Fauci lies. He CREATED the pandemic

Above: main critic of Fauci, Senator Dr Rand Paul, talks to Stephen A. Smith

When I look back at my coverage of the Covid Pandemic, I'm pretty happy with what I wrote. It stands up well. 

On Anthony Fauci, for example, I see that I was early in seeing through the man. Who appeared this week at a Senate Committee to be grilled by Rand Paul, only to "Plead the Fifth" (aka, not answer), 111 times. 

I was early in coming to the judgement that Fauci was (and remains) complicit in creating the Covid pandemic, via the gain-of-function research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. Which all credible observers and analysts are now pretty much unanimous was the source of the virus via the escape of an experimental virus. Which we might concede was an "accident" ... if we're being charitable.

And of course the reason Fauci denied the Lab-leak theory is that he was the main man responsible for it! It's just as much "the Fauci virus" as it was, per Trump, "the China virus". 

Fauci was at the very, very long-time head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. Who, absolutely coincidentally I'm sure, had billions to give away to epidemiologists who supported his deceptions. His murderous duplicity.... 

Those were judgements I came to based on studies of what Fauci said and did during Covid, and the mountain of evidence, circumstantial as it was, for the Lab-leak vs Zoonotic origins.

There was a better way to deal with the pandemic than the Fauci way. What's more we knew it at the time. Even though Fauci crushed dissent and discussion of it. Shameful. (We know why, Tony. We know).

That alternative was published at the time as the Great Barrington Declaration. 

My first post of it was on 15 October, 2020 as "The Great Barrington Declaration". 

A principle architect of it, one of the three co-signatories, was then professor Jay Bhattacharya. He is now the Head of the National Institutes of Health, with oversight of the the very Institute that Dr Anthony Fauci headed for 38 years. 

I signed the Barrington Declaration in 2020. As did thousands of others, laypeople and professionals. We were all smeared as purveyors of "Disinformation", by Fauci and his acolytes. The media. But it's we that have turned out correct. Though we will hear nothing of that from the MSM, let alone an apology. Because the drill is: if the Left gets something wrong, it's "let's move on". Let's "not re-litigate what happened years ago".... But it remains important. The source of any major virus is always important to know. 

Fauci labelled professor Bhattacharya a "fringe epidemiologist" for having the temerity to suggest an alternative to the policies of lockdows, school closures, forced vaccinations, mandated masking and all the rest of it. 

Now that same "fringe epidemiologist" is the boss of the organisation that Fauci once headed. 

Oh the sublime Schadenfreude!

Dr Vinay Prasad gives more detail on the whole "Fauci thing". Prasad doesn't charm everyone, but he's knowledgeable and spot on: "Biden Covid Czar says it was Lab Leak". 

If you're interested in ancient history as it pertains to the pandemic, you can click on the Labels on the right: "Barrington Declaration", or "Coronavirus", or "Zero Covid Policy". 

Or in the Search Box on the right "Fauci". 

The Barrington Declaration is still relevant because if/when there is another pandemic, it's the road map of what we should do. For heaven's sake, NOT the Fauci roadmap. 

As Jay says: "there is nothing novel in the Declaration. It's what we've done with every pandemic in the past. It's the way we actually went about trying to prevent the spread of Covid that's the novel path." Talking here to The Goodfellows. 

I seem to be running a few laps glazing myself here. But, oh well, I'm nearly 80 and if I wanna I gonna. 

Science: Ignoring the facts on Covid. And "Net Zero Must Go" | Matt Ridley

Link below: Good reflections on Covid and the Net Zero debate from a man who knows the issues. Matt Ridley. Past editor of the Economist's Science section. 

Later well-regarded writer on science matters. Talking with the Triggernometey lads, Konstantinos Kisin and Francis Foster.

On Covid he wrote a book Viral, with epidemiologist Dr Alina Chan. 

Matt (aka Lord Ridley) explains why the lab-leak theory is still the most likely truth. And why it’s important to stop the same thing happening again. Through, as he explains, that’s not happening. The Wuhan Institute of Virology is doing gain-of-function research on the MERS virus. Shiver! With only level 2 protection. Which makes me shiver, coz MERS is way more deadly (36%) than Covid (0.2%). Whyyyyy? Just to appease China?!

Then on to the whole Net Zero stuff. Which for places like the UK and Australia makes no sense in terms of actual practical impact on future temperatures, vs the downside risks of impoverishing the nation.

https://youtu.be/LFPj8tNVoLQ?si=JfnjOtReTx94Lwtm

ADDED: "Four sides to every story". On Climate change. My post of 16 December 2009.

