Dr. Fauci “not convinced” coronavirus developed naturally

crimson5pheonix

It took 6 months to read my title.
Legacy
Jun 6, 2008
36,472
3,660
118
The point isn't whether what theory is more plausible, it's that they're both plausible and we were told that the lab leak theory was 100% impossible, which was a lie.
I wasn't told that at least. Of course I don't listen to funny beanie man. I also don't watch CNN or MSNBC, but from the beginning what I heard was "it's implausible, but worth investigating". And then it was investigated.

I don't care about Facebook either (I can't stand social media at all), but saying Facebook or any platform censoring discussion of something isn't censoring is asinine.
Because I care more about medical journals. Big tech is it's own set of issues, but on the question of whether or not there was a lid on research into the virus, Facebook banning nobodies from talking about it doesn't even enter into the equation, it's a different topic for a different talk.

And the fact that I posted links to researches/scientists that said there was censoring going on with medical journals means nothing?
And I find it hard to believe when I saw research going on, as much as you can medically research whether a virus came from a lab or not.

Researching whether it came from a lab or not has basically run out into the sand at this point since that outside certain specific circumstances you're not going to determine if it's lab made or not medically, they're just going to have to examine the lab itself and like others have said, the Chinese aren't going to let that happen easily even if they're completely in the clear on it.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Agema

Agema

Do everything and feel nothing
Legacy
Mar 3, 2009
9,201
6,476
118
Like I said many times before, I don't have a horse in this race, I don't really care where it came from, I very much don't like the censoring of information that happened. There are several possibilities and all should be able to be discussed.
If you didn't have a horse in this race, you wouldn't be so busy making arguments about the origins of the disease.

Marty must really be like the luckiest person then because he's been right way more often than Fauci and all these other "experts". The "experts" also predicted that the US was going to get another wave in March from the UK variant. The current rise in cases could be similar to early April of this year. The current cases are still well below flu during a normal flu season with covid now having a similar fatality rate and you want people to be extremely concerned? The new case counts per 100K are very low in the vast vast vast majority of the counties in the US. I spend most my time in Cook (which contains Chicago, IL) and Lake (IN) counties and the new case count per 100K is 3 and 5 respectively. Variants, shmariants.
The USA did have a wave starting in March, it was just a lot smaller than the preceding one. Compare the USA and UK: both have a major peak in cases around the turn of the year. However, the UK declines steadily to almost nothing by May. The USA declines to March, and then has another "bump" which boosts on into May, which coincides with the alpha variant becoming the dominant US variant.

Waffle about flu is a big fat load of straw man.

"Concerned" requires context. Does the USA need to worry about mass hospitalisation and casualties like it was 2020 and early 2021, no. But it does need to consider a massive rash of cases and subsequent healthcare burden from the delta variant, plus ill-health from long covid. Like I've said, take a look at the UK, which is now on over 40k new cases a day from a low of 2k. From simple equivalent scaling, the USA can plausibly expect being back over 200k new infections a day. Although it might not get that bad. Cases are currently now up to 29k per day from a low of 12k (7-day rolling average), as that new delta variant sweeps through and takes off. It could just be another April-May like bump, but I would say that the experience of the UK suggests otherwise.

Although "concern" is really also just a big fat load of straw man. The real point is that Marty Makary is just wrong: the USA simply does not have herd immunity, as delta is about to demonstrate to you irrespective of whether it's an April-size peak or a really big January peak.
 
  • Like
Reactions: crimson5pheonix

Agema

Do everything and feel nothing
Legacy
Mar 3, 2009
9,201
6,476
118
And I find it hard to believe when I saw research going on, as much as you can medically research whether a virus came from a lab or not.

Researching whether it came from a lab or not has basically run out into the sand at this point since that outside certain specific circumstances you're not going to determine if it's lab made or not medically, they're just going to have to examine the lab itself and like others have said, the Chinese aren't going to let that happen easily even if they're completely in the clear on it.
Yep. There's very little to publish on the origins of covid (thanks, China).

