Hi David, I'll read the piece in full but after reading the intro I wanted to note an inconsistency that is common to many commentators who may fairly be described as some variety of "Covid dissident": you highlight both Fauci's lies and hidden agenda, as well as the real possibility that his funding of GOF research at Wuhan may have led to a "global catastrophe," while also highlighting in your recent writings a key example of vast over-statements regarding asymptomatic spread.
We may fairly blame a fair amount of that policy over-reach on Fauci and Co. also, b/c there was in fact a dramatic shift in US policy in very late Feb that coincided exactly with Fauci's learning about the strong possibility of a lab leak. So at that time, with the help of Pottinger, Birx, and many others, Fauci led an almost 180 in US Covid policy, including encouraging testing of asymptomatic people, lockdowns, etc. Of course there were many other players involved in these dynamics, including Gates, WHO, China CCP, US defense and intelligence communities, Big Pharma and Big Medicine, but Fauci and Co. were major players.
I'd love to see you write an essay reconciling these various pieces of evidence and illustrating just how seriously Fauci and Co. fucked things up royally, not only in funding GOF, concealing it, lying about it, and then doing a serious CYA policy effort in early 2020 that actually resulted in far more damage than the virus itself.
We have the met the enemy and it is us ... all too often. Interesting peer-reviewed (CID) research from 2009 suggested that a large portion of so-called Spanish Flu deaths may be more accurately attributed to extremely high doses of aspirin, which had just been approved for treating the flu right before the October 2018 spike in deaths. I suspect this is a pattern that we may discern in many such outbreaks and probably non-outbreak mass death events also. The cure is indeed often worse than the disease. https://academic.oup.com/cid/article/49/9/1405/301441?login=false
By late fall/early winter of 2020 it hit me that it wasn't Covid itself that was the fundamental cause of the total disruption and destruction of so many lives but the protocols put in place to 'keep us safe.' The severe protocols were rarely questioned but worked instead to 'prove' the danger of Covid. The protocols, despite the availability of reliable science and real-time data from around the world showing Covid was a threat to very specific, and percentage-wise, small populations, kept the panic going, at least for many people, for almost two more years. Of course, at this point, this is less important than everything we have learned about the insidious and successful efforts by government, media, et al to keep the panic going. To me, though, I was struck very early on by the lack of curiosity I witnessed even by people. Very disheartening to state the obvious.
Fully agree. I wrote my first piece warning about policy backfire in April 2020, warning that Covid was shaping up to be the Left's 9/11 (where the policy choices were far worse than the initial harm). I've been a policy lawyer for 22 years so this is an area I have some familiarity with.
“Fauci referred to was not a “study”—which implies deep analysis. It was a “correspondence,” which Nature Medicine explains is “a forum for discussion or to present a point of view… Correspondences should not contain new research data.” “
Noticed that you pointed this out on The Hill today. Great piece and glad to see it featured in TFP!
David - Excellent piece. I've followed this story closely and had a mental list of all the evidence I hoped you'd cover and you ticked off each and every one.
One point outside the scope of this piece, but relevant to the larger picture:
Coronaviruses were only recently considered potentially dangerous, largely through the theories Ralph Baric proposed in the late 90's. As late as 1994, Coronaviruses barely even made a mention in the bible on Zoonoses [1].
That they were largely harmless was a logical assumption, as they have existed 300 million years, mingled with bats for 50 million years, and our earliest ancestors for 3 million years (often, living in caves with bats).
Baric theorizing that they waited 300 million years to rise up and strike humanity is an extreme form of millenarianism - putting him in a class beyond the typical doomsday cultist who thinks Jesus waited 2000 years to show up in *their* lifetime to bring the apocalypse.
Fauci is an example of the worst kind of smooth-talker. The establishment, and millions of people, bowed to all the lies. And our government helped fund the research that caused so much suffering. I have a 30 year career in government public health services, and never again will I trust our federal health agencies and the mainstream media.
Hi David, I'll read the piece in full but after reading the intro I wanted to note an inconsistency that is common to many commentators who may fairly be described as some variety of "Covid dissident": you highlight both Fauci's lies and hidden agenda, as well as the real possibility that his funding of GOF research at Wuhan may have led to a "global catastrophe," while also highlighting in your recent writings a key example of vast over-statements regarding asymptomatic spread.