China greens massive areas of desert

Click above for the video

In the category of "not everything China does is bad", we have the story of its greening the deserts. By a technique of burying straw in the sand. This is surely a good news story. 

China has grown its forested area from 12% in 1949 to 23% today. Massive W for China.

Contrasts with the sad stories of crumbling cities and ghost malls. Which we see here in Xiamen, a place I've been to often, seen from before it was even a glint in Deng Xiaoping's eye, to when it was flourishing, like my trip there in 2014, to now, tumbleweeds, closed shops, ghost towns, the victims of economic swings and political tussles across the Taiwan Strait.  

Or here at Capital airport, Beijing... which I don't quite buy, since we've been there recently and didn't see it this empty. Still. 

There are similar vids of San Francisco and Oakland in America, with totally empty streets. I think a lot is still due to Covid, the closure of whole economies and keeping people working from home. What a disaster that was. 

Covid, five years on...

 

Click above for the video

It's five years from the first lockdowns for Covid. The ones that were supposed to be "a week to flatten the curve", but lasted until the end of 2022, three years in all. And which we're still feeling the effects of, five years later. As Peter Hitchens notes in the video above. 

Megyn Kelly talks about the latest New York Times article that reports the breaking news that the likely source of the virus was the Wuhan Institute of Virology, facts that were around in the conservative social media five years ago, including on her own podcast. Catching up, by the "Paper of Record", but making not a single nod of apology that they got it so wrong and that they vilified anyone who doubted their story about Zoonotic origin. This is the "Failure of Corporate Media". 

My own selection of posts from early on, around March 2020, is here. Most of these have aged pretty well. I was an early sceptic of the Lockdowns -- the ones that were to have been "a week to flatten the curve -- but lasted three years. 

“As global economies recover from impact of Covid-19, is it time for China’s day in the sun?” | SCMP

Just as Geoff Raby has a different perspective on China from a “massive traffic jam in Beijing” so do a couple of foreigners, married to Chinese, speak the language and tour all of China in motorbikes, have a different perspective than Raby: China-based YouTubers Winston Sterzel and Matthew Tye.

Ruby’s is the perspective of the Australian government, at least the civil servants at the time he was ambassador: generally China bullish. On the other side are the China bearish, at various points of negativity from the “Coming collapse of China” Gordon Chang, to the downbeat “Lei’s Real Talk” to the demography doomsayers like Peter Zeihan. And of course the on-the-ground citizen YouTubers.

Then we have the business folk, here in Hong Kong and those long term resident in China. From these I have a sense of tightening, more anti-foreigner sentiment. Not exactly optimism. They’re still in there, ims one cases because they have to be, in others because they’re handling wealthy Chinese who are ra,img their money out of China. If voting with your Renminbi counts for anything, it’s also bearish.

I don’t buy the “China collapse” narrative. Mainly because forty-plus years in China, I’ve heard that for all that time and all that time China has just got stronger. 

But still… Xi Jinping is not an about to be overthrown, but nor is he quite as comfortable in his position as he was pre pandemic. The CCP is not about to be overthrown, but nor is it the behemoth that 100 million members might indicate, because most are members simply for their career, not necuae they are ideologically aligned, a bit like having to be Catholic in a Catholic country — it gets you ahead. 

Back to Geoff Raby and his “perspective”. He was Australia’s ambassador to China 2007-2011. I know Geoff from last century. I was at the height of my public service 1990-1995, when my position was ambassador level. I attended innumerable meetings between Australian and Chinese Ministers and most senior officials, many with Geoff.  I served three Australian ambassadors over my whole time in the Oz civil service. 

One thing the Chinese are very good at is duchessing ambassadors. They treat them so well, with so much respect, they really look after them, call them “old friends” (老朋友) who “understand China” (了解中国) — the China they are presented with, of course! That’s the treatment Geoff Raby has had. It’s no wonder he reports only the good news about China. The only people he meets in China when he visits these days are Chinese officials who let him know the latest good news in how great things are in China. If he didn’t report positive, he would no longer be given access to the “senior officials” he’s so proud of quoting. 

He would have been escorted during his most recent visit and if he’d asked not to be they would have followed him anyway and made sure he didn’t speak to any unauthorised folks in the street.  Look at his reporting! The Chinese have done a good job! He’s a spokesman for the Communist Party of China. On’ya Geoff!