Scientists can write and journals will publish opinion pieces, but they don't count for very much. People who want to scream conspiracy because they have that sort of mindset will see the absence of evidence of publication on covid origins as evidence of censorship because it suits them to. And then they'll quote mine a couple of random academics saying they didn't want to get into it as proof, just like they claimed the opinions and weak-ass reviews of Pierre Kory and Tess Lawrie proved there was a good case for ivermectin, because it suits them. And that Pierre Kory, he's right about everything. 100% hit rate. Impeccable career. Totally trustworthy. HE JUST IS, OKAY???
 
  • Like
Reactions: crimson5pheonix

Silvanus

Elite Member
Legacy
Jan 15, 2013
12,036
6,341
118
Country
United Kingdom
I didn't think I had to say the common sense stuff. I don't talk to people like children that don't know anything.
Yes, but that's not really enough-- you have to also refrain from saying stuff that's categorically wrong.

Because when everything is open and the RE<1, that points to herd immunity. Do I have to point out why herd immunity is not a thing in Taiwan even though everything is open? It's common fucking sense. So let me rephrase that first sentence so you can fully understand it; Because when everything is open and the RE<1 AND THE VIRUS IS WIDESPREAD AND NOT CONTAINED, that points to herd immunity.
OK. So, how come the UK had an RE under 1 even outside of lockdown, and then it rose back above again?

I never claimed RE translates directly to level of immunity but it's a pretty good sign when people are back to normal life and cases are going down. There's probably a somewhat decent chunk of people that are still scared to go out and do stuff, people in the Bay area are still masking outside with like a 70% vaccination rate LMAO, so you don't quite have a 100% normal mixing of people yet.

I don't live in the UK obviously but from my perspective the UK isn't "open". Do you guys have packed sporting events and concerts? And Freedom Day hasn't even happened yet in the UK.
About that "Freedom day"...

Yes, we had packed sporting events. The finals of Wimbledon went ahead in front of about 15,000 people, and the final of the Euros took place in Wembley, and was attended by 60,000 people. I live in the capital, and every day I can see how almost zero social distancing is observed during rush hour on the tube. And meanwhile, the incidence rate of Covid has skyrocketed.

About 2/3 of adults are fully vaccinated in the UK. And yet the incidence is back up over 50,000 cases daily.

Where's my herd immunity? It's long past April, bud!
 

Phoenixmgs

The Muse of Fate
Legacy
Apr 3, 2020
9,586
825
118
w/ M'Kraan Crystal
Gender
Male
If you didn't have a horse in this race, you wouldn't be so busy making arguments about the origins of the disease.
If someone like the former CDC director said he believes the lab leak theory is most likely (and got death threats for saying that btw), then obviously the theory has merit and should be discussed.

The USA did have a wave starting in March, it was just a lot smaller than the preceding one. Compare the USA and UK: both have a major peak in cases around the turn of the year. However, the UK declines steadily to almost nothing by May. The USA declines to March, and then has another "bump" which boosts on into May, which coincides with the alpha variant becoming the dominant US variant.

Waffle about flu is a big fat load of straw man.

"Concerned" requires context. Does the USA need to worry about mass hospitalisation and casualties like it was 2020 and early 2021, no. But it does need to consider a massive rash of cases and subsequent healthcare burden from the delta variant, plus ill-health from long covid. Like I've said, take a look at the UK, which is now on over 40k new cases a day from a low of 2k. From simple equivalent scaling, the USA can plausibly expect being back over 200k new infections a day. Although it might not get that bad. Cases are currently now up to 29k per day from a low of 12k (7-day rolling average), as that new delta variant sweeps through and takes off. It could just be another April-May like bump, but I would say that the experience of the UK suggests otherwise.

