U.S. Government Covid adviser Dr. Anthony Fauci and other leading scientists seek to quash any suggestion of a lab leak origin back in early 2020 and ensure it was written off as a conspiracy theory? That’s what many people are asking now that a lab leak is being seen, including by Dr. Fauci himself and President Joe Biden, as a possibility worth investigating.
In May 2020, Dr Fauci was unequivocal: “If you look at the evolution of the virus in bats and what’s out there now, [the scientific evidence] is very, very strongly leaning toward this could not have been artificially or deliberately manipulated… Everything about the stepwise evolution over time strongly indicates that [this virus] evolved in nature and then jumped species.” Yet now he has changed his tune. On May 11th he stated that he is “not confident” the virus developed naturally and he is “perfectly in favour of any investigation that looks into the origin of the virus”.
The controversy has escalated in the last couple of days after the publication of emails from February 2020 that show Dr. Fauci being told by Dr. Kristian Andersen, Director of Infectious Disease Genomics at the Scripps Research Institute, that SARS-CoV-2 features “look engineered“.
In the emails, obtained by BuzzFeed through Freedom of Information enquiries, Dr. Anderson wrote: “I should mention that after discussions earlier today, Eddie, Bob, Mike, and myself all find the genome inconsistent with expectations from evolutionary theory. But we have to look at this much more closely and there are still further analyses to be done, so those opinions could still change.”
It seems the opinions did change, as six weeks later Dr. Anderson was a lead signatory of a letter in Nature that declared: “The evidence shows that SARS-CoV-2 is not a purposefully manipulated virus.”
In the wake of the revelation about his February email, Dr. Anderson has doubled down and defended his Nature letter, tweeting: “As I have said many times, we seriously considered a lab leak a possibility. However, significant new data, extensive analyses, and many discussions led to the conclusions in our paper. What the email shows, is a clear example of the scientific process.”
But with the world increasingly convinced the lab leak hypothesis is a live possibility – and always was – it will be interesting to see how long Dr. Andersen can stick to his position that writing it off completely in March 2020 was “a clear example of the scientific process”. Veteran science journalist Nicholas Wade has already dismissed Anderson’s Nature letter as “another case of poor science”. It falsely assured readers “of something [the authors] could not know”, he writes, since “viruses can be manipulated in ways that leave no defining marks”.
Prior to the Nature letter, a letter in the Lancet in February 2020 from a group of virologists, organised by Dr Peter Daszak, had announced the “scientific consensus” that the media seemed to crave. It declared: “We stand together to strongly condemn conspiracy theories suggesting that COVID-19 does not have a natural origin… Scientists… overwhelmingly conclude that this coronavirus originated in wildlife. … Conspiracy theories do nothing but create fear, rumours, and prejudice that jeopardise our global collaboration in the fight against this virus.” However, it later came out that Dr Daszak’s organisation, EcoHealth Alliance, of which he is President, had funded coronavirus research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. Despite this, the authors wrote: “We declare no competing interests.”
Far from being a “conspiracy theory” to be quickly denounced by false scientific consensus, there was evidence right from the start that a lab leak was a real possibility – most obviously, the fact that the outbreak began in Wuhan and virus lab leaks are common.
The Wuhan Institute of Virology is a world leader in “gain-of-function” research on coronaviruses, so the idea that an unusually contagious coronavirus already adapted to infect humans might be present in the labs there and able to escape was always plausible. Nicholas Wade explains:
Why would anyone want to create a novel virus of greater pathogenicity? Virologists argue they can get ahead of a potential pandemic by exploring just how close a given animal virus might be to making the jump to humans. These enhancements of viral capabilities are known blandly as gain-of-function experiments but are so obviously dangerous that from 2014 to 2017 the U.S. Government placed a moratorium on funding them.
With coronaviruses, there was particular interest in the spike proteins, which jut out all around the spherical surface of the virus and pretty much determine which species of animal it will target. In 2000, Dutch researchers, for instance, earned the gratitude of rodents everywhere by genetically engineering the spike protein of a mouse coronavirus so that it would attack only cats.
At the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China, virologists have been doing exactly these kinds of experiments. The programme is headed by Dr. Zheng-li Shi, known as Bat Lady in China because of her intense interest in bat viruses. Dr. Shi gathered many coronaviruses from the bats that live in caves in Yunnan in southern China. She then took the spike protein genes from various viruses and inserted them into the genomes of other viruses. The goal was to explore the natural ability of the various spike proteins to attack human cells. As with other gain-of-function studies, the idea was to explore the genetic pathways by which an animal virus might jump to humans, and thus help forestall an impending epidemic.
Richard Ebright, a Molecular Biologist at Rutgers University, says the WIV’s research was no secret: “It is clear that the Wuhan Institute of Virology was systematically constructing novel chimeric coronaviruses and was assessing their ability to infect human cells and human-ACE2-expressing mice.”
Wade continues:
“It is also clear,” Dr. Ebright says, “that, depending on the constant genomic contexts [i.e., the particular viral backbone] chosen for analysis, this work could have produced SARS-CoV-2 or a proximal progenitor of SARS-CoV-2.”
How do we know for sure that this is what Dr. Shi was doing? Because, by a strange twist in the story, she was funded by grants from the National Institutes of Health, the US equivalent of the Medical Research Council. These grant proposals, channelled through Dr Daszak, and a matter of public record, make clear that she was testing the ability of various spike proteins to infect humanised mice.
In an interview on December 9th 2019, just before the outbreak of the pandemic became generally known, Dr. Daszak talked in glowing terms of how researchers at the Wuhan Institute of Virology had been reprogramming the spike protein and generating chimeric coronaviruses capable of infecting humanised mice.
