Pandemic started in a lab:

[probinson]

The GOP made it a partisan issue.

Both parties made it a partisan issue.

Just look at this thread. Who is politicizing it?

Hint: It's you.

Meanwhile, I'm over here trying to talk about data and leave politics out of it. Yet here you are, talking about the GOP. Again.

 

[probinson]

Did they ask him who was the lead author or were they wanting to know all the authors.

It is appropriate for someone who wants to be correct to say, I will get back to you, rather than trying to recall on the spot something that they aren't 100% sure of.

What are you talking about? No one asked Fauci anything about authors. This is how the exchange went:

Q You studied this virus. What are the prospects of that?​

​

DR. FAUCI: There was a study recently that we can make available to you, where a group of highly qualified evolutionary virologists looked at the sequences there and the sequences in bats as they evolve. And the mutations that it took to get to the point where it is now is totally consistent with a jump of a species from an animal to a human.​

​

So, I mean, the paper will be available — I don’t have the authors right now, but we can make that available to you.​

Now you can try to pretend like since Dr. Fauci is such a SOOOPER IMPORTANT AND BUSY GUY!, that's why he couldn't remember the names of people that he convened an urgent meeting with and communicated with for weeks prior to making this statement. But he made that statement of his own volition. He was clearly trying to make it seem like this was an independent study that he had nothing to do with and knew little about.

 

[stevil]

What are you talking about? No one asked Fauci anything about authors. This is how the exchange went:

Q You studied this virus. What are the prospects of that?​

​

DR. FAUCI: There was a study recently that we can make available to you, where a group of highly qualified evolutionary virologists looked at the sequences there and the sequences in bats as they evolve. And the mutations that it took to get to the point where it is now is totally consistent with a jump of a species from an animal to a human.​

​

So, I mean, the paper will be available — I don’t have the authors right now, but we can make that available to you.​

OK, so maybe in that context, he is saying that he can't promise the availability date RIGHT NOW, because he doesn't have the authors on hand to agree on an availability date? But he is suggesting that it will be available soon.

Doesn't at all look like he is trying to hide something, or pretend something.

Is this how conspiracies start??

 

[stevil]

Fact check: FALSE.

View attachment 329507

Pretty sure that 2.2 million cases of COVID is not by any definition, "eliminat[ing] the disease entirely". No, that means ~50% of people in New Zealand have had COVID already, and by the looks of the chart, people are still getting COVID and will continue to get COVID.

Oh, boy, you are a very difficult person to talk to. You race off to strange conclusions rather than trying to have honest discussion, you certainly don't bother asking for clarifications.

In NZ we totally eliminated the disease from our country for huge periods of time.
Once Omicron came, we found it imposible to irradicate it again, and once everyone was vaccinated we opened up our country and our borders.
So of course we finally got it spreading in great numbers.

 

[probinson]

OK, so maybe in that context, he is saying that he can't promise the availability date RIGHT NOW, because he doesn't have the authors on hand to agree on an availability date? But he is suggesting that it will be available soon.

Try again. The paper was published on March 17, a full month before Fauci made these remarks on April 17, and his comments were just one day after Collins had emailed asking if there was anything else that could be done to "squash" the lab-leak theory. So Fauci was absolutely aware that the paper had been available for a month at the time he made his comments.

Do you ever get dizzy spinning so much?

 

[probinson]

Oh, boy, you are a very difficult person to talk to. You race off to strange conclusions rather than trying to have honest discussion, you certainly don't bother asking for clarifications.

I did no such thing. You said:

In NZ, we eliminated the disease entirely.

You did not say:

In NZ we totally eliminated the disease from our country for huge periods of time.

Those are two completely different statements that mean two completely different things. You didn't even mention Omicron in your last post.

And not even that statement is accurate. At no point during the pandemic was COVID "eliminated" from New Zealand. Here are case counts through October 2021, just before Omicron was detected. None of them are 0.

Say what you mean and mean what you say. Don't accuse me of "rac[ing] off to strange conclusions" when I simply showed that what you actually stated was demonstrably false.

 

[stevil]

I did no such thing. You said:



You did not say:



Those are two completely different statements that mean two completely different things. You didn't even mention Omicron in your last post.

I have already mentioned all this before in this very thread. In direct conversation with you.

And not even that statement is accurate. At no point during the pandemic was COVID "eliminated" from New Zealand. Here are case counts through October 2021, just before Omicron was detected. None of them are 0.

You are being very nit picky. It almost seems that I'd have to write a book rather than have a conversation with you.
In NZ we entirely eliminated covid from society. We had people coming in from overseas with the disease and they were quarantined at the border.
But our society opened right up. We removed masks, we removed lockdowns and society looked pretty normal. We could go to pubs and large sporting events.
We had the odd outbreak, typically in Auckland and were able to stamp the disease out a couple of times.
But for much of the time we had the luxury of no lockdowns and no disease and no deaths. This could only happen because we did lockdowns and masks to stamp it out first before opening up.

But once Omicron came we found it too hard to completely irradicate, but around that period we got the vaccines and we gave our people plenty of time to get fully vaccinated and then we opened up our borders.