Although "concern" is really also just a big fat load of straw man. The real point is that Marty Makary is just wrong: the USA simply does not have herd immunity, as delta is about to demonstrate to you irrespective of whether it's an April-size peak or a really big January peak.
The USA bump (March to mid-April) also coincided with the weather getting nicer, Spring Break, and the Easter holiday. So, again, saying that was from the UK variant is very correlational and the "bump" was very far from IMPENDING DOOM.

Talking about the flu is not a straw man, it's staying CONSISTENT with normal risk. It's a fact that going to see the NBA Finals right now is less dangerous than it was seeing Michael Jordan play in December in the 90s. Nobody was concerned about going to a basketball game then when the risk was higher, why should they be concerned today when the risk is lower? Nor did we have kids wearing masks back then when the flu was more dangerous to them, yet at the MLB All-Star game they had kids OUTSIDE catching fly balls during the HR Derby wearing masks for no fucking reason.

You may want to be concerned a bit if you're not vaccinated and in an area where transmission is high, but that is a very small % of counties in the United States. Funny thing is that a survey showed that more vaccinated people are concerned by the Indian variant than nonvaccinated people. I kinda get why nonvaccinated without natural immunity wouldn't be concerned because if they were concerned they would've gotten vaccinated. But why would vaccinated people be concerned over the Indian variant when the vaccines are still more than 90% effective? Mabye cuz the fear-mongering media like how the media will say cases are up say 50% in say 30 out of 50 states yet in many counties that means the cases per 100k went from say 4 to 6 (and 6 is still very low); when cases are so low and they go up and you make that into percentages, it looks a lot worse than it is as the numbers are still something everyone would've loved to have seen just a few months ago but are made to look like they are bad when they're not. I don't know how you can say most of the US doesn't have herd immunity. It would be dumb for anyone to claim that the entirety of the US would have gained herd immunity at the same time because every place has different infection numbers (natural immunity) and different vaccination numbers. Where I go and do stuff in Northwest Indiana, places are packed with basically nobody wearing masks and new cases is 4 per 100K according to that map of all the counties. I was in Indianapolis for work for the last 2 or so months and nobody is wearing masks, they had the Indy 500 with 130+K people, and people are living completely normal and 6 cases per 100K in Marion county. If that's not herd immunity, then what is?


I wasn't told that at least. Of course I don't listen to funny beanie man. I also don't watch CNN or MSNBC, but from the beginning what I heard was "it's implausible, but worth investigating". And then it was investigated.
Just because you didn't hear it, doesn't mean it wasn't said. It was so denied as being plausible, it was considered a conspiracy theory.

Because I care more about medical journals. Big tech is it's own set of issues, but on the question of whether or not there was a lid on research into the virus, Facebook banning nobodies from talking about it doesn't even enter into the equation, it's a different topic for a different talk.
I gave 2 links of researchers/scientists in 2 different places (Australia and the US) saying researching/publishing studies that had to do with the lab leak were hard. Facebook banning discussion of this is also a sign that the scientific community saying it's a conspiracy theory as why would Facebook ban something that the scientific community says is plausible aka open for debate?

And I find it hard to believe when I saw research going on, as much as you can medically research whether a virus came from a lab or not.

Researching whether it came from a lab or not has basically run out into the sand at this point since that outside certain specific circumstances you're not going to determine if it's lab made or not medically, they're just going to have to examine the lab itself and like others have said, the Chinese aren't going to let that happen easily even if they're completely in the clear on it.
There's other ways to study the virus and possible origins like that Australian study that looked at the likelihood of specific animals being the link to human infection, which didn't have any takers until the lab leak theory was no longer "taboo". The fact that is was taboo says it all, that's the opposite of science.


Yes, but that's not really enough-- you have to also refrain from saying stuff that's categorically wrong.
Like what?

OK. So, how come the UK had an RE under 1 even outside of lockdown, and then it rose back above again?

About that "Freedom day"...