“Well I think… coronaviruses – you can manipulate them in the lab pretty easily,” he said. “Spike protein drives a lot of what happens with coronavirus, in zoonotic risk. So you can get the sequence, you can build the protein, and we work a lot with Ralph Baric at UNC to do this. Insert into the backbone of another virus and do some work in the lab.”
The idea that SARS-CoV-2 might have leaked from such a lab – one studying a number of viruses closely related to SARS-CoV-2 – hardly seems beyond the realm of possibility, particularly when you realise that this research was often being done at a biosafety level similar to that of a dentist’s surgery: “You have to wear a lab coat and gloves, do experiments under a hood, put up a biohazard warning, and that’s about it”, writes Wade.
There’s other evidence too. Despite extensive surveys of wild animals, the closest known relative of the virus is found in bats 1,500km away from Wuhan in southern China. Yet the local population there were not the first infected, and the outbreak emerged while the bats were hibernating.
The Huanan seafood market in Wuhan has been ruled out as the origin because many of the earliest identified cases had no connection to it.
There is no sign of SARS-CoV-2 going through a process of adaptation to humans, but it was straight away highly transmissible among humans.
There is also evidence in the virus’s genetic structure. Virologist Dr David Baltimore explains: “When I first saw the furin cleavage site in the viral sequence, with its arginine codons, I said to my wife it was the smoking gun for the origin of the virus. These features make a powerful challenge to the idea of a natural origin for SARS2.”
Dr Angus Dalgleish has argued that: “The laws of physics mean that you cannot have four positively charged amino acids in a row. The only way you can get this is if you artificially manufacture it.” Dr Dalgleish has also said Chinese scientists have been deliberately covering their tracks: “We think that there have been retro-engineered viruses created. They’ve changed the virus, then tried to make out it was in a sequence years ago.”
In some ways it is odd that the mainstream narrative turned so firmly and quickly against the lab-leak theory given that it fits with the idea of an unusually deadly virus. Indeed, it is disliked by many sceptics for that reason, some of whom favour explanations that involve the virus not escaping from a lab but circulating globally below the radar for months or even years before it was discovered in Wuhan. To support this they cite evidence of SARS-CoV-2 antibodies being detected in blood samples in Europe from September 2019 or even earlier. However, it appears that all of these early “cases” were asymptomatic, and they are much more likely to be false positive results of the antibody test than genuine SARS-CoV-2 in Europe in summer 2019.
Is the mainstream anti-lab-leak movement an indication of the influence of China behind the scenes? Or is it an outgrowth of the vested interests of virologists defending their discipline and its favoured research projects and trying to avoid blame? Ethan Siegel’s latest piece in Forbes seems to indicate the latter, arguing that: “Seriously considering this shocking, ill-founded accusation serves to further undermine the autonomy and academic freedom of researchers around the world who work in highly specialised fields.” Shocking, ill-founded accusation? It’s not personal, Ethan, it’s just following the evidence.
Here’s a recap of key events and reports which may help to piece together the origin of the virus:
- On September 12th 2019 the main WIV database of sequences and samples was taken offline without warning or explanation and all requests to restore access to it have been refused. All 16 WIV virus databases were subsequently removed.
- A high-security part of the WIV appears to have had an emergency shutdown on October 7th 2019 for 18 days.
- WIV researcher Huang Yanling disappeared in late 2019 and the WIV falsely claimed she had not worked at the institute since 2015. The U.S. has suggested she may be “patient zero”.
- A leaked Chinese report looked back at hospital records and suggested the first patients infected with COVID-19 were being admitted to Wuhan hospitals in October.
- A U.S. military intelligence dossier which came to light in April 2020 documented a runaway epidemic in the Hubei region (of which Wuhan is the capital) in November (though the Pentagon has denied the existence of this dossier). Regional newspaper reports also suggest Covid was already circulating in Hubei in mid-November.
- In the U.K., the first official fatal infection was caught in England in December 2019, while the team behind Imperial College’s REACT study has reconstructed the infection curve in England from antibody data (so no PCR tests involved) and found infections occurring throughout December 2019 and also back into November (see below). (The new virus may not have taken off fully until the spring because of competing with the dominant flu strain, at which point it replaced it.)
Will everybody learn from this misplaced exercise in censorship and suppression? Or is it much more likely that they will carry on as before and not see the harm done by trying to impose a false scientific consensus and silence dissenters through fear and denial of platform?
To join in with the discussion please make a donation to The Daily Sceptic.
Profanity and abuse will be removed and may lead to a permanent ban.
The type of people who were rather too fond of the Soviet way of doing politics have pivoted to be rather too fond of the Chinese way of doing politics. Influenced no doubt by the flow of money from the Chinese into the organisations they work for.
The masks are Chinese. The test kits are Chinese. Areas that critique the Chinese have quietly disappeared – compare the number of Tibetan and Japanese studies departments now to the number in the early 1990s.
China is using its money and influence for global political purposes much as the US has done for decades. We need to start asking whether accepting that is in the British political interest and if not how we diversify against it.
Good points. The education industry is full of foreign money by design now. I don’t think those in charge care. Its up to individuals to seek out a way to divest from that machine.
And despite all their faults.. they make everything.. increasingly well in most cases..
Whilst we make increasingly less (next to fuck all) and have a government obsessing about our 1% contribution to the CO man-made climate change lie and the need for wind farms and vegan food and organic cotton cushion covers.
Yes. We need to start making our own things here.
Fauci’s book/payoff withdrawn, its title? ‘Expect the Unexpected’. Not even Mystic Meg Dr Cockup’s Fortran code could have foreseen that.
https://www.rt.com/usa/525519-fauci-book-disappears-amazon/
It makes for grim reading when a large section of the public have known this from the start due to the fact they asked the right questions and did their own research into people like Fauci and Ferguson.