If Raby were writing for an academic journal he’d have to give a “statement on conflict of interests” setting this out. As it is, writing as Op-Ed, all is fine, just go right along with carrying water for the communist party and you’ll be lionised in the comments.

An interesting reflection on the limits of authoritarianism

Remember at the very beginning of the pandemic how quickly China built temporary hospitals? The wonder of an authoritarian government, thought some. A scary example of authoritarianism, thought others. In any case, quite something. 

Now that China has given up Zero Covid, with all its clear metrics, it’s proving harder to manage the “freedom of no-lockdown”. 

Karman Lucero, “For China’s officials.leaving zero-Covid behind is far harder than enforcing it”

The policy, [zero-Covid] while damaging, came with clear metrics that allowed local government officials to demonstrate their compliance
The new mandate to simply let people get on with their lives leaves officials with no way to show success other than by downplaying the resulting rise in infections

There’s also the dodgy death statistics. In China the incentive is to under report Covid deaths, because that’s how local officials are measured. In the United States the incentive is to over report because the federal government pays families of Covid victims $8,000 towards “funeral expenses”. Thus China has more deaths than reported, the U.S. fewer than reported. By how much in each case we just don’t know. Perhaps some day will get closer to the true deaths from Covid worldwide. ADDED: The WHO says there are more Covid deaths than reported (eg, in Our World in Data) based on Excess Deaths stats. But recent data showing many excess deaths have nothing to do with Covid, throe some doubt on that WHO assessment. 

Two long-term China-resident foreigners drop China truth bombs

Click above for the video

Megyn Kelly talks to recent China-based YouTubers Winston Sterzel and Matthew Tye.

I was lucky to live in China, in the seventies, when it went on an upswing. When it went from closed to open. 

Matthew and William talk of going through a downswing. When China changed from open to closed. From welcoming foreigners to anti-foreign. 

I know old friends and colleagues, long-time residents in China, who confirm Winston amd Matthew’s observations. Me too. I never got to do, as they did, the motorbike trip around the country, but I did do car trips and train trips and bus trips. And even some bicycle trips, way back when. 

These lads describe it well, the richness of the cities, the poverty in the country just past city limits. And the growth of anti foreigner sentiment. My China-based friends confirm all this and that it’s got worse in recent times. 

From the Megyn Kelly show notes: 

“YouTubers Winston Sterzel and Matthew Tye join to discuss the toll of China’s Zero Covid lockdown policies, the rare protests late last year and China’s response, American media not understanding the China reality, how China tries to control the message and silence criticism, the nationalist movement in China., how China became more authoritarian in recent years, their personal experiences living in China as foreigners, and more”.

I agree with them this hyper-nationalist anti-foreign stuff began with Xi Jinping. I’ve said that for years. There’s his infamous “Document Nine” which kicked it all along.

I’d note too that this anti-foreigner wave is just the latest in a cycle that has repeated over the centuries, millennia, even. Examples: the Boxer Rebellion at the beginning of the 20th century, the Taiping Rebellion in the century before; even the wonderful Ming Dynasty cut itself off from foreign influence. So today is a bit of Plus ça change.…

This interview is well worth a watch. Especially if you’ve an interest in China. And who shouldn’t have, in these interconnected days? These guys know whereof they speak, at least from the POV of foreigners in China. Which will always be me. No matter what I do. No matter how much Chinese I know, just as it was for these lads. (And eventually their Chinese wives too, as they describe).

ADDED: I just realised that I’d come across their YouTube vids before this one. I’ve watched some of their stuff in the weirdest foods they’ve eaten in China. Which are weirder even than my weirdest ones which include Bull Penis and Live Fish. Oh, and Civet cat. And of course that western bête noire, Dog, aka “fragrant meat”. 

ADDED II: Their comments in the Chinese education system, from the POV of teaching in it, are particularly interesting. Towards the end 

“When strict anti-pandemic measures could make a comeback, why would Hongkongers return?” | SCMP

One of the 140,000 left Hong Kong last year.

Good analysis. Much silliness remains in Covid rules, including mandated masking everywhere, indoors and outdoors. The only such place in the world. Hong Kong saying maybe we have to do it all over again for any other pathogen. No, thanks. 

Snip:

During Chief Executive John Lee Ka-chiu’s New Year’s address, he said he welcomed the return of people who had left the city because of Covid-19 and other reasons. While it is commendable that Lee reached out to Hongkongers overseas, there has not been a reconciliation with what led to the exodus. Read on…

“China’s zero-Covid saga will baffle historians for years to come” | Donald Low

A remarkably hard-hitting, critical review of China’s zero-Covid policies. An answer to “why” did this happen is simply:Marxism. Which requires you support “the core”. Whatever the centre, the CCP, has decided. You must do that and don’t question. 