Yes, we had packed sporting events. The finals of Wimbledon went ahead in front of about 15,000 people, and the final of the Euros took place in Wembley, and was attended by 60,000 people. I live in the capital, and every day I can see how almost zero social distancing is observed during rush hour on the tube. And meanwhile, the incidence rate of Covid has skyrocketed.

About 2/3 of adults are fully vaccinated in the UK. And yet the incidence is back up over 50,000 cases daily.

Where's my herd immunity? It's long past April, bud!
Uhh... who said the UK had herd immunity in April? A lot of the cases are in vaccinated people, which don't really matter and the cases in nonvaccinated actually went down by 22% last week. I don't know the ins and outs of the UK so I'm not going to try to claim herd immunity in the UK nor have I in the past.

Pff, that's nothing. We got 80,000!

That number isn't right. Only the the Daily Beast is reporting that number with nobody else close to that number in fact, like NY Times has 31,000.
 

crimson5pheonix

It took 6 months to read my title.
Legacy
Jun 6, 2008
36,472
3,660
118
Just because you didn't hear it, doesn't mean it wasn't said. It was so denied as being plausible, it was considered a conspiracy theory.
Because it is, at least in the way you discuss it with the media landscape. This goes back to the discussion on what scientists say vs. how it's reported for media consumption. For one thing, there is absolutely no way at all to tell from medical examination whether it came from the Wuhan lab or not, and no scientist would ever ever say they found out it did without examining the lab.

If it is a lab accident the Wuhan lab would be the number one place to check for certain, but you'd have to check the lab itself, no research would find it. So automatically any discussion of the virus premised on it escaping the Wuhan lab when we aren't talking about investigating the lab itself is being unscientific and trying to peddle in conspiracy.

I gave 2 links of researchers/scientists in 2 different places (Australia and the US) saying researching/publishing studies that had to do with the lab leak were hard. Facebook banning discussion of this is also a sign that the scientific community saying it's a conspiracy theory as why would Facebook ban something that the scientific community says is plausible aka open for debate?
Because
Facebook
is
a
company
not
a
medical
journal
thus
I
don't
care

As to the scientists, again, their word against the piles of research that happened. It sounds more like what they were publishing was either unexciting even by medical journal standards or was in some way too flawed to reasonably publish.

There's other ways to study the virus and possible origins like that Australian study that looked at the likelihood of specific animals being the link to human infection, which didn't have any takers until the lab leak theory was no longer "taboo". The fact that is was taboo says it all, that's the opposite of science.
If Agema wants to correct me he can, but that sounds like "boring even by medical journal standards" and on it's face doesn't sound like it could possibly have anything conclusive to say about anything, but might be used as part of a method in more in-depth research.
 

Agema

Do everything and feel nothing
Legacy
Mar 3, 2009
9,201
6,476
118
If someone like the former CDC director said he believes the lab leak theory is most likely (and got death threats for saying that btw), then obviously the theory has merit and should be discussed.
Several of the scientists rejecting the lab leak have also got death threats. Everyone gets fucking death threats for speaking up these days: it's like saying that someone who earned income paid taxes on it.

The USA bump (March to mid-April) also coincided with the weather getting nicer, Spring Break, and the Easter holiday. So, again, saying that was from the UK variant is very correlational and the "bump" was very far from IMPENDING DOOM.
And here you jump to dishonesty by putting your own spin on it of "impending doom".

You may want to be concerned a bit if you're not vaccinated and in an area where transmission is high, but that is a very small % of counties in the United States. Funny thing is that a survey showed that more vaccinated people are concerned by the Indian variant than nonvaccinated people. I kinda get why nonvaccinated without natural immunity wouldn't be concerned because if they were concerned they would've gotten vaccinated. But why would vaccinated people be concerned over the Indian variant when the vaccines are still more than 90% effective?
90%+ effective against hospitalisation or death. But a much higher percentage may have very significant flu-like symptoms. Or have to cancel their holidays, stop working, self-isolate, etc.