I believe Government also knew the truth but were too weak and feeble to fight for truth. They have been too long at the teat of the globalists. It has taken patriotic Republican voters and the alternative media to expose this crime on humanity by listening to the real virologists and immunologists instead of the shills of global marxists.
Well put.
Alexander
Indeed.
You could have mentioned one of the primary aims of this whole Planneddemic was to depose the legitimate president and install the present puppet.
Slightly gave yourself away with the ‘Evil Juice’, managed to stay off the lizards though so well done for that.
Keep digging and eventually you’ll bury yourself.
Have I missed something? What’s this got to do with Jews?
Your last paragraph is very good though.
Well, I owe every single rhetorical frill and startlingly apposite pop-cultural allusion in that paragraph to Hitler, so that just goes to show you…
It’s a sad indictment of modern times that Jew hatred is fashionable again. I agree with you that there are shady people orchestrating this, but Jews? The Jews? Disgusting.
I suppose I just prefer to be specific. The “shady people” line of approach just makes it too easy for people who are not really serious about opposing the maniacally cruel and brutal things that are being done to us to slither and wriggle slowly out of it into the “mistakes were made but after all we’re in a pandemic / they’re just trying to cover their asses” area of weak collaboration and apology for genocide.
Name any specific group of conspirators behind this you wish and argue for the naming of that specific group if you can. (I don’t think you’ll get very far with “the Chinese” or “the top-hatted cigar-smoking capitalists” but you can try). But don’t try to tell me, at this point, that this is not a cunningly orchestrated conspiracy led by some tightly organized group, ethnic or otherwise
Sure, as I said I have no problem agreeing that there are “shady people”. I could be very specific and say the Rockefeller family, who are not Jewish, but along with the non-Jewish Morgan family are very likely to have been the American generals of the very Jewish Rothschild family.
The Rockefellers are the original vaccine philanthropists, may very well have caused the Spanish Flu with a failed meningitis vaccine and are behind the ID2020 project along with Bill Gates. They also have the unique title of being the founders of the world’s biggest oil company (Exxon) while being the biggest sponsors of green energy, the Green New Deal, carbon credits and suing the very company they created and put into public hands. They are one hundred percent behind the drive towards One World Government through the CFR and Trilateral Commission.
Their involvement is so brazen they might as well have appointed themselves a global royal family.
If by “green energy” you mean “wind and solar” then it would make perfect sense for an oil dynasty like the Rockefellers to sponsor it.
Because wind and solar power aren’t controllable by humans but are dependent on the vagaries of the weather they need to be backed up by another power source, and natural gas (produced from the same wells as oil) is ideal for this purpose because gas-fire power stations can respond far more quickly to the changing power output of wind turbines or solar panels, than coal-fired or nuclear power stations can (because in mechanical terms, gas-fired power stations are like jet engines, while coal-fired and nuclear power stations are steam engines).
There are at least three known instances of Western politicians following anti-nuclear policies as a result of gas-funded corruption: Bettino Craxi in Italy (bribed by North African gas interests), Ed Markey in Massachusetts (a terminal for importing LNG was located in his constituency), and Gerhard Schröder in Germany (who got a €500k/year post at Nordstream AG after leaving office).
And the Rockefeller Foundation itself has played a role since very early on in blackening the image of nuclear energy: it started way back in 1945 when they made geneticist Hermann Muller an offer that he was in no position to refuse.
Absolutely, Matt.
Would these guys like to post under their real names?
Why would you want to know real names? Are you threatening something? Alexander hasn’t said anything offensive and he’s entitled to his opinion.
You think scapegoating “the Jews” for a global pandemic and the subsequent profiteering isn’t offensive? No, it’s actually “brave”, isn’t it. Maybe it’s the Hitler references you enjoyed?
This is about as low as the comment section on this site has sunk.
Alexander Reynolds is my real name. I’d be happy to post my real address too and invite people like you to actually come around and debate me about the Jewish nature of the current global imposition of totalitarianism – if only I didn’t know you well enough to be sure that you would send someone round to chuck a firebomb through my window and then get back to whingeing and whining to the Metropolitan Police Anti-Semitism Action Division about how someone gave you a nasty sideways look in the high street the other day.
“The Jew cries out in pain as he strikes you”.
Are you sure your antisemitism isn’t blinding you? Also be careful not to curse “the Jews” as in doing so you are putting yourself under God’s curse.
“I will bless those who bless you,
and whoever curses you I will curse;
and all peoples on earth
will be blessed through you.” Gen 12:3
Criticising a political system (e.g. Israeli government) and individuals whose actions you don’t think are right is of course valid and should always be welcomed.
Bit of a broadstroke which will trigger a lot of readers but also expose a lot to where their sympathies lies. A thoughtful analysis and understand where you are coming and it is indeed wheels within wheels as the episode with Trump makes clear.
It is plain there that are factions within the 1% that are fighting – the left hand path and the right hand path but whichever prevails it will end the same for the little guy on the street.
There is certain nuance to take from all this but the general point regarding the wuhan lab being distraction is well made. Probably brought to you by the same people who brought you Salisbury etc.
Right now that consensus appears that if this is going to be all over then there must be a way of channelling that into another phase and that will be the ‘china did it’ brigade exonerating as Cummings tried the role of western govts in their own destruction.
As the Chinese say ‘interesting times…’
The assumption driving Cummings and his ilk seems to have been that it was very dangerous and perhaps that was driven by knowledge of its origins. Now that the damage is done and the virus shown not to be dangerous to most people their problem of how to avoid blame for the collateral damage remains.