Connecting the dots you may realize that in fact the "global catastrophe" that occurred was not from the virus but from the policy choices in response to the virus. We estimate in this essay that most Covid stats were exaggerated about 10x, which your essay on the asymptomatic Covid spread tests strongly supported: https://tamhunt.medium.com/how-covid-19-stats-are-grossly-exaggerated-a-brief-summary-of-the-arguments-53a5b4237c4c.
We may fairly blame a fair amount of that policy over-reach on Fauci and Co. also, b/c there was in fact a dramatic shift in US policy in very late Feb that coincided exactly with Fauci's learning about the strong possibility of a lab leak. So at that time, with the help of Pottinger, Birx, and many others, Fauci led an almost 180 in US Covid policy, including encouraging testing of asymptomatic people, lockdowns, etc. Of course there were many other players involved in these dynamics, including Gates, WHO, China CCP, US defense and intelligence communities, Big Pharma and Big Medicine, but Fauci and Co. were major players.
I'd love to see you write an essay reconciling these various pieces of evidence and illustrating just how seriously Fauci and Co. fucked things up royally, not only in funding GOF, concealing it, lying about it, and then doing a serious CYA policy effort in early 2020 that actually resulted in far more damage than the virus itself.
Hi Tam,
Thanks for this. Duly noted. Indeed, much of the harm of the pandemic was not from Covid itself, but from the policy reaction to Covid.
We have the met the enemy and it is us ... all too often. Interesting peer-reviewed (CID) research from 2009 suggested that a large portion of so-called Spanish Flu deaths may be more accurately attributed to extremely high doses of aspirin, which had just been approved for treating the flu right before the October 2018 spike in deaths. I suspect this is a pattern that we may discern in many such outbreaks and probably non-outbreak mass death events also. The cure is indeed often worse than the disease. https://academic.oup.com/cid/article/49/9/1405/301441?login=false
By late fall/early winter of 2020 it hit me that it wasn't Covid itself that was the fundamental cause of the total disruption and destruction of so many lives but the protocols put in place to 'keep us safe.' The severe protocols were rarely questioned but worked instead to 'prove' the danger of Covid. The protocols, despite the availability of reliable science and real-time data from around the world showing Covid was a threat to very specific, and percentage-wise, small populations, kept the panic going, at least for many people, for almost two more years. Of course, at this point, this is less important than everything we have learned about the insidious and successful efforts by government, media, et al to keep the panic going. To me, though, I was struck very early on by the lack of curiosity I witnessed even by people. Very disheartening to state the obvious.
Fully agree. I wrote my first piece warning about policy backfire in April 2020, warning that Covid was shaping up to be the Left's 9/11 (where the policy choices were far worse than the initial harm). I've been a policy lawyer for 22 years so this is an area I have some familiarity with.
“Fauci referred to was not a “study”—which implies deep analysis. It was a “correspondence,” which Nature Medicine explains is “a forum for discussion or to present a point of view… Correspondences should not contain new research data.” “
Noticed that you pointed this out on The Hill today. Great piece and glad to see it featured in TFP!
David - Excellent piece. I've followed this story closely and had a mental list of all the evidence I hoped you'd cover and you ticked off each and every one.
One point outside the scope of this piece, but relevant to the larger picture:
Coronaviruses were only recently considered potentially dangerous, largely through the theories Ralph Baric proposed in the late 90's. As late as 1994, Coronaviruses barely even made a mention in the bible on Zoonoses [1].
That they were largely harmless was a logical assumption, as they have existed 300 million years, mingled with bats for 50 million years, and our earliest ancestors for 3 million years (often, living in caves with bats).
Baric theorizing that they waited 300 million years to rise up and strike humanity is an extreme form of millenarianism - putting him in a class beyond the typical doomsday cultist who thinks Jesus waited 2000 years to show up in *their* lifetime to bring the apocalypse.
_______________
[1] https://imgur.com/a/oHGKfDc (bottom of page only mention in the entire 500+ page volume)
https://a.co/d/0t6dUAl
BAM, David! Great piece. Thank you!!!!!!
Fauci is an example of the worst kind of smooth-talker. The establishment, and millions of people, bowed to all the lies. And our government helped fund the research that caused so much suffering. I have a 30 year career in government public health services, and never again will I trust our federal health agencies and the mainstream media.