Well Sam is ignoring the factual basics of COVID. It had a very low IFR, comparable to seasonal flus. And yet it was treated more like Ebola in terms of the government response. It would have been fine to let young and healthy people go about their lives, visit businesses, go to schools, and all that. Instead, we subjected everyone to authoritarian measures that were not grounded in reality, and even the slightest objection was given all kinds of labels - misinformation, conspiracy theory, anti science, etc.
And let’s not forget the glaring saga of the lab leak theory, which was attacked and suppressed in news media and social media. It showed the extent of societal control that was being practiced under the guise of COVID. That violation of free speech principles is the troubling tangent, not the people who were asking for more transparency and accountability for China. In the end the CCP got away with a WHO visit only a year late, and with the only US rep having a conflict of interest since he was involved in the coronavirus work at Wuhan Institute of Virology (Peter Daszak of EcoHealth).
> And yet it was treated more like Ebola in terms of the government response.
Uh... when have you ever seen refrigerator trucks being used as morgues because there were too many people dying [1]? I have never seen that ever before outside of areas struck by devastating floods, earthquakes or similar natural disasters.
> That violation of free speech principles is the troubling tangent, not the people who were asking for more transparency and accountability for China.
Blame that on the 45th - for purportedly being "anti China", he didn't do shit against China when it came to Covid other than mocking it as "the China virus" to stoke xenophobia.
Besides, it's still a fringe theory. Warnings over human settlements encroaching on bat caves and setting off epidemics from bats (who are a perfect breeding ground) have been sound years before Covid [2]. It is completely and utterly unsurprising that it eventually happened. Hell, the first coronavirus of 2005 was already linked to bats [3].
Incorrect - the fatality rate of covid pre vaccines was 1 to 3% worldwide, and about 15% in older more vulnerable people. Flu fatality rates are around 0.1%.
No, it was always around 0.1%. The earlier figures were known from the start to be wrong by people in public health because early attempts to estimate IFR are always wrong (always high). They don't get reports about mild cases until they start looking for them.
Even people like Neil Ferguson gave up claiming it was 1% early. No idea where you're getting 3%-15% from.
The IFR fell "post vaccine" because of a mix of how vaccination status was defined and because Delta soon mutated into Omicron, which was just a normal cold virus and not deadly at all.
And let’s not forget the glaring saga of the lab leak theory, which was attacked and suppressed in news media and social media. It showed the extent of societal control that was being practiced under the guise of COVID. That violation of free speech principles is the troubling tangent, not the people who were asking for more transparency and accountability for China. In the end the CCP got away with a WHO visit only a year late, and with the only US rep having a conflict of interest since he was involved in the coronavirus work at Wuhan Institute of Virology (Peter Daszak of EcoHealth).