Cummings doesn’t seem to be in the least worried about “blame for collateral damage”. The show he put on last week placed him well to the “Keir Starmer” – i.e. “longer and harder lockdown” – side of Johnson and co.Cummings represents that faction within the people who are running this who clearly genuinely believe that no “hour of reckoning” will ever come, that they can just keep running this psy op forever. And with the “Indian variant” and now this “Hit the deck! It’s a deadly bio-weapon from Wuhan!” bullshit and God knows what else all as arrows in their quiver, it’s very likely this most psychotic and evil and relentless faction that has gotten it right.
Good piece Will.
“..possibility worth investigating”?? Fauci funded the bloody research that modified the coronavirus. He knows where it happened. To suggest it’s merely a possibility worth investigating is disingenuousness at its most extreme on his part. Needs quotation marks.
It is disheartening that scientists were made to lie. To say it looks engineered then recant; what the hell has been going on behind the scenes, serious threats made by state actors presumably. Say black is white ‘for the greater good’ or byebye career?
I couldn’t do that. I’d kiss my career off before I lied. It’s not worth the death of the soul.
You think rats like Fauci have souls?
Not Fauci. That guy who wrote him the letter.
Fauci is a psychopath
Yes! Dark and lost.
If covid had first appeared in a British or American city that just happened to be home to a virology lab would anyone have accepted that it was a mere coincidence?
No way
The Salisbury poison substance first occurred in 2018 in an English city only 7 miles from Porton Down, yet many people accepted that it was a ‘coincidence’.
As exposed on Craig Murray’s blog, Boris Johnson was caught in a lie when he claimed Porton Down had told him the so-called “Novichok” was definitely of Russian origin.
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2018/03/of-a-type-developed-by-liars/
Johnson: “Let me be clear with you … When I look at the evidence, I mean the people from Porton Down, the laboratory …”
DW.com interviewer: “So they have the samples …”
Johnson: “They do. And they were absolutely categorical and I asked the guy myself, I said, ‘Are you sure?’ And he said there’s no doubt.”
Dr This and Professor That! I now believe they are all a bunch if chancers and lying buggers
This is a sideshow. Who cares where the virus came from? Does it even exist? They’ll use this to encourage more people to take the jab. The virus is a bio-weapon, you must take the jab to protect yourself and others! So many people are unaware that we’re now living in an Orwellian nightmare, they need to wake up fast!
I agree, substantially, as far as the current shitshow is concerned. But if the Wuhan debacle starts people getting suspicious about other kinds of germ warfare, it may do good.
Bats and pangolins are innocent, OK?
Whoever came up with the idea of blaming pangolins had probably just been looking up “pandemic” in the dictionary and working on how the definition would be revised.
excellent point
As Will and other commentators have remarked, the Wuhan Lab removed data on coronaviruses on 12 September.
A smoking gun? This suggests/implies that whoever removed that data suspected there had been a virus escape – probably by seeing cases in staff or their families. This suggests the leak happened in early September, or even before.
Plenty of time for it to be widespread locally by the time of the Wuhan Games (18-27 October) and spread throughout the world by November, and for us in jolly Old Blighty to get a dose by Christmas (which I reckon the TJN household did).
And if so, any talk about border closures to halt the spread is nonsense.
And the modelling presented by Imperial in March was fundamentally flawed in its assumptions, even allowing for all its other faults.
What a mess, and because we couldn’t ‘follow science’, but rather sought political gamesmanship.
Excellent comment. Thanks.
I recall back in about May 2020 on this site Toby wondering whether the apparently unjustifiable lockdowns were actually explained by governments suspecting/knowing that the virus had been engineered and escaped from a lab, leaving them feeling obliged to take more stringent measures than they would for a natural virus.
Anyone else recall this? It. was in one of the daily updates, as I say literally a year or perhaps more ago.
It’s difficult to know what’s been going on with Toby this year, 2021, at least since about February. That’s been my take anyway.
Earlier, in January and before, prominent lockdown sceptics like him were coming in for a huge amount of flak. That seems to have worn off a bit now, but at the price of being broadly supportive of the vaccines? I don’t know. As you say, James D. has been steadfast throughout.
On what I understand of your broader point, yes it does indeed seem plausible that they would push the lab-leak-gain-engineered-virus narrative as a stage in Project Fear, maybe as a vaccine nudge.
(I ought to know about William Blake’s work, but don’t!)
It would be interesting if Toby were to read the comments and join in the discussion himself. As there is often a lot of commentary about him in here!
More often than not these days the words “science” and “scientist” are used to shut someone up and end a debate. What teenagers now would refer to as flexing.
They are probably the most misused words in the world right now.
Great article from Will Jones. The kind of well written and researched article which has been sadly missing from newspapers and broadcast media for the last year. Well done indeed.
Absolutely. Fortunately, now Buzzfeed have gotten their act together and CNN and the BBC can’t be too far behind. So expect to see darling old Will springing into the breach for Emily fucking Maitliss to defend the 15th UK lockdown – gotta stop that souped-up, gain-of-function, Bombay Gazpacho Weston Super Mare variantostrain that Buzzfeed will be on the trail of next year!!!! – early in 2022.
Please leave WSM out of this
The lab stuff is not news (https://thefatemperor.com/ep110-the-origin-of-the-species-and-of-our-viral-issue/) but I agree with the gist of the comments that it’s a distraction – we know how this 1.5 years has played out – fear, control, censorship blah blah but I’d like to know why and wtf we can do about it. I think (comments) ranting about new world orders and Jews (?!) are counter productive- I’m a Jew but obviously not the Jews – I’m more worried about pharma and tech hitching up for some utopia (dystopia) bio techno humanist hell.
I’m concerned that ‘ranting about … Jews’ will get this comment section taken down permanently, and we wouldn’t really have any grounds to complain.