Just because you didn't hear it, doesn't mean it wasn't said. It was so denied as being plausible, it was considered a conspiracy theory.
The constant conflation of proper scientific literature and journalism or random websites is a persistent feature of your arguments. It's not only the root of many of your errors because you assume lightweight media and random cranks have some sort of authority and expertise they don't, but it's a source of dishonesty. Facebook restricts something magically turns into an argument for society-wide censorship, and when queried about how deep this supposed censorship goes, nothing of substance is apparent, just more cherry-picked snippets of lightweight media articles.
 

Agema

Do everything and feel nothing
Legacy
Mar 3, 2009
9,201
6,476
118
If Agema wants to correct me he can, but that sounds like "boring even by medical journal standards" and on it's face doesn't sound like it could possibly have anything conclusive to say about anything, but might be used as part of a method in more in-depth research.
I am not correcting you, because you are right.

Scientific journals, moreso the top ones, tend to be interested in hard data and mechanistic explanations over phenomenological reports. Speculations and opinions just aren't that interesting. The irony is, Phoenixmgs has already posted (allegedly in his defence) a source that could explain his argument for him: it states that concern over the lab leak hypothesis was about people in media worried it would inspire people to walk down the street punching people who looked east Asian.
 

Seanchaidh

Elite Member
Legacy
Mar 21, 2009
5,762
3,504
118
Country
United States of America
That number isn't right. Only the the Daily Beast is reporting that number with nobody else close to that number in fact, like NY Times has 31,000.
Their source is Johns Hopkins University.
 

CriticalGaming

Elite Member
Legacy
Dec 28, 2017
11,207
5,676
118
90%+ effective against hospitalisation or death. But a much higher percentage may have very significant flu-like symptoms. Or have to cancel their holidays, stop working, self-isolate, etc.
40% of hospitalized people from Covid right now in the U.K. are vaccinated.
When you look at a percentage like that and then complain that people aren't rushing out to get a shot that doesn't seem to even matter, why is anyone surprised?

People think it is all or nothing with the vaccine. Either you get it and are completely immune, or it isn't worth getting. And IIRC a shitload of covid cases in the U.S. are vaccinated people getting the fucking thing. They have already told us to put our masks back on which further hurts the plea to get the shot because part of the motivation for the shot was to not put the fucking mask on anymore.

Basically the messaging is that nothing works, and nothing we do matters. Social distancing meant nothing, masking means nothing, vaccination means nothing. What do they expect the public to do after a year of this shit? All that is going to happen is that the people who did follow the rules will stop following them because it isn't working. Meanwhile people who just did whatever the fuck they wanted are still going to live on as normal because the virus doesn't kill the stupid specifically.
 

tstorm823

Elite Member
Legacy
Aug 4, 2011
7,148
968
118
Country
USA
40% of hospitalized people from Covid right now in the U.K. are vaccinated.
The amount of nothing that tells us is noteworthy. Are the hospitalizations comparably serious? Are the demographics the same? Are they even all people who required hospitalization because of covid? It could just be elderly people already at deaths door contract the virus with or without the vaccine. The messaging does suck, as you say, and a statistic like that is a fantastic example of giving exactly enough information to have people reach wrong conclusions.
 

CriticalGaming

Elite Member
Legacy
Dec 28, 2017
11,207
5,676
118
The amount of nothing that tells us is noteworthy. Are the hospitalizations comparably serious?
Hospitalization means you need to be admitted and observed. So if you have a covid case then yes, it is serious.

So far as far as I can tell, it's still people over 50 suffering the brunt of covid's power. The vaccine may not be as effect with them maybe, who knows. But the number certainly doesn't seem like the vaccine is 96% effective as claimed with that hospitalization rate.
 

