I’ve been looking again at Covid’s origins and the start of the pandemic. Last time I wrote on it I argued that Italy brought in China-style lockdowns on March 8th and 10th 2020 mainly as a result of panic owing to the leap in the death rate, with it being clear from the hospital situation there were many more deaths to come. I still believe that that was the immediate trigger for imposing lockdowns at the time. However, I now recognise that that is far from the full story. What it leaves out is the backdrop of who was pushing for lockdowns throughout the preceding two months, and why.
Two key pieces of data have emerged in the last few months that help to bring the picture into clearer focus. The first is that with the arrival of Omicron the Chinese have continued fanatically to pursue lockdowns, crippling their economy as they do it. To my mind, this is convincing evidence that the Chinese are sincere about their belief in the radical new disease management strategy they inaugurated on January 23rd 2020 in Wuhan. I initially (in 2020) thought it may be an elaborate ruse to convince the world to do something monumentally and pointlessly self-destructive. But it appears they really do think lockdowns are highly effective and the right way to fight a disease like COVID-19. I’m aware some suggest it could just be a cunning strategy to strengthen the grip of the ruling party on the population, but all the evidence indicates to me that they actually are trying to fight the disease in this way.
If this is accepted then one of the key pieces of the puzzle snaps into place: the global Covid narrative has, both behind closed doors and in front of them, been driven in part by the Chinese Government’s commitment to its extreme suppression strategy and its desire for other countries to adopt it as well. It’s been suggested this derives from a sense of national pride and seeking vindication of their efforts and ideas, and is part of a wider aim of achieving global Chinese cultural supremacy, which sounds plausible to me.
The second key piece of data are emails sent by White House Chief Medical Advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci, which reveal that behind closed doors as late as February 26th 2020, Dr. Fauci was still, as he had been consistently up to that point, advising people not to panic. But as of February 27th his approach suddenly changed and, from that moment on, he began consistently pushing restrictions.
On February 26th he wrote to CBS News that Americans should not yield to fear:
You cannot avoid having infections since you cannot shut off the country from the rest of the world… Do not let the fear of the unknown… distort your evaluation of the risk of the pandemic to you relative to the risks that you face every day… do not yield to unreasonable fear.
But by the next day he was writing to actress Morgan Fairchild that the American public should prepare for pandemic restrictions:
It would be great if you could tweet to your many Twitter followers that although the current risk of coronavirus to the American public is low, the fact that there is community spread of virus in a number of countries besides China… poses a risk that we may progress to a global pandemic of COVID-19… And so for that reason, the American public should not be frightened, but should be prepared to mitigate an outbreak in this country by measures that include social distancing, teleworking, temporary closure of schools, etc. There is nothing to be done right now since there are so few cases in this country and these cases are being properly isolated, and so go about your daily business. However, be aware that behavioural adjustments may need to be made if a pandemic occurs.
Interestingly, February 27th was also the day the media narrative in the U.S. shifted, with the New York Times leading the way with its first alarmist piece, by Peter Daszak of the EcoHealth Alliance, and also an alarmist podcast with science and health reporter Donald G. McNeil Jr., which quoted directly from China a 2% mortality rate for the virus.
The context for this shift was a WHO press briefing on February 24th by Bruce Aylward, who had just concluded a WHO-China Joint Mission on COVID-19 and told the world that lockdown worked and “you have to do this. If you do it, you can save lives and prevent thousands of cases of what is a very difficult disease.”
The timing obviously suggests the events are connected, but crucially it also implies that Fauci and those around him were not part of the behind-the-scenes decision of Aylward to throw the WHO’s weight behind the Chinese approach. This leaves, then, the question of why Fauci & Co flipped from their previous position of playing down the threat from the virus and not supporting extreme Chinese-style interventions to going all in with the panic.
The picture being painted here is of at least two ‘conspiracies’ going on – the Chinese one, seeking to push lockdowns as part of Chinese vindication and cultural supremacy, and the Fauci & Co one, the potential motives for which are discussed below. I am pretty confident these are not the same ‘conspiracy’, as I assume that Fauci & Co are not motivated by vindicating China and advancing its cultural supremacy (I’ve seen no evidence this should be the case).
A further element to throw into the mix is that the first Western lockdown occurred three days before the Aylward WHO briefing, on February 21st 2020, in a region of 50,000 people in Lombardy. Oddly, it seems to have been an isolated local initiative in response to the first identified ‘cases’ led by the regional health chief Giulio Gallera, with no clear links to the WHO or any other known lockdown protagonists. It would be interesting to ask Mr. Gallera why he decided to follow such a radical course of action that day.