It’s such a pity when there are so many good points being raised here, including in the unnecessarily offending posts your allude to.
It looks like a bunch of comments have been removed from this page.
Yes, not surprised, no complaints. In fact I’m only surprised it was so long before the thread was taken down.
An anagram for Dr Anthony Fauci is China Fraud Tony
Another is Deadly Nepal Variant
A down vote? clearly Dickslexicaphopia
There are those who seen it as engineered from the start but Re now saying it looks as if it was a CV vaccine that was being developed. It leaked and here we are. It still doesn’t have to be a deadly virus, the two are not mutually exclusive I my view. Sure, the Conservatives such as Rand Paul are opportunists too but this has a long way to run.
From what I understand the key is the Furin Cleavage Site on the spike which is the engineered element of the virus. There are patents for that, and there are research papers discussing such an experiment going back a decade. The researchers and the patents reveal a small group of scientists and, it is alleged, the patent leads all the way to Moderna.
https://mobile.twitter.com/ydeigin/status/1367758790532169730
Sure, there is always spin. However, its glaringly obvious you have a hard on for global cabal like conspiracy and a puppet master controlling it all. They have many leverage points to control the narrative but this to me looks to be spinning out of control.
Rand Paul gets his day in the sun but it won’t last long. More revelations to come.
https://mobile.twitter.com/Daoyu15/status/1400071737224556545
The virus does exist. Are you trying to suggest it doesn’t? It isn’t anywhere near as virulent (yet) or as much of a problem as suggested and the situation is being exploited, but it certainly exists.
I actually think that the dissidents are missing a trick here. I’ve been following UK Column, OffGuardian et al and they all want to believe that the virus is an entirely political construct.
The virus exists, it was engineered to be highly transmissible and to induce autoimmunity. It includes components from HIV and integrates with the hosts genome. It already contains a large number of components that mimic the human genome. I think we’re going down the wrong path in denying the virus’s existence.
However, it is the policy decisions and the gene based vaccines that will assure that the virus becomes the world’s first airborne autoimmune disease. The lockdowns separate people from others outside their households. This allows the virus to mutate without burning itself out. It is the genetic diversity of human populations that forces a virus to mutate away from virulence. All viruses follow a Gompertz Curve. All betacoronaviruses have gone through a single wave and been gone.
But “flattening the curve” will extend it and allow the virus to mutate. Also, inducing the body to produce a rationalised genetic model of a spike protein (not the real virus grown in culture), will again put the virus under mutation pressure and force it to mutate, after which we’re told there will be another useless vaccine. If it mutates for long enough eventually the human immune system will no longer be able to produce epitopes to counteract it and we’ll have an engineered autoimmune disease. This will have been brought about because of the lockdowns and the vaccines.
So, I don’t think we’re going to win this battle by denying that the virus exists. We need to take this head on and say that the virus does indeed exist and we need to deal with it in the same way that all other respiratory viruses have been dealt with – using the medication we have available (e.g. Ivermectin) and maintaining a strong immune system. Otherwise the consequences of lockdown and experimental gene therapy could make things much much worse.
Agreed. The problem people have is that nowhere in the world is an example of a ‘live’ virus being studied. Bits of it yes, but not the whole thing. Partly I think its because normally it takes time, far more than 18 months , to get a real handle on the actual virus. Computer models and bits of coding for the spike etc have taken over because they can be played with immediately. But they are only simulations, not ‘real’.
Please forgive a ‘broken record’, but based as I was in Thailand when all this kicked off, I could record to the day when ‘everything changed’. A signal went out from the US to lock the world down. All the modelling etc by Ferguson et al, were done to support that decision, not to lead it.
Drosten’s RT-PCR was designed early January on the basis of some coding from Wuhan.
No-one will ever know how SARS2 came into being, the answer is just too harmful for some.
The problem as you put so well, is now the vaccines/gene therapies plus any continuing social controls/distancing.
If the ultimate aim is to destroy the integrity of the human immune system and try to replace it with a cocktail of human engineered injections, then the current trajectory is spot on.
Personally I think history shows that it is stupid to dismiss the idea of Evil. Humans have shown they can be extremely evil if the ‘reward’ is great enough. And what greater reward than total global control for ever.
In amongst the notions that this is all a cock-up and opportunistic, it should not be dismissed that it also might be engineered.
Making the virus out to have super powers is also idiotic
it is a bog standard Corona cold, harmful to 82 yr olds and those already on the way out
Sars-Cov1 was (probably) already endemic without anyone noticing ( any excess deaths attributed to the flu)
They just put a new label on it and started testing everyone
The Fauci emails are a distraction
Excellent post – the best under this article so far.
Nobody is denying that a virus exists that has made people sick and some people to die.The question is: does a virus called Covid 19 actually exist (seeing it hasn’t been isolated)? If not, then is what they are calling covid just rebranded cold and flu? Or a strain of flu they engineered to be more transmissable?
Ask yourselves whether this line of investigation will lead to the corona madness being exposed or reinforced
I think the latter so the standard LS position on this should be that it’s a barely relevant distraction and that regardless of where COVID came from it’s the actions of world governments and others in response that has been the problem
I disagree – exposure of the cover up of the lab leak hypothesis will create reasons to distrust the narrative, as will things like the suppression of Ivermectin as a cheap, effective and safe treatment.
That won’t make the headlines. Most people just look at headlines.
The final chart showing infection seasonality is accompanied by a link to this 2017 paper by Fox et al: https://journals.plos.org/ploscompbiol/article?id=10.1371/journal.pcbi.1005749
it provides instructive reading in the seasonality of flu like pandemics generally. Their research shows conclusively that these pandemics do come in two waves, almost exactly as we have seen. The statements by Mike Yeadon, Ivor Cummings et al that ‘viruses don’t do waves’ massively damaged the case of those opposing the governments lockdown policy and is contradicted by research published three years prior.
