<div dir="ltr"><div><div style="font-size:small" class="gmail_default">I understand enough biology to conclude that a lab leak as the origin of COVID-19 is extremely unlikely, and a spillover in the market was far more likely.</div><div style="font-size:small" class="gmail_default"><br></div><div style="font-size:small" class="gmail_default">AIs might be able to design or enhance a virus today, but back in 2019, that was not at all possible. <br></div><div style="font-size:small" class="gmail_default"><br></div><div style="font-size:small" class="gmail_default">I will fault the early advice on hand washing and ignoring masks. However, it is not hard to explain. Aerosols were not well understood at that time, and they wanted to reserve the limited supply of masks for the people taking care of dying patients in ICUs.</div><div style="font-size:small" class="gmail_default"><br></div><div style="font-size:small" class="gmail_default">I figured this out about the time the lockdown started. Bought some industrial N95 masks and hooked one up to a blower and a face mask. <br></div></div><div><br></div><div><div style="font-size:small" class="gmail_default">It is instructive to remember the first SARS epidemic. A nursing friend of ours was livid about the orders near the end of the first wave in Canada. The nurses and ICU personnel were requested (or ordered, don't remember which) to take off their masks because it was scaring the tourists. This resulted in a second wave of SARS that killed a bunch of medical people.<br></div><br>Keith<br></div><br></div><br><div class="gmail_quote gmail_quote_container"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Sat, Aug 8, 2026 at 3:54 PM spike jones via extropy-chat <<a href="mailto:extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org">extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org</a>> wrote:<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><br>
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From: extropy-chat <<a href="mailto:extropy-chat-bounces@lists.extropy.org" target="_blank">extropy-chat-bounces@lists.extropy.org</a>> On Behalf Of Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat<br>
Subject: Re: [ExI] conspiracy theories, was: RE: Satoshi<br>
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On Sat, Aug 8, 2026 at 4:02 PM <<a href="mailto:spike@rainier66.com" target="_blank">spike@rainier66.com</a>> wrote:<br>
>>... I do want to know more about why the natural origin of covid theory was pushed so hard, and why The Science was so certain the vaccine would work, or would work better than it did. We aughta be able to discuss that matter without involving politics one would think.<br>
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>...And that was not the situation Dr. Fauci was presented with. He was presented by people who did not care about the facts and had admitted they were trying to find something to convict him on.... Adrian<br>
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Ja. What we will not find out now (but perhaps will in the next few weeks) is if Dr. Fauci pressured, cajoled or bribed dissenting scientists into withdrawing from the arena. I think that is what happened. If so, we missed some important function of science, for example: if there was significant silent dissent on the origin of covid, there was likely also silent dissent on the risk and efficacy of the vaccine, even as it was being rolled out.<br>
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The reason this is so critically important: by the time the vaccine was ready, we already knew that covid didn't do much to kids. We knew kids could carry the virus almost without symptoms. The young lady I caught it from was healthy, my son and his cousins caught it, didn't amount to much. But it damn near slew me, and mighta, had not I been in great shape (as well as exceedingly modest.) We found out very early that even with the vaccine, young people could carry the virus, and if anything, caused them to be more dangerous, if it reduced symptoms which were already slight enough to be overlooked.<br>
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I fear that scientists pointing out these kinds of things were suppressed, possibly threatened, possibly cajoled or even bribed to not publish those theories.<br>
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Note none of this has anything to do with anything that Dr. Fauci can be prosecuted for, even if he personally did the threatening and bribing. But now... we still face those dangers, for the next round of virus lab leaks, for se still don't know. Dr. Fauci is willing to risk charges of contempt of congress rather than admit that was done.<br>
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Please, if anyone here is willing to say: do you think there was an early consensus on covid origins? Or that dissenting opinion was squelched?<br>
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How about the vaccine? Where were the dissenting opinions on that? Where were those who theorized injecting mRNA might not do what was expected, and those who recognized the risk the mRNA might find its way to places where it shouldn't, such as in the reproductive system? Anyone who stated those risks were labeled crackpots at the time, only later to be proven right. Where were those who reasonably argued the vaccine should be used for older people but not for younger ones? The Great Barrington Declaration had it right, signed by Gupta, Bhattacharya and Kulldorff. Dr. Fauci labeled the proposal "nonsense and very dangerous." In retrospect, such confident opposition to the GBD was nonsense and very dangerous. The GBD authors were mostly right.<br>
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spike<br>
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