Italy locked down on March 8th and 10th, a response it seems to the climbing death rate, and most of the rest of the world followed in the ensuing two weeks. The U.S. Government was persuaded by Deborah Birx and others to back lockdowns on March 16th. On March 12th-14th, U.K. Government ministers and officials did a media round promoting the idea of aiming for herd immunity and keeping calm and carrying on. However, that strategy soon collapsed in the face of shifting public opinion and alarmist models from scientists like Imperial’s Neil Ferguson. After March 23rd, Sweden was the only holdout among Western Governments.
Such a mess of uncoordinated action confirms to my mind a picture of different groups driven by different motives and agendas which sometimes overlap, catalysed by groupthink and hysteria, rather than any grand behind-the-scenes conspiracy involving all in a coordinated fashion.
The Chinese Communist Party is a crucial actor, of course. It invented lockdowns and since then has persistently pushed them to the rest of the world, including through an all too willing WHO. However, that doesn’t mean that all who promote panic and lockdowns do so because they are in thrall to China or doing its bidding.
So what was the deal with Fauci & Co – why did they oppose panic and lockdowns until February 27th, then flip to become among their most eager and high-powered proponents?
Fauci’s emails show that, starting at the end of January and into February 2020, he organised a series of secretive video conferences and phone calls because he and his associates suspected the virus may have been genetically modified and leaked from a lab. Yet despite these suspicions, on February 19th the group wrote a letter to the Lancet denouncing the lab leak as a “conspiracy theory”. The organiser of the letter was Peter Daszak of the EcoHealth Alliance, one of Fauci’s associates who it later turned out had been funding gain of function research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology of exactly the kind that was suspected as being responsible for creating COVID-19. Biologist Nick Patterson notes a grant application from EcoHealth Alliance to DARPA (the research agency of the U.S. Department of Defence), of which he says, “as far as I can make out, the plan here was for WIV to collect live virus, ship it to the USA, have U.S. scientists genetically modify the virus, and then ship modified virus… back to China”.
In light of information like this and Fauci & Co’s preoccupation during February 2020 with the origin of the virus, culminating in their cynical effort to suppress the claims of lab leak and genetic modification, I surmise that their major motivation was to cover themselves for the possibility that they and their research fields would be held responsible for the virus. Initially this took the form of suppressing the lab leak theory while also playing down the threat from the virus, which they would have been keen to be as uneventful as possible. But why then the flip to panic mode after February 27th? Did the WHO backing lockdowns on February 24th change the equation, so it was no longer deemed viable or good cover to oppose the new approach? The path of least resistance in other words. A related question is whether they were genuinely persuaded that the measures would be effective or if they retained an unspoken scepticism. If they did retain any scepticism there’s been precious little sign of it since March 2020.
Overall, I see no indication of a grand plan from the earliest days in which all are working from a common script to a common goal. Instead, I see various groups with their own agendas, interests and fears. It’s clear that, following Aylward’s team’s visit, China managed to capture the WHO and bring it on board with championing lockdowns. However, the motives of everyone besides China are largely opaque. Why did Aylward become China’s biggest fan – was he threatened or bribed or just duped and naïve? Why exactly did Lombardy regional health chief Giulio Gallera respond to the first cases in his region by imposing a Chinese-style lockdown even before the WHO had backed them? Why did Fauci flip on February 27th? What about curious figures like Deputy National Security Advisor Matt Pottinger, highlighted by Michael Senger, who despite being a known China critic, was a major alarmist influence within the White House from the get-go, drawing on mysterious ‘contacts in China’ to call for panic and restrictions as early as January?
What drove each of these people to get behind the closing down of society as the ‘solution’ to a respiratory virus? We can largely see now who did what and when. What’s mainly missing is the why.
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The WHO captured by China?
In Feb 2020 the 3 biggest funders of the WHO were:
1. The US
2. The Gates Foundation I.e. Bill Gates)
3. GAVI (I.e. Bill Gates.
When Trump threatened to cut off WHO funding, Gates offered to pick up the slack.
In March 2020 Gates did the rounds on the major news channels, calling for lockdowns.
Any attempt to establish how and why the world adopted lockdowns is incomplete without establishing exactly what Bill Gates was up to in those critical first months.
As far as I am concerned Gates is evil incarnate. Why anyone would allow a computer geek to dictate to us about our health is frankly ludicrous!