Have we any idea what the mechanisms for the double waves might be?
The paper to which I linked covers it
Please summarise, as I’ve not heard an explanation in the same population which is consistent with immunology.
I can’t copy the authors summary at the start of the article but it basically said that the influenza outbreak in winter 2019/20 Might have conferred transitory immunity which restricted the spread of the first wave.
The report is about influenza not coronavirus. Its like comparing apples and pears. Influenza is capable of mutating rapidly and in significant ways. Coronavirus ( any) does not have these capabilities. It produces different strains but they are relatively modest variations , say 0.3% of the genome at each modification. If you get immunity to a coronavirus its probably for life, and makes you at least able to easily throw off most other strains. Its been pretty conclusively shown that SARS1 immunity confers adequate immunity to SARS2.
Mike Yeadon has not been shown to be wrong in this analysis, although you could be forgiven for thinking so given the vitriolic response in some quarters.
If you get immunity to a coronavirus its probably for life
But in that case why are so many colds caused by coronaviruses, and there are only four or five (??) coronaviruses which cause infections in humans?
Or maybe our immunity means we don’t get a serious illness??
Genuine questions. I’m not saying you’re wrong or anything, but just trying to understand what is going on, based on my fairly superficial knowledge of this subject (I have no medical background).
Being immune = it isn’t gonna kill you.
It doesn’t necessarily mean you’re not gonna have symptoms (however mild) whilst your body finds the right key for the lock.
A full blown 2-3 week cold, Niagra nose, swallowing glass with oyster ridden lungs is probably one you’ve either not had before or its gone full fancy dress – in some instances an entire sex change (no offence implied, wokesters).
Ok, thanks, so you’re saying a light cold may well mean it’s a virus which you have some previous immunity to.
The four endemic coronaviruses (and other common cold viruses for that matter) can also be deadly if they get into care homes but we don’t worry about them because the vast majority of us have prior immunity to them from when we first encountered them as children.
If someone manages to dodge one of those viruses in childhood only to be first infected as an adult it can be pretty nasty though: it’s likely the cause of ME (whose symptoms are very similar to “long Covid” because it’s basically the same thing, just with a different virus).
Ok thanks – I hadn’t heard of a link with ME.
I should have clarified that the report is from 2017 so I was mistaken in directly applying its conclusions to the Covid pandemic. It does however use flu as an example and model for the spread of pandemic infections. I believe that coronaviruses are responsible for around 25% of colds in humans so maybe there was transitory immunity from this in the population during the first wave. The Diamond Princess seemed to indicate that around 80% of those exposed do not fall ill, for example.
Coronaviruses spread more easily in winter than summer, so a level of infection-generated population immunity that is enough to curb the spread in the summer (and thus end the first wave) isn’t enough to stop the virus spreading again once autumn and winter come.
Look carefully at the more modest second gentle increase. That’s a secondary ripple, which I predicted. That’s the virus running through communities which didn’t reach herd immunity in spring. If you break down the data by region, the cases were separated in time, as you’d expect, and is why the slope of the ramp up is much less steep than in spring.
I am of the view that the huge Jan 2021 peak is secondary to initiation of mass vaccination. The timing fits exactly, in each age group & location (eg care homes vs community by age). In each region, cases rose in synchrony with roll out of mass vaccination everywhere, which is why the ramp is so steep. Quite unlike the late autumn, early winter secondary ripple.
It’s impossible for the same population to support an epidemic of the same pathogen, twice, in a short period of time. Not one which leaves each infected person immune.
I do appreciate you taking the trouble to reply Dr Yeadon!
I am not a scientist so can only report what I read and would be very interested in your reaction to the paper I quoted which was referenced in the LS article.
i do understand your argument about a ripple not a wave but unfortunately the subtlety of this was lost in the media which seized on your ‘viruses don’t do waves’ remark, and on many of my friends who similarly didn’t want to debate ripples vs waves – they just felt – oddly – reassured that Sage appeared to be right. My views about the disproportionate impact of lockdowns were dismissed due to the arrival of the ‘ripple’.
Mike,
“I am of the view that the huge Jan 2021 peak is secondary to initiation of mass vaccination. The timing fits exactly, in each age group & location (eg care homes vs community by age). In each region, cases rose in synchrony with roll out of mass vaccination everywhere, which is why the ramp is so steep.”
Wrt the Jan 2021 peak, are we sure? There appear to be regional inconsistencies to me. The North East and York & Humber in particular don’t look to have much of a Jan spike compared on a % basis to other regions. I’m not aware of any evidence that the vaccination program was reduced in those areas?
Similarly, London has the strongest and earliest Jan peak (% increase in deaths versus normal baseline, compared to other regions) and yet we know the vaccination program was slightly lighter in London compared to elsewhere early on, quite naturally because there are fewer older people pro rata in London.
I have graphs to illustrate this but wouldn’t know how to include them here in any case. I’m not saying the vaccines haven’t caused deaths (obviously), simply that it doesn’t appear to suggest that vaccines were the primary cause of the January peak?
Apologies, I’ve noted you are talking about cases, and I’m referring to deaths… A bit of a difference – ignore my comment!
Mike, you are definitely a standard bearer for those non-scientists of us that knew something was amiss but couldn’t put our finger on it. I came across you in Sept ‘20 I think and suddenly the pieces of the jigsaw seemed to fit and make sense. Keep up the great work. Very warmest wishes.
Seconded.
+1
I also ponder the mass flu vaccination program shortly before the “second wave”. I have never had a flu jab but was inundated with letters texts and phome calls, I suspect many would have succumbed to the pressure.