Silvanus

Elite Member
Legacy
Jan 15, 2013
12,036
6,341
118
Country
United Kingdom
So far as far as I can tell, it's still people over 50 suffering the brunt of covid's power. The vaccine may not be as effect with them maybe, who knows. But the number certainly doesn't seem like the vaccine is 96% effective as claimed with that hospitalization rate.
I believe 96% (or thereabouts) was the claimed figure for the original Covid-19, not the Delta variant which currently makes up over 90% of cases in the UK.

The efficacy against the Delta variant, IIRC, is claimed to be about 70 - 80%. It was widely recognised in advance that the vaccines may have lower impact (though of course still very significant impact) on other strains that develop in future.
 

tstorm823

Elite Member
Legacy
Aug 4, 2011
7,148
968
118
Country
USA
Hospitalization means you need to be admitted and observed. So if you have a covid case then yes, it is serious.

So far as far as I can tell, it's still people over 50 suffering the brunt of covid's power. The vaccine may not be as effect with them maybe, who knows. But the number certainly doesn't seem like the vaccine is 96% effective as claimed with that hospitalization rate.
I believe 96% (or thereabouts) was the claimed figure for the original Covid-19, not the Delta variant which currently makes up over 90% of cases in the UK.

The efficacy against the Delta variant, IIRC, is claimed to be about 70 - 80%. It was widely recognised in advance that the vaccines may have lower impact (though of course still very significant impact) on other strains that develop in future.
If you do the math based on 68.5% full vaccination rate and 40% of cases being among the vaccinated, it comes out to a 69.3% efficacy rate, which is in line with the bottom end of that estimate before taking into account age demographic nonsense that we just don't have the information to parse. Older people are both more likely to be vaccinated and more likely to be hospitalized, which puts a big pile of survivor bias into a statistic based just on hospitalizations. A trial with a general population might find the vaccine 100% effective among those who were at low risk of hospitalizations to begin with, but 50% effective among those most at risk, and pulling data just from hospitals puts all the weight on one subset of the population.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Silvanus and Agema

CriticalGaming

Elite Member
Legacy
Dec 28, 2017
11,207
5,676
118
I believe 96% (or thereabouts) was the claimed figure for the original Covid-19, not the Delta variant which currently makes up over 90% of cases in the UK.

The efficacy against the Delta variant, IIRC, is claimed to be about 70 - 80%. It was widely recognised in advance that the vaccines may have lower impact (though of course still very significant impact) on other strains that develop in future.
I read that Moderna said that their vaccine was just as effective against the "delta" version iirc. But im not sure about pjzier. There also isnt a lot of concrete difference between normal rona and delta, other than a higher transmission rate supposedly.
 

Agema

Do everything and feel nothing
Legacy
Mar 3, 2009
9,201
6,476
118
Older people are both more likely to be vaccinated and more likely to be hospitalized, which puts a big pile of survivor bias into a statistic based just on hospitalizations.
Bingo.

Older people are by far most likely to be hospitalised or die and as the most vulnerable were prioritised for vaccination. So if we imagine a simple model where the hgh vulnerability are 90% of hospital cases, then we vaccinate all of them with a 90% effectiveness vaccine (but not the low vulnerability), the high vulnerability (and thus vaccinated people) will become approximately half of hospitalisations.

Thus without thinking through numbers, the headline claim "Half of all hospitalisations in the vaccinated" is true but gives a very misleading idea that the vaccine isn't very good - when in truth it's doing a great job.
 

Agema

Do everything and feel nothing
Legacy
Mar 3, 2009
9,201
6,476
118
The efficacy against the Delta variant, IIRC, is claimed to be about 70 - 80%. It was widely recognised in advance that the vaccines may have lower impact (though of course still very significant impact) on other strains that develop in future.
If we mean hospitalisation and death, the efficacy of Pfizer and AZ are holding up well against delta according to early data - 90%+. Moderna there's less firm data on, but believed to be similar.