Ultimately we bought our people time and we have had only 4,000 deaths from covid. Sweden has had 22,373 deaths from covid.
Sweden has twice the population of NZ. but they have had 5.5 times the deaths.

Lockdowns and masks worked. It afforded us the time to get vaccinated, and the vaccine saved lives.

 

[stevil]

Try again. The paper was published on March 17, a full month before Fauci made these remarks on April 17, and his comments were just one day after Collins had emailed asking if there was anything else that could be done to "squash" the lab-leak theory. So Fauci was absolutely aware that the paper had been available for a month at the time he made his comments.

Do you ever get dizzy spinning so much?

It's just really weird the conspiracies you are leaping to, and about a nothing thing like Fauci saying "So, I mean, the paper will be available — I don’t have the authors right now, but we can make that available to you."
It really is a nothing statement and it shows nothing nefarious.

 

[probinson]

I have already mentioned all this before in this very thread. In direct conversation with you.

You have not.

You are being very nit picky.

I am not. Your claim that New Zealand "eliminated" the disease is demonstrably false. Words have meanings. You chose the wrong words. Own up to it.

It almost seems that I'd have to write a book rather than have a conversation with you.

Have at it.

In NZ we entirely eliminated covid from society. We had people coming in from overseas with the disease and they were quarantined at the border.
But our society opened right up. We removed masks, we removed lockdowns and society looked pretty normal. We could go to pubs and large sporting events.

I suppose the fact that New Zealand is a literal island has nothing to do with their ability to better control the virus. Nope. Definitely the lockdowns and masks!

We had the odd outbreak, typically in Auckland and were able to stamp the disease out a couple of times.

Never happened. As the data shows, New Zealand has always had cases since the beginning of the pandemic.

But for much of the time we had the luxury of no lockdowns and no disease and no deaths. This could only happen because we did lockdowns and masks to stamp it out first before opening up.

Utter nonsense.

Ultimately we bought our people time and we have had only 4,000 deaths from covid. Sweden has had 22,373 deaths from covid.
Sweden has twice the population of NZ. but they have had 5.5 times the deaths.

But Sweden's excess death rate is FAR lower than New Zealand's now. Again, you're only scoring COVID deaths, because if you look at ALL deaths, you see just how faulty your argument is.

Lockdowns and masks worked.

They did not.

​

Wearing masks in the community probably makes little or no difference to the outcome of influenza‐like illness (ILI)/COVID‐19 like illness compared to not wearing masks​

​

https://www.cochranelibrary.com/cdsr/doi/10.1002/14651858.CD006207.pub6/full

​

 

[probinson]

It's just really weird the conspiracies you are leaping to, and about a nothing thing like Fauci saying "So, I mean, the paper will be available — I don’t have the authors right now, but we can make that available to you."
It really is a nothing statement and it shows nothing nefarious.

It's not a nothing statement.

All available evidence shows that Fauci was intimately involved in the creation of Proximal Origins. Fauci knew the paper had been published for a month. Fauci had convened a conference call with the authors. Fauci had regular communication with Dr. Andersen. Fauci received an email from Francis Collins one day prior to this statement asking if there was anything more they could do to "squash" the lab-leak theory. And yet here he is playing like a doe in the headlights, like, oh, there's a paper, and these people wrote it, but I don't know who, or where, or when it will be available (despite the fact that I prompted them to write it and provided "advice and leadership" all throughout the writing of the paper).

Fauci was clearly trying to make it sound like this was an independent paper that he'd heard about, and that he had nothing to do with it. Which was completely false.

 

[probinson]

Let's take a look at Sweden's all-cause mortality by age groups.

Cont'd in next post

 

[probinson]

Cont'd in next post...

 

[probinson]

As you can clearly see from this data, those over the age of 90 were hardest hit by COVID in Sweden. Starting at age 70, you see an increase in the mortality rate in 2020 for those age groups. But below that, there isn't any indication that the overall mortality was affected AT ALL. The mortality rate for anyone <=69 did not change substantially one way or the other in 2020. So the idea that Sweden "left people to die" is not borne out by the data.

What this clearly shows is that it would have been far more effective to focus protection where it was needed most, and that was in the elderly population. The idea that young, healthy people were dying from COVID in large numbers has never been true. So despite the fact that Sweden never implemented masks and lockdowns that allegedly "worked", the vast majority of their population saw no increase in overall mortality. Sweden's one big failing, if there was one, was to not do more to protect the elderly.

 

[essentialsaltes]

View attachment 329547

As you can clearly see from this data, those over the age of 90 were hardest hit by COVID in Sweden. Starting at age 70, you see an increase in the mortality rate in 2020 for those age groups. But below that, there isn't any indication that the overall mortality was affected AT ALL. The mortality rate for anyone <=69 did not change substantially one way or the other in 2020. So the idea that Sweden "left people to die" is not borne out by the data.

What this clearly shows is that it would have been far more effective to focus protection where it was needed most, and that was in the elderly population. The idea that young, healthy people were dying from COVID in large numbers has never been true. So despite the fact that Sweden never implemented masks and lockdowns that allegedly "worked", the vast majority of their population saw no increase in overall mortality. Sweden's one big failing, if there was one, was to not do more to protect the elderly.