I recall a study showing greater numbers of coronavirus and other infections following the flu vaccine. Too early to cover this coronavirus but IMO likely to be a factor. Observation from the “first wave” in Italy showed this.
The killer will be what happens when they roll out the flu vaccine this autumn
Thank you Sir. That makes perfect sense.
All the best and thanks for being on here.
Brave comment and well said. Now prepare yourself for waves of sorrowful/hateful responses.
This is all excellent news. Fauci is undermined and in the end must go. But most of all, the “conspiracy theorists” label, so successfully used to crush any questioning, any dissent, even by very distinguished scientists, is exposed for what it is – an actual conspiracy to cover the facts for the benefit of guilty parties.
Say to Joe Public “COVID was made in a lab by the Chinese” – what do you think the most common reaction will be? They will either be more scared than they were, or they will say that COVID is all China’s fault. A few more astute people will see the cover up in the context of the wider deception around COVID, but most will just get distracted from the basic truth that COVID did NOT present a public health emergency and that the measures taken were disproportionate, untried, evidence-free and largely futile.
Its just a cover story to let the real culprits off the hook and we must not allow that to happen.
excellent point – you’re right it wont matter to all the sheep i know where it came from
or maybe Sars-Cov-1 didn’t “disappear” miraculously and has been an endemic virus all this time – causing colds and bumping off 82yr olds and tubbies like all the other Coronaviruses
Yes. Quite likely.
The Fauci emails are a distraction – to try and get the plebs to think there is a bio weapon on the loose and rush to get stabbed
Sars Cov-2 is a bog standard Coronavirus just like Sars Cov-1
Most certainly the case. This lab-leak story only serves to promote the official narrative, to generate another campaign of fear about what is merely a normal seasonal corona virus.
I think the Fauci/lab leak revelation will cause people (not the “Thank You Dr. Fauci”yard sign types) to question his credibility, and finally dismiss his ridiculous recommendations: “If he’s lied to us about the virus, mitigation measures and treatment, what is he hiding about the vaccines being pushed?”
No doubt more damaging revelations are coming.
Have to ask so what if it came out of a lab, the damage is done and you cannot recover 15 months (and counting) of peoples lives lost. I’ve lost 2 major holidays (got the money back but thats not the point), I’ve lost that time suposedly meant to be enjoying myself.
I’ve been a sceptic from day one so I haven’t cowered from this not so deadly virus and I stopped believing politicians many years ago.
My wife and I like to have breaks in hotels but we’ve stopped that because going to a hotel is not a pleasant experience. One way systems, cannot use public places, no buffet breakfasts, fucking antisocial signs everywhere and places of interest closed.
So I ask again if the virus came from a lab or not, so what?
Thanks Will for assembling all of this information together. Indeed it shows how the concept of “scientific consensus”, published in a Letter in a world renowned journal Nature, can be abused and artificially manufactured (without actual science).
I want to point to several things about the idea of virus circulating already in Q4 around the world given the probable theory that the virus originated from a lab in Wuhan. They don’t necessarily contradict each other.
The virus could have escaped earlier in 2019, for example. December and January are winter seasons in China and you could expect lot of respiratory illnesses anyway.
Wuhan has particular bad air quality. People in Wuhan protested in summer of 2019. because of bad air quality link. Protests in mainland China don’t happen often and CCP for sure would not let it go unpunished like it doesn’t do in “autonomist” regions. Could draconian measures in Wuhan in winter be more of a punishment than virus suppression strategy? The similar type of lockdown is being used in Xinjiang province which has been turned into a huge prison link with concentration camps scattered across and filled up with few millions of various ethnic minorities from the region.
Former director of CDC, who is a virologist with 30y of experience, said that he thinks virus escaped earlier from the lab and was spreading as early as ~September, 2019. link.
There are many studies that show virus was already circulating before 2020, not just the one from Milano. Lot of them are summarized in this article from December 2020. link, and this one from February 2021 link. These are the ones I bookmarked but there could me more. Unlikely they are all wrong and false positives. The last one in Feb, 2021 took a lot of effort to make sure of that.
I can’t gather all the links from twitter sceptics, but many point out that Asia-Oceania region saw very high numbers of ILI (influenza like illness) cases throughout 2019. compared to previous years. Nothing to turn whole countries upside down or introduce any measures, but it was significantly higher than previous years. It’s all legit, they took data from official sources. It could have been covid19.
We know from seroprevalence studies around the world that the virus IFR is ~0.15% globally and 0.2% in Europe and Americas (0.3-0.4% including nursing homes, but should not be done since common cold can cause pneumonia and kill (IFR of ~10%) in nursing home residence patients) link. The virus is not deadly, for sure, that is a fact. We also know from many studies that many people have pre-existing immunity link. This should take much more more weight than suspicions that some young and healthy people in Wuhan lab died from this virus (it could have been another virus for example, or it could have been staged to make c19 look more deadly than it really is).
Finally the plot of antibody testing from REACT study shows that antibodies wane quickly and were not produced a lot in the first place (another study showing that link), suggesting this is not so deadly virus. Immunity remains in place even after antibodies fade (memory B and T cells). Otherwise you would see a cumulative curve of people who have antibodies, not the one with peaks and troughs.
Plot also shows antibodies as early as start of November, 2019. But the low levels in November is probably because the testing was carried out much later and antibodies faded over time. If they would to this study in November, 2019. they could have found much higher levels. This means that many people might had it in Q4, 2019. (or earlier).