Both Pfizer and AZ take a major hit in efficacy for symptomatic infection against delta, AZ down to ~60% and Pfizer down to ~80%. One would have to suspect Moderna likely also to.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Silvanus

Phoenixmgs

The Muse of Fate
Legacy
Apr 3, 2020
9,586
825
118
w/ M'Kraan Crystal
Gender
Male
Because it is, at least in the way you discuss it with the media landscape. This goes back to the discussion on what scientists say vs. how it's reported for media consumption. For one thing, there is absolutely no way at all to tell from medical examination whether it came from the Wuhan lab or not, and no scientist would ever ever say they found out it did without examining the lab.

If it is a lab accident the Wuhan lab would be the number one place to check for certain, but you'd have to check the lab itself, no research would find it. So automatically any discussion of the virus premised on it escaping the Wuhan lab when we aren't talking about investigating the lab itself is being unscientific and trying to peddle in conspiracy.
Saying you can't prove it didn't come from the lab because you can't investigate the lab = the lab leak theory is a conspiracy theory and should be banned from talking about? I don't care if there's a 0.01% chance it came from the lab, the fact is it could've and shouldn't be censored.

Because
Facebook
is
a
company
not
a
medical
journal
thus
I
don't
care

As to the scientists, again, their word against the piles of research that happened. It sounds more like what they were publishing was either unexciting even by medical journal standards or was in some way too flawed to reasonably publish.

If Agema wants to correct me he can, but that sounds like "boring even by medical journal standards" and on it's face doesn't sound like it could possibly have anything conclusive to say about anything, but might be used as part of a method in more in-depth research.
Again, why would Facebook ban discussion of something the scientific community didn't tell them they should?

They were merely publishing something that was boring and coincidentally it got published once the subject was no longer taboo? What piles of research that happened while it was taboo?


Several of the scientists rejecting the lab leak have also got death threats. Everyone gets fucking death threats for speaking up these days: it's like saying that someone who earned income paid taxes on it.
So, a former CDC director saying something means it has no merit? You skip over the important part and talk about the part in parenthesis that really isn't of much importance.

And here you jump to dishonesty by putting your own spin on it of "impending doom".
I didn't put any spin on it, that was a quote of the current CDC director.

90%+ effective against hospitalisation or death. But a much higher percentage may have very significant flu-like symptoms. Or have to cancel their holidays, stop working, self-isolate, etc.
So, it's very much like a flu now...? Why should I be more concerned about being sick today than I was say 10 years ago? Stopping hospitalization and death is the key factor. If the virus didn't cause hospitalization and death at the start, nobody would've really given 2 shits about it. I was forced to stop working for longer because of the lockdowns than I had to when I actually had covid.

The constant conflation of proper scientific literature and journalism or random websites is a persistent feature of your arguments. It's not only the root of many of your errors because you assume lightweight media and random cranks have some sort of authority and expertise they don't, but it's a source of dishonesty. Facebook restricts something magically turns into an argument for society-wide censorship, and when queried about how deep this supposed censorship goes, nothing of substance is apparent, just more cherry-picked snippets of lightweight media articles.
Was the lab leak theory not ever considered a conspiracy theory? Who cares what link I gave, I just searched for first link I found saying as much. Are you gonna say that there wasn't articles on major news sites and from scientists saying the lab leak theory is a conspiracy theory or virtually an impossibility? Funny how a variant mutating so much that it escapes immunity is damn near a scientific impossibility yet talking about immune escape isn't considered a conspiracy theory and the news keeps on throwing that out there. Is the following below a better story on the story of the lab leak theory? Funny how past articles were changed after lab leak no longer became taboo. So the biggest "forum" for public discourse banning something is not censorship?


Their source is Johns Hopkins University.
Again, where is that number? It could just be a legit typo, but no one else has reported anywhere near close to that number for that day or near that day. The US did not have 80,000 cases that day.