Covid And Liberalism

A little over a week ago science writer Nicholas Wade came out with an article that explains the 

Origin of Covid — Following the Clues

Did people or nature open Pandora’s box at Wuhan?

Nicholas Wade, of course, is a very big name in science journalism and reporting. He's been at this for 50 years and for 30 of those years wrote for the NYT. If you have any interest in science news, you've come across his name and his articles on a regular basis. This fact, that Wade wrote this article, is a big part of the story that Tucker Carlson dove into last night.

There's nothing exactly new in Wade's article, and in fact it leaves out a lot of what many other scientists around the world have been saying from the very beginning. It's never been a mystery that SARS CoV 2--what we call Covid--came from gain-of-function (GOF) research into the SARS virus at China's Wuhan virology lab. This probably followed on from Chinese research into SARS Classic or, if you prefer, SARS CoV 1 (that's an additional part of the story that's still officially denied).

Gain-of-function means that the virus is manipulated or engineered to enhance its capabilities in some way. It can lead to a coronavirus that's endemic to some animal species becoming capable of infecting humans, for example (cf. SARS Classic). Or it can lead to the virus becoming more harmful, or more infectious.

This type of GOF research was banned in the US during the Obama administration but, during the early part of the Trump administration, Tony Fauci personally decided to fund this specific type of research at Wuhan. That Covid came from that research is, IMO, beyond doubt. My opinion is based on the studies of numerous reputable scientists around the world, who have no doubt at all about the origin of Covid. That's the part that Wade mostly leaves out (although he does append an "acknowledgment" section in which he refers to some--but by no means all--of those who did the research).

So, none of the above is really news at all, although the article reads as if it's some sort of expose. What is, nevertheless, newsworthy about Wade's article is precisely the fact that Wade wrote it and that Wade--with all the prestige behind his decades of science reporting--lays the blame for the Covid pandemic at the feet of Tony Fauci and other complicit US scientists. Even though Wade characterizes Fauci as "a longtime public servant who served with integrity under President Trump"--a characterization that is, shall we say, open to question on all counts--the fact that Wade has written what amounts to an indictment of Fauci and the other scientists is important. It gives leave to others to raise the question of responsibility in the same sentence with Fauci's name.

For this reason Wade's article is worth reading. It gives a succinct summary, especially, of how the funding process worked in the US. It's not news, but it's at your fingertips in this article in a well written and organized fashion. (See below for a relevant link to this blog, from January 2021.) It also exposes--again, not news, but a handy reference--all the persons involved as serial liars. Period. The whole scientific world, and any of the rest of the world that's been paying any attention at all, knows this already. The point, again, is that this is Nicholas Wade saying so. Even though he says Fauci served with "integrity". That's a weird choice of words for someone who should be fully aware of Fauci's career.

Now.

If you want a nice video presentation of the substance of the Wade article, go to Tucker Carlson. It's actually instructive to view the speakers, to see who these people are, as well as to view the words:

Tucker Carlson: Anthony Fauci let the coronavirus pandemic happen, why isn't there a criminal investigation?

Fauci exploited a loophole that allowed him to fund research at the Wuhan Lab that likely became COVID-19

I think you can catch the drift of Tucker's presentation from that caption. But it's all totally fair. The link also includes a transcript, which is nice for search purposes. Of course, you'll need to watch for typos--for example, "etiology" comes out as "ideology" (unless that's a politico-scientific type of Freudian slip).

However, as I've been saying, this isn't news, per se. The newsworthy bit is that Wade is behind this, and that's why the story may end up having legs. We've covered all this before (see below), and that's why I want to focus on the political aspect, the liberal mentality that's been driving the response to Covid. This is where Tucker shines, and it comes at the beginning of his presentation--rightfully so, for a number of reasons. Here's the transcript version of those politically oriented remarks:

How do we assess the Biden administration’s response to COVID? Well, here’s one marker: it tells you pretty much everything that the White House that is supposedly so committed to science chose as its head COVID coordinator a man with no background at all in science or medicine. His name is Jeffrey Zients. Zients ran Joe Biden’s presidential transition team, that’s his qualification. He’s a former management consultant from Bain, who sat on the board of Facebook. Jeffrey Zients is a political operative. That’s who’s overseeing COVID response for Joe Biden. The good news is because Zients isn’t even close to being an actual scientist, he doesn’t talk like one. Occasionally he says things whose significance the rest of us can clearly understand. Read what Zients said on CNN yesterday, and it becomes very clear how the White House understands this pandemic.  

JEFFREY ZIENTS: And the light at the end of the tunnel is brighter and brighter. Let's keep up our guard. Let's follow the CDC guidance. And the CDC guidance across time will allow vaccinated people more and more privileges to take off that mask.

There it is. "The CDC guidance across time will allow vaccinated people more and more privileges to take off that mask." A sentence like that raises so many questions, it’s hard to know where to start. How about here: If the vaccines work, why are any vaccinated people wearing masks anywhere, ever? Seriously. Jeffrey Zients should be required to explain that, slowly and with numbers, so the rest of us who didn’t serve on the board of Facebook can understand. No one’s asked him to explain that, of course, so he hasn’t. Nor has anyone asked Zients just how effective masks are at preventing the spread of COVID. Our public health authorities act as though masks are absolutely critical. But are they absolutely critical? Where are the serious studies that prove that? Do they exist? If they do exist, is there a reason they’re being hidden from us? And, finally, when did masklessness become a privilege? For thousands of years, until 12 months ago, masklessness was the global status quo. Virtually everyone on earth lived without masks. That wasn’t considered weird. Masks were weird. They were unhealthy and menacing. Yet Jeffrey Zients has just informed us that things have changed. Going forward, not wearing a mask, even after you’ve been vaccinated, is "a privilege" — a Scooby snack, a gold star, a pat on the head — that may or may not be granted to you exclusively by the Democratic Party, on the basis of no science, but purely because they’re in charge and you’re not. That’s called public health. It’s absolutely critical to the existence of our species that you comply with it reflexively, without asking questions or thinking about it. This will all continue, Zients explained, "across time." 