Donald Low covers this in his third point above. 

“China should look at itself before blaming others for restrictions” | Maria Siow

Pretty hard-hitting article in our local South China Morning Post, given Zero Covid policy was, until five minutes ago, sacrosanct, and proclaimed, by Xi Jinping himself, as “completely correct”. It proved itself useless, as many in the west had predicted. 

The WHO calls on Beijing to be “more open” with info on genetic sequencing, hospitalisations, deaths and vaccinations. Good luck with that. Given an unbroken record since the outset of this pandemic of covering up, obfuscating and lying. 

My conclusion on the best and worst Covid data, based on timelines, accuracy, comprehensivenesses, presentation:

Best: Britain, Singapore, United States, Hong Kong, Israel, South Africa (I don’t count Japan, Korea, etc as I don’t know their languages). Both the US and Britain had data presented by private entities that was much more user-friendly than their respective sources, eg, the New York Times and The Spectator. Sadly our own South China Morning Post here didn’t do the same, even though they have the capacity.

Worst: China. By a country mile. (I don’t count most of Africa, because of known difficulties)

“Pragmatism returns in China as Covid silliness draws to an end | Zhou Xin

Online here

Pretty frank stuff in today’s South China Morning Post . The policy of Xi Jinping, the Zero Covid pokicy, was “silliness”. Which it was. 

“Why China’s selective Covid-19 data adds up to public distrust” | Josephine Ma, SCMP

More on the issue I raised yesterday — China’s nonsense Covid data. Why do it? Why be so patently wrong? When you could be more accurate and you get found out when you aren’t? Maybe the entropy of the bureaucracy? We’ve always hidden data from the masses; we always will.

By the way, this concealing of data and information goes all the way back to the beginnings of the pandemic. When news of the first cases was suppressed, doctors punished for exchanging information. Even though China was a signatory to requirements by the WHO for early reporting of new pathogens. A requirement mandated after he 2002 SARS epidemic, also originated in South China. 

Covid, Covid, nothing but Covid…

Covid covers all the front page of South China Morning Post 

And I’ve seen that there’s a new version of Covid, in China, similar to the original Wuhan virus, which they are calling “White lung” (白肺, Bái fèi). Blocking lungs, needing ventilators (again…). True or not I don’t know. It comes from reports inside China of X-rays posted by doctors. I can’t vouch for whether or not it’s misinformation, or a conspiracy theory. If true, it’s bad news. A highly contagious version with higher death toll than Omicron, and causing more hospitalisations. So I won’t be taking up the new China enticements of border reopening and no quarantine. 

China is no longer reporting Covid figures at a national level. The other day they reported 4,103 cases and zero deaths (!). But a Beijing based friend, tells us he is one of 70% of the city who has Omicron. Same day the Mayor of Qingdao, a city of 9 million, said his city alone had >500,000 cases and “thousands” of deaths. These actual on-the-ground figures made a nonsense of the official data, which were always patent nonsense. (A side note: YouTube rules around Covid are that you should quote info from the National Health Authorities. If you did that for China, you’d be promoting wild and monstrous misinformation).

Note: the surge in numbers predates the dropping of Zero Covid policy. The surge of Omicron (long predicted outside China)  led to the U-turn, not the other way around. People are now wondering what this means for the man most associated with ZCP, Xi Jinping. I just heard musings about this on Australia’s ABC Radio National. He staked a lot on the Zero Covid Policy, and Chinese netizens were encouraged to mock the west for “lying flat” (躺平,Tǎng píng). Mocking on the other side of their mouths, now, aren’t they?

Wong and Wang make it right?

Trade Ministers: Penny Wong and Wang Yi.
What’s with the masks? Click above for article 

China backs off its trade sanctions on Australia. Reset. Why? 

My guess: 

(1) Change of Aussie government to Labor gives chance for China to ease back on their extreme Australia-bashing trade sanctions without losing too much face.

(2) Things not going so well in China. Zero Covid policy was ruinous and now the 180-degree turnaround is having its own impact. Beijing has to do something to help its economy. Enter Australia. Important middle-level power and major in the region.

ADDED: China trade-sanctioned Australia because Beijing didn’t like that Australia had demanded an international study of the source of Covid-19.  The sanctions were to “punish” Australia, and to scare off others. How dare Australia seek to find out the actual, real, source of the world’s most destructive pandemic in over a century? (More evidence, by the way, that China has something to hide, isn’t it? Something like a lab leak?). 