Correct. Nobody like Gates does what he has out of the goodness of his heart. If he had, he would not have imposed his own uninformed view, but sought the wide range of highly knowledgeable experts including those who disagree with all these pandemic responses, including lockdowns, vaccines, masks, distancing, etc., and did everything in the open.
But don’t you know that Gates is a world expert on viruses, his products are full of them and you can download patches to ‘solve’ the problem.
The true motivations behind the scientists who drove the utterly unscientific lockdowns and related interventions puzzled me from the start.
However, the penny did slowly drop. Think about the people behind the ‘NPI’s: Fauci, Farrar (Welcome Foundation), Vallance etc. All of these along with the hugely implicated Peter Daszak – as Will points out – were involved in the covert conspiracy to cover up the Wuhan lab leak that almost certainly occurred. The reason they were so keen to cover that up was because they were implicated in the history of the gain of function research. I think that history will eventually prove that they not only knew about it, but were involved. We know that’s true of Daszak, it is likely true of Fauci and therefore likely also involved all who participated in the Wuhan cover up emails.
Theoretically they had a lot to lose. Implicated in the creation of Covid-19 (a virus looking for an existing but unused vaccine technology) even the small chance of a truly devastating pandemic would end up being laid at their feet. So move to lockdowns. There was nothing for them to lose. They wouldn’t suffer, and even if there was only a minimal chance they would work, if they did, it reduced the chances of career-devastating blame heading in their direction.
Of course, the NPI’s had no meaningful effect, Wuhan hasn’t yet been really pinned on them, and instead of career opprobrium, knighthoods were the order of the day. It’s a funny old world. . .
I think the lab leak theory explains a lot.
Agree the rest doesn’t look like a single script, but I think there are overlapping scripts and directions of thinking – technocracy, safetyism, idiot populations convinced they can be “kept safe” by the government, general drift towards collectivism and away from individual freedom and responsibility, greed, the Medical Industrial Complex, elites liking the control.
How would this fit in with the possibility of SARS-CoV-2 being around in the last quarter of 2019 in Italy and elsewhere including the USA?
It doesn’t fit in at all, so best not to mention it. Remember China is the fall guy here and we don’t want people spoiling the blame game.
Not just in Italy ….. I live in Dorset, England and I’m pretty sure I had it in November 2019, along with a number of friends here. In the locality is an International School where most of the students are Chinese who returned to the school after the 2-week half-term break at the end of October/early November 2019. At the time people were saying “there’s a nasty virus circulating.”
I have absolutely no doubt that it was present in the U.K. in October November 2019 simply from the patients I saw and my conversation usually included the phrase “there’s a nasty virus going round”. This would coincide with the military games being ground zero. If it was present in Italy in September 2019 and possibly in the summer of 2019 in the USA then that surely moves the focus away from Wuhan as the initial source to the USA?
Will, none of this changes the fact that national governments are in thrall to an unelected global power base.
…which is a problem.
…which is a problem
You seem a master of understatement, as it’s actually a genocidal nightmare. Already it is likely too late for those who naively believed in the innate goodness of genocidal oligarchs and their agents in governments.
“What drove each of these people to get behind the closing down of society as the ‘solution’ to a respiratory virus?”
I think Mike Yeadon’s explanation – “convergent opportunism” is probably the likeliest.
The virus most likely was engineered and escaped from a lab. And there was clearly a certain group of people who have for some time been aiming to engineer a pandemic and use it as a vehicle to push vaccines primarily for profit but with an element of population engineering involved.
The response started out mainly as an attempt by those responsible to cover things up.
A lot of other bad actors spotted the opportunity to move forward their agendas on the back of the “crisis”
It all gained a life of its own and got completely out of hand.
There was an element of “mass formation” going on whereby even those responsible at a senior level got carried away by the hysteria.
Governments everywhere are run by people who have little background in science, don’t understand basic statistics, and were therefore putty in the hands of the Big Pharma and Big Science lobbyists.
Very good point about the desire to get the toxic mrna gunk into people. There is an ESPN video from end Oct/early Nov. 2019, some conference or another, with a group of ‘scientists’ on stage, including Pfauci. He goes on at length about how wonderful mrna is and more or less describes his wet dream of hoping that a lovely bird flu virus or some such would emanate from Asia so he can “blow up” the use of this toxin. From Pfauci’s lips to Satan’s ears it would appear.
Yes there was some kind of “disaster planning” conference which simulated a pandemic remarkably similar to the one which actually happened, only a few months before it happened.