TUCKER CARLSON: HOW MANY AMERICANS HAVE DIED AFTER TAKING THE COVID VACCINE? 

What does that mean, exactly? How long will this terrifyingly irrational exercise continue? For the answer to that question, we go to a man even more partisan than Jeffrey Zients. The nation’s most highly credentialed political operative, Tony Fauci, let us know that, actually, this mask thing is never going to end.

That's it in a nutshell--the liberal mentality--in case you somehow failed to absorb this at some point in your previous life. "We're in charge"--we, The Party--"and you're not." We will shape reality, and you will follow. It's all just as we were discussing very recently: Liberalism, Religion, Tyranny. This is the reason they do things that would otherwise seem senseless

Biden admin again moves toward making Christians perform ‘sex-change’ surgeries

It's why they support "speech codes" in educational institutions and "cancel culture" in public life. Follow the science--it leads to liberal dogma and tyranny.

OK.

I've been saying that basically nothing Wade says in his article is actual news. Appended here is an excerpt from a post I wrote in early January, 2021. It's drawn from a Daily Caller summary of a major NY Magazine article. Wade doesn't mention the NYMag article. Once again, none of this was actually news in January--the reporting was newsworthy because it broke the embargo on truth in reporting that the MSM in the US imposes on itself when Liberal interests are at stake:

10 Revelations From The NYMag Expose On The WuFlu

A couple days ago--but it seems like forever--I did a brief post on a new expose investigative article in NYMag, which informs us that the WuFlu aka Covid-19 really did come from the lab in Wuhan--and it really was human engineered: Who Knew? WuFlu Came From A Lab!

I know what you're thinking. Wasn't that a big enough story that NYMag or some other publication could have come out with it sooner? In fact, not that much that NYMag has to say is actually new or original reporting. There was a fair amount of reporting on this story all along but the facts were--how do you say?--suppressed. Published only in obscure online blogs. Until after some election or other. Go figure. Maybe they thought nobody was interested in Covid.

Anyway, the Daily Caller has summarized the lengthy NYMag article:

Did Coronavirus Come From A Lab? Ten Key Takeaways From A Shocking New Report

As we all know, the answer to the question has long been known to be: Yes--Why would you ask a dumb question like that?

As for the Ten Key Takeaways, here they are, with a bit of excerpting as well. I doubt you'll be shocked:

1. Anthony Fauci Was Directly Involved In Programs That Funded SARS Mutation Research

Scientists raised red flags about these “gain-of-function” (GoF) experiments, arguing the danger of creating new, deadly, highly transmissible diseases outweighed any possible benefits. “The consequences, should the virus escape, are too devastating to risk,” read a 2012 New York Times editorial.

2. National Institute Of Health Money Directly Flowed To The Wuhan Bat Lab

3. Chinese Scientists Feared The Virus Came From The Wuhan Lab

Another professor, National Taiwan University’s Fang Chi-tai, gave a lecture in the same month. He said the virus was “unlikely to have four amino acids added all at once… From an academic point of view, it is indeed possible that the amino acids were added to COVID-19 in the lab by humans.”

4. The Media Relied On A Scientist With A Blatant Conflict Of Interest To Debunk Wuhan “Conspiracy Theories”

The statement’s organizer was allegedly the aforementioned Daszak, who had been working directly with the Wuhan scientists in question for years, funneling them NIH money to support their work.  

5. Daszak Is Also On The WHO Team Investigating The Origin Of The Virus 

Daszak is also set to be one of the ten experts leading the World Health Organization’s January 2021 investigation into the origin of COVID-19, according to Intelligencer. [He sounds like a nut.]

6. The Wuhan Lab Collaborated With A Scientist Who Created Undetectable Clone Of SARS

One of the scientists working on this disease-mutation research was the University of North Carolina’s Dr. Ralph Baric. Baric and his team filed for a patent in 2006 for a “seamless, no-see’m” method which allowed them to clone the entire deadly SARS virus that emerged from Chinese bats in 2002. Their method allegedly showed no signs of human interventionand made it so nobody could tell if the virus was natural or lab-grown.

7. The US Government Had Numerous Safety Concerns About The Wuhan Lab Pre-COVID

A leaked 2018 State Department memo obtained by the Washington Post alleged that the lab had “a serious shortage of appropriately trained technicians and investigators needed to safely operate this high-containment laboratory.”

8. Scientists Warned An Eventual Lab-Leak Outbreak Was Realistic

According to Intelligencer, lab accidents are more common than people think and scientists had previously warned that this type of pandemic could very realistically result from one. ...  In 2012, in the Bulletin of Atomic Science, Lynn Klotz wrote that there was an 80 percent chance a potential pandemic pathogen would leak from a laboratory environment given the number of experiments being run in the field across the world. 

9. Scientists Were Allegedly Pressured Not To Raise Alarm About A Lab-Leak

Richard Ebright of Rutgers University said the outbreak “screamed” lab release, given the context in which it happened.

10. Nobody Was Willing To Definitely Rule Out A Lab Leak

That even includes Baric, who said: “Can you rule out a laboratory escape? The answer in this case is probably not.”