Milos,
In addition, this clearly shows that it was rife in Italy prior to September 2019, at least, as that was the earliest point that the blood samples in this study were taken.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i195K2vYfnY&feature=youtu.be&ucbcb=1
Dr John Campbell – he’s taken the study from here:
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0300891620974755?url_ver=Z39.88-2003&rfr_id=ori%3Arid%3Acrossref.org&rfr_dat=cr_pub++0pubmed&
And the key thing about it is that nobody noticed… All those cases, if doing any extrapolation, it’s a pretty high % of people, and – without any one to fear-monger (the media, arsebook, politicians etc) – nobody even noticed. Which obviously won’t surprise anyone on this site.
Yes, thanks.
That’s related to what I wanted to add. Since age distribution and health/comorbidities of official covid19 deaths follow so closely ‘natural’ mortality, and symptoms of covid19 are like for any ILI, how can you tell if someone died of covid19. So excess deaths were looked at.
But if the virus was here as early as Q4 in 2019 (or before), and airborne spreading fast (R0~2.5 apparently), how come during winter (winter is its favorite time like for any other ILI) 2019/20 it caused no excess deaths and nobody noticed it?
It would all suggest that all those excess death peaks were more due to lockdowns and restrictions, and unusually low mortality in winter 2018/19 and throughout 2019, than because of covid19.
Don’t forget shoving everyone onto ventilators to finish them off.
Here in Suffolk and in the West Country and elsewhere we had high levels of a covid-like illness between October 2019 and February 2020 and the interesting part is relatively low levels of “official” covid, suggesting immunity.
Most people were ill to varying degrees but generally not enough to bother doctors or be hospitalised. Some doctors observed that there was “a nasty virus doing the rounds” but no=one suggested lockdowns.
There are a lot of old folks here and in previous years there have been waves of winter deaths. 2020 – 1 not so much.
Registers of Scotland have death data in Excel which is easy to plot. The upward side of the April peak is very steep, almost like an extinction event took place that took out a whole bunch of people from a single cause. My guess would due to putting seed cases of the bad cold into dozens of care homes all in the same week. There are, however, several previous years with a similar peak offset from the typical midwinter increase (data available for each year since 1974). Be interesting to correlate with any previous NHS bed clearing policies or introduction of new vaccines.
Coronavirus was already in Italy by December, waste water …https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/ip3/www.bbc.com.icohttps://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-53106444
Italian scientists say sewage water from two cities contained coronavirus traces in December, long before the country’s first confirmed cases.
Coronavirus may have reached Europe as early as March 2019 …https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/ip3/www.mirror.co.uk.icohttps://www.mirror.co.uk/science/coronavirus-reached-europe-early-march-22269885
Coronavirus may have reached Europe as early as March 2019, a new study has claimed. Researchers from the University of Barcelona have detected the SARS-CoV-2 virus in wastewater samples dated…
I’m not really interested in Fauci, he’s an arse..What I want to see are members of SAGE, SPI-M-O Halfcock Valence, BJ, Whitty, the entire cast of MHRA banged up toot sweet…Yeah I know- pigs and aviation..
Quite possibly. I wouldn’t rule out any scenario at this time.
Along with your socks, pants, bike, car, trainers, computer, ..vibrator.. kids braces and toothpaste.. Armagedoon will be totally and badly and belligerently designed and engineered in China.
Though to be fair, they are more free than us and they won’t stop petrol and diesel and gas boilers and air travel on the whims of a posh extinction rebellion barefoot 33 year old Aunt Sally prime minister.
Mmm. I wonder whether, just for public reassurance of course, Jeremy Farrar might like to step down from Sage (and the Wellcome Trust) while the whole matter is thoroughly investigated by a completely independent body, headed by Richard Dearlove.
And any other members of Sage whose names might come up as the probe continues.
I’m sure they’d love a little break while their names are fully cleared. They must all be exhausted.
Just wondering if it’s possible that the Wuhan, Fort Detrick, Porton Down and other Level4 bio labs are controlled by the same powerful global elite entity?
I think that particular boat has already sailed. This is just another distraction from the fact that globally governments have colluded in frightening the public into taking an experimental gene therapy. This is certainly nothing to do with Public Health its about Control. There is plenty of evidence pointing to mutating viruses being caused by vaccination which in turn gives governments ever more powers for oppressing the general population.
The whole lab released virus story is utter nonsense and always has been.
We have been constantly lied to from the beginning and there looks to be no end to it.
Before you make up your mind about a conclusion, it’s best to examine all the facts, which Fauci obviously did not do. Thus we ended up being lied to for more than a year. We’ll never know for sure since China is a “closed country.”
I sent this paper to LS last year, see a link to a paper by the Bat lady among others.
The PDF can be downloaded here.
https://wagsites.filemail.com/d/kyjoqcvuwyycbco
It’s reasonable to expect that the American government would not like their citizens or the rest of the world to know that they were supporting and participating in the development of biological weapons in China under the cover of health research, but that is what is really going on at the Wuhan laboratory. Fauci probably knows a lot more than he can reveal, and we will never know what is really going on. I suspect there are far more lethal manufactured viruses there, far worse than the one that causes Covid 19. I suspect America feels they need to be involved to gain intel about what their potential enemy is up to.
Here’s a question.
How come Buzzfeed got the Fauci emails via a simple FOIA request, quickly, and without fuss?
I ask because other important FOIA requests from the “alternative” media have got nowhere after years of trying. You probably don’t need me to tell you which ones.
Someone powerful decided to hang Fauci out to dry by releasing these emails.
Why?
It’s not a rhetorical question. I don’t think anyone who isn’t involved really knows. Lots of wild guesses flying about. But what is unarguable is that the lab escape theory went from being a conspiracy theory that got you kicked off Facebook, Twitter and Youtube to a mainstream media story in about 24 hours.
Why?
Very good questions. I don’t know if it’s coincidence or not, but the turning point appeared to come in the wake of the Wade article.