A remarkable coincidence.
So I suspect the whole thing was planned by the bad actors in the virus/vaccine community, but the virus escaped (or was let out) earlier than planned without the whole response having been properly planned and that’s when the chaos ensued.
That would also explain the change of emphasis from “stay calm” to “PANIC!”.
I reckon in the beginning not all governments knew it had escaped from a lab, and of course those responsible for the virus were denying it, so govts headed down the “stay calm” route – but then at some point the bad actors decided to let govts know behind the scenes that actually it had come from a lab and that it’s a very nasty virus and they really should panic.
A lot of the other bad things which happened beyond that point were probably primarily down to grifters just taking advantage of the situation to flog PPE, launder government money, advance their socialist / political / ecological / technological agendas.
Indeed, kinda like how the mon(k)eypox outbreak was simulated less than a year before it happened as well.
Say there was a laboratory leak in the USA or at another facility in a NATO country rather than China. What if Wuhan became the epicentre because the virus was taken into China at the military games in October 2019? What could the political landscape have made of that in this scenario?
The US and China were clearly both heavily involved in the birth of this virus and therefore culpable for everything that happened since – but they are locked in a deadly embrace whereby they can’t blame the other because of all the inconvenient truths that might come out about their own involvement.
In other words, they both checkmated each other, and are now perpetually stuck lying in the bed they had made together.
Is that the reason almost every country followed China’s policy of lockdown? If Donald Trump had been re-elected would there or could there have been a different outcome? This is going down the rabbit hole of conspiracy theory!
Overall, I see no indication of a grand plan from the earliest days in which all are working from a common script to a common goal.
The WEF had rehearsed it, in Event 201; if evidence of a grand plan is sought, I might start there. Maybe, it’s just that not everyone in the bureaucracies was attached to the WEF, so initially there were indeed some independent initiatives and it took time for the message to percolate through? In the UK, the Gates-funded media seemed to take control of policy, howling for lockdowns. By May we had Tony Blair announcing his embedded teams in more than 20 countries.
The proposed WHO pandemic treaty is an attempt to ensure that next time, there will indeed be a grand plan from the start.
Oh yes. Whether all this was planned from the start is one thing, but political megalomaniacs have certainly got a taste for the totalitarian powers they can derive from ‘medical emergencies’ and they want more, more, more.
Vaccines are the problem, not the cure
https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/vaccines-are-the-problem-not-the-cure/
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It is one thing to question why we embarked on this
radical newmedieval disease management system (the annals of history show many instances of the simplistic reasoning of locking away people and strapping bits of cloth in front of their mouths to ward off disease – it may well have been radical in its global and extreme implementation, new it was not).My question is why did countries like Germany and NL switch from their more softly-softly approach that was closer to Sweden’s than to Italy or Spain’s? It was clear by the autumn of 2020 that none of the approaches had worked to eliminate the virus (which the morons should have expected and spent the summer of 2020 preparing the health service for, instead of spending billions on setting up pointless (but every lucrative) testing and track and trace systems). Indeed, by autumn 2020 it was clear that the countries that locked down the hardest not only fared worst in terms of economic devastation, they also fared worst in terms of hospitalisation and deaths.
Why did countries that had initially followed, more or less, the best course of action, abandon it and set upon law-breaking initiatives that had not only failed throughout history, but had demonstrably failed more recently in the first wave in March 2020? I shall never forgive the Dutch government for its intentional trampling on the constitution by placing an entire nation under house arrest at night for approx. 8 weeks in the winter of 2021, when they knew 100% that it would achieve absolutely nothing – a point that was confirmed on 3 separate occasions by the current health minister (rather amazing he was honest about the fact that the incarceration made no difference). They first tried to introduce the house arrest in November 2020 and the lame reason given by the head of the OMT was “so that people would understand the sense of urgency” – so literally nothing to do with any type of health benefit, but purely a matter of manipulation and illegal population control. But why the change? My opinion has always been that NL took orders from Brussels (just as Rutte is doing now with regard to the nitrogen/destruction of farmers issue).
What was the reason Brussels tried to impose draconian measures across Europe? To gain back the facade of European leadership it lost within hours when all countries made their own pandemic choices? To strip away national rights even further? To make sure all countries would be on board with the “coerced vaccination is the only solution” approach? The approach where Von der Leyen purchased enough pfisser vaxxes to poke every European 2x, even though in April 2021 the EU had already secured enough of the poison to give everyone more than 2 pokes? How did she know in April 2021 that 2 pokes would not be enough, why is no one asking that question? Why is no one asking why she agreed to a 25% mark-up on vaxxes that were not needed in the first place?