Beijing made the now notorious “14 Demands”, which expected Australia to kowtow to the dragon, before they would consider lifting the sanctions. We didn’t kowtow. Beijing blinked.

Some points:

1. The sanctions also harm Chinese companies and consumers. Chinese steel mills don’t import Australian iron ore and coking coal to do us a favour. They import our ores and our coal because they are the best, also the closest and the cheapest. Chinese consumers don’t eat Australian lobsters and drink our wine to do us a favour, but because they like them. Yum! And they are cheap compared to their European or US equivalents. Chinese steel miles and Shanghainese consumers, all got cranky with the government for the “punishment” of Australia. “You’re punishing us too!”.

2. Australia doesn’t rely on China as much as people think. Sure it’s important, mainly as a resources importer and source of students and tourists. But the Australian GNP is only 8.2% based on exports. China is less than half of that. Impact, yes, but not existential threat. 

3. The “14 Demands” reflect badly in Beijing. When they went globally viral, they were seen — correctly — as crass bullying. Australia, rightly, rejected them all. We said we’re not going to negotiate under threat. It seems China blinked first. 

4. China’s Oz trade sanctions flout WTO rules. (Need to double check)

5. Data tells the story, Australian historical and projected GDP:

Note that Australia experienced GDP drops a decade ago, little to do with China, and yet far greater than the marginal impact of China’s recent sanctions.

“Lessons for Hong Kong from its futile, drawn-out pursuit of zero-Covid” | SCMP

 

Click to enlarge and clarify 

I’m just leaving this here.

“Chinese massive spread”

Click above for video 

Early in the pandemic virus experts told us zero Covid was impossible. I believed them. And so it has proven. China ignored that wisdom for three years. And now they have reversed. Numbers will skyrocket. We won’t know the real figures because we have not had realistic Covid data from the beginning. 

John Campbell with the news.

And WHO leaves the lab-leak theory of Covid origins right there on the table. They definitely suspect…

The rest of the world hardly mentions Covid. Here in China, it’s Covid non-stop

It dawns on Beijing that draconian lockdowns savage the economy. Rich cities and rich provinces are running out of money. Investors are staying away in droves. Debt is up — it’s “drinking poison to cure thirst”. So Beijing changes course. 

But…  after three years of “Zero Covid” the shackled populace is afraid to throw off its shackles. Now there’s “mass fear” of being free(er):

Online here

Now it’s Hong Kong offering China lessons!

Hong Kong : “Bleak Prospects”

Click to enlarge and clarify. Online here

David Dodwell is a regular and informed commenter, Hong Kong resident. And I’ve often disagreed with his views. But in the above, fellow HK resident me says, he’s got it pretty right. Hong Kong has been grievously hurt by the pandemic, “Hong Kong sits among the most devastated “, worse than our arch rival Singapore. 

An important point David doesn’t mention: that this “devastation”, our “bleak prospects” are largely self-inflicted. When it became clear that the mainland was going to keep on keeping on with its Zero Covid policy, we should have untethered ourselves from it. We could have opened up to the outside world while keeping the border closed with the mainland.

This is not hindsight. Many people, myself included, said so at the time, two years ago at least. We could have followed policies of “focused protection” instead of shutting everyone down and smashing the economy. That is the policy recommended by Stanford professor Jay Bhattacharya  et.al. in the Barrington Declaration. (Decisively — shockingly and scandalously in my view — shut down by Collins and Fauci, with no reasons given).

Our economic woes — 3.5% drop in GNP, rising unemployment, devastated travel and industry  — are self inflicted. For no net benefit health wise.

“Panic grips Beijing…”

Online here

Why? Because the Beijing government forced the Zero Covid policy on its population. Scaremongering was part of that. So now they’re afeared. Brill.

“Beijing loosens up further in major zero-Covid policy shift” | SCMP

Today’s front page, which is kind of historic, I guess. Maybe more notable because it was only a short while ago Xi Jinping told us that there would be “no deviation” from Zero-Covid policy. But here has been — indeed a “major zero-Covid policy shift” — probably a result of the countrywide demos recently. When just a few days ago Xi told the EU the demonstrators were just “frustrated students”. 

Everyone, outside China, has been saying Omicron is too transmissible and can’t be stopped even by draconian lockdowns. And so it has proven. Now, with relaxation, let’s see how it goes. And how China reacts. Hmm…