This thing may have started out as a global panic with most countries adopting the monkey see, monkey do approach, but subsequent violations of constitutions and fundamental rights were, imo, coordinated and followed with much clearer minds.
Governments panicked and each tried to outdo the other in terms of restrictions to be seen to ‘do something’. So, in effect, if France locked up one million people, Germany would lock up three million and Scotland would lock up five million. It was like a match dropped on dry scrubland: the whole world went up in flames.
Another issue, I suspect, is that the likes of Fauci knew what sort of viruses were being cultivated in Wuhan and no one knew which one had been (deliberately) leaked. So Fauci, Daszack and others started to cover up the experiments that had been refused DARPA funding. If people begin to see these virology labs for what they really are: bioweapons facilities creating deadly diseases masquerading as medical facilities looking for cures to those diseases, there would be a purge throughout the global science community.
With the world locked up and economies tanking, the WEF, the investment banks and corporations, race-baiters, transgender activists and climate activists took the opportunity to push their agendas on traumatised populations. Behavioural programming experts got involved, hence masking people was pushed. Masks were there to intimidate: ‘I’m wearing one because I’m a good person! Why aren’t you wearing one?’
At the end of the day, follow the money. This stinks of dodgy lab financing, greased palms, paid activists, cover ups and people given backhanders to look the other way.
Hmmm. Two articles in two days (https://dailysceptic.org/2022/07/21/the-wefs-illusion-of-mastery-is-as-much-a-fantasy-as-paranoid-conspiracy-theories-about-the-great-reset/) that appear to be persuading readers that there is no globally coordinated Great Reset. I do hope DS isn’t being somehow influenced – I don’t believe they are, but nothing’s off the table in current times.
There is nothing that I’ve read in either of these two articles that make any sense to me other than if there was a globally coordinated campaign. Occam’s Razor points the way, and any other theory is trying to make a smooth canvas out of a patchwork quilt. All global leaders following the same totalitarian actions at exactly the same time, every government issuing the same words (e.g. Build Back Better), each dictator issuing totalitarian measures in almost perfect lockstep with other dictators, each dictator knowing the stats., knowing the real risk; we must remember these people KNEW there was very little risk from the so-called virus (hence the xmas parties etc.). There is also the actual public manifesto of course – the book “The Great Reset”. Nope, the whole thing stinks to high heaven.
DS – in the spirit of true journalism (of which you have been an ambassador over the last couple of years), how about a counter-narrative article? One which argues the case for a more malevolent explanation to the Orwellian times of the last 2+ years?
Toby’s always been sceptical of any conspiracy around the WEF and COVID-19. James Delingpole thinks the other way. Both views have merits. I think it’s a combination of the two extremes: incompetence and panicked cover-ups, alongside opportunistic organisations attempting to create a new fascist-run society out of the chaos.
Sure, but this one’s by Will, whose always seemed on the fence to me (maybe slightly more on the Great Reset side, but hard to tell). My belief is that an opportunity was identified very early on – probably before the UK went into lockdown – and events were set in motion for global social and economic change. The identical behaviour and phrases being used was/is just way too coincidental for it to be a coincidence. They had a plan that they had previously roleplayed many times over and they saw a small window to make their wet dream a reality. The rest is history. We will see, but I think the people that do not believe there is anything malevolent under foot will find themselves simply renaming The Great Reset to something like… ‘The Financial Revolution’ or something. That way they can refuse to listen to the inevitable told you so’s.
The Chinese people buy western products when they can. In practise they look up to the west, so for the CCP to be able to say “Look, the west is following our lead!” is a strong signal to the population that the CCP is doing it right.
Sounds highly plausible Will.
I’m prompted to comment already and I’ve only got as far as Will’s sentence about China being sincere in its use of total lockdown to fight Covid and that they really want to fight the disease. I love Will’s articles and he’s been amazing, but I really do think this is naive. I would suggest that the CCP are simply trying to cull their population. They haven’t been trying to prevent disease at all – viz shoving people who test positive into huge warehouse-type quarantine centres with no isolation or medical care (Unherd did a video with a Ukrainian girl in such a place a while back). It was as if they wanted Covid to spread among these people. I cannot attribute any good motives to what China (or most other countries) is doing. Bring on more like president Bolsonaro!
Your presumption wrt China omits the possibility of population control and the various “conspiracy” theories suggesting that this is all part of a scheme to reduce the world’s population. What is your view on this and do you see any persuasive evidence of this?
Super piece of writing, I’m more and more admiring of Will as a stylist, must memorize at least part of this one.
There is an additional factor at work here, self delusion. China is a fanatical regime shaped by Mao’s cultural revolution and a narrative that the Party leadership can not be questioned. The West should have known better. Instead they acted like rabbits caught in headlights. How many of the world’s politicians and scientists, even those who now say we should never lockdown again, cling to the notion that it was the right thing to do at the time? Almost all of them. They can not admit to themselves that they made a mistake and why would they when so many are willing to keep the myth alive whilst continuing to depict those of us with more than a single braincell as lockdown deniers who refused to follow “the science”. Even though ” the science” amounted to little more than modelling (ie guesswork) and lobbying from health and social care systems that are not fit for purpose.
An excellent piece from Will.
But there are some awkward facts that need to be considered, when trying to fathom the CCP’s intentions.
First, the well recorded (by Western ‘correspondents’) Covid Theatre in the streets of Wuhan. ‘Business’ type men with briefcase dropping dead in the street. Never seen elsewhere. Apartment block entrances welded closed whilst shouting and screaming from inside. Allegedly screaming ‘it’s all fake’.
Then there’s the documented fact that internal travel was banned, whilst planes full of Chinese flew all around the world and especially to Lombardy, the key Belt and Road terminus in Europe. Followed by the mayor of Milan’s famous “go hug a Chinaman” campaign.
Only a straw in the wind, but, as it happened, my wife and I flew into Singapore for the nights 25-27 January 2020, to break the trip Auckland to Heathrow. And to enjoy the Chinese New Year. Coming from New Zealand, we hadn’t heard much about a ‘new’ virus and, what we had heard was that there was no human to human transmission. (Thanks WHO & CPP).
The authorities in Singapore had ditched that idea, but were encouraging people to keep one meter apart, wiping down handrails, measuring forehead temperature before allowing entry to museums, a bit more mask wearing on the metro, but only just noticeable. Loads and loads of people packed into the parks to enjoy the son et lumiere. (Meter apart be blowed.)
The taxi driver taking us to the airport on the 28th pointed out the Pandemic hospital, filling with patients for the first time since being built after Sars 1 a decade earlier.
I’m not sure that any of this supports Will’s thesis.
My conspiracy theory? Wuhan Institute of Virology developed this thing and released it deliberately to thin out the economically unproductive. With (at least initially) a preference for male victims.
OK, my conspiracy theory interests no-one. But just consider the old question.
Cui Bono?
And you think Bill Gates would push back against an idea that would reduce the numbers of old men (excluding the Billionaires, naturally)? Wrecking the West a bonus?
Someone earlier suggested our Bill listens to “experts”.
Actually, I remember reading a long piece that Bill Gates had set on an expert team to advise him how best a modern economy could run just on Ruinable Energy.
Experts reported back that this was absolutely impossible without fantastic advances in technology.
You think Billy Boy listened?
I watched as the media started the fear mongering long before any lockdowns. This included all of the staged pictures from China of welding people’s door closed and people dropping dead in the streets. This was all then picked up by bloggers and widely distributed on social media. You just cannot ignore the panic that was created by this barrage of fear mongering. People who were literally screaming at politicians to do something.
The biggest culprit in my mind is main stream media who created the panic in populations. It became a huge cash flow and More so after governments decided to lockdown and spend billions on propaganda to promote their policies. You just cannot ignore the influence of media and the panicked population in starting this.
Thank you for this excellent summary.
I agree with your thought process, which is in line with a discussion I had with a high ranking UK civil servant. The UK government panicked.
My follow up question is why they used these NPIs again and again after the first one? They had time to analyse, do a cost-benefit analysis, listen to other scientists, look at real world data. It appears they choose not to. Instead they inflicted massive damage to society as a whole.
Why? Hysterical groupthink by scientifically incompetent politicians led on by quasi scientists with axes to grind and no responsibility for their predictions.
Unravelling the politics of what’s happening seems an impossible task, especially when there is so much uncertainty around modern virology and epidemiology. So much is hidden behind smoke and mirrors with pseudo science, manipulated data and ever changing definitions to suit the narrative. It is not just a question of following the money but also the evil ideology of wealthy globalists that most normal humans struggle to accept has taken hold of our institutions. Read “The real Anthony Fauci” by Robert Kennedy Jr and ask yourself why Fauci doesn’t take him to court.