The new forum provides a wonderful and easy-to-use method for resizing images -- just grab a corner and resize. Please use it.

 

[stevil]

It's not a nothing statement.

All available evidence shows that Fauci was intimately involved in the creation of Proximal Origins.

No, that is a vast overstatement.

And yet here he is playing like a doe in the headlights, like, oh, there's a paper, and these people wrote it, but I don't know who, or where, or when it will be available (despite the fact that I prompted them to write it and provided "advice and leadership" all throughout the writing of the paper).

He was freely giving information. He wasn't asked about the paper but he brought it up, he certainly wasn't trying to hide it.

Fauci was clearly trying to make it sound like this was an independent paper that he'd heard about, and that he had nothing to do with it. Which was completely false.

Fauci wasn't the author of the paper, and he didn't try to make out anything other than to tell people that it is there and that "we" could make that available to you. He certainly used "we" alot there. "There is a study that we can make available to you"
The language doesn't come across as him trying to distance himself from the paper.

 

[stevil]

All these graphs you provide are utter nonsense. Why do you go back all the way to 2000 and draw a straight line across all the years, including the pandemic years?

Clearly any drop in death rates between 2000 and 2019 had nothing at all to do with "not doing lock downs" or "covid deaths".
You can't use that as evidence that Sweden saved lives due to their "do nothing" reaction to the deadly global pandemic.

 

[stevil]

I am not. Your claim that New Zealand "eliminated" the disease is demonstrably false. Words have meanings. You chose the wrong words. Own up to it.

It wasn't false.
Our goal was to eliminate the disease from society and we acheived that, for very long periods, while the rest of the world was either locked down or letting their people die in the thousands. We had eliminated it and were living a relatively normal life appart from having very limited overseas travel.

I suppose the fact that New Zealand is a literal island has nothing to do with their ability to better control the virus. Nope. Definitely the lockdowns and masks!

If we hadn't done lockdowns and masks, we too would have had the horrendous death rates that Sweden had.
When it all started, covid came to NZ and it killed a few people and it was spreading exponentially.
We did the lockdowns and eventually stamped it completely out and then reopened to a society completely free of the disease.

Never happened. As the data shows, New Zealand has always had cases since the beginning of the pandemic.

As I explained to you, the cases were in the quarantine areas for people coming home from overseas. They were completely isolated from the rest of society. Only allowed to come into society after a couple of weeks of quarantine.

But Sweden's excess death rate is FAR lower than New Zealand's now. Again, you're only scoring COVID deaths, because if you look at ALL deaths, you see just how faulty your argument is.

Oh boy.
Once NZ opened up then covid deaths started to happen in much larger numbers. We did that in 2022.
But the deaths were 1/5th to 1/10th of what would have happened if we opened up in 2020.

 

[probinson]

"There is a study that we can make available to you"
The language doesn't come across as him trying to distance himself from the paper.

Don't forget that he claimed he didn't know the authors, despite talking to them for weeks on end and proving them with "advice and leadership" throughout. But sure. That Fauci's a forgetful guy!

 

[probinson]

All these graphs you provide are utter nonsense.

Um, no they're not. They're directly from Sweden's data on mortality.

Why do you go back all the way to 2000 and draw a straight line across all the years, including the pandemic years?

Because it shows that during the pandemic years, nearly every age group was not dying at a higher than normal rate. This runs counter to your inaccurate claim that Sweden left their citizenry to die.

Clearly any drop in death rates between 2000 and 2019 had nothing at all to do with "not doing lock downs" or "covid deaths".

Not the point at all. The point is, overall mortality over the pandemic was not inordinately higher than any other time.

You can't use that as evidence that Sweden saved lives due to their "do nothing" reaction to the deadly global pandemic.

I can use that as evidence that Sweden's mortality was largely unaffected throughout the pandemic.

 

[probinson]

It wasn't false.

Yes it was. At no point did New Zealand "eliminate" the disease. Don't make me post the graph again...

Our goal was to eliminate the disease from society and we acheived that, for very long periods, while the rest of the world was either locked down or letting their people die in the thousands. We had eliminated it and were living a relatively normal life appart from having very limited overseas travel.

Ballyhoo for you. Perhaps if every country were a geographically isolated island, they too could have controlled the virus better.

If we hadn't done lockdowns and masks, we too would have had the horrendous death rates that Sweden had.

Psst. Sweden didn't have horrendous death rates. Look at the charts I posted earlier. Overall mortality was largely unchanged in Sweden during the pandemic in almost every age group. In fact, in many age groups, mortality was LOWER in 2020 than in the historical data.

When it all started, covid came to NZ and it killed a few people and it was spreading exponentially.

Why do you continually say things that are demonstrably false? Where do you see anything remotely resembling exponential growth at the beginning of the pandemic on this chart?

We did the lockdowns and eventually stamped it completely out and then reopened to a society completely free of the disease.

"Eventually stamped it out completely"? How long did that take?

As I explained to you, the cases were in the quarantine areas for people coming home from overseas. They were completely isolated from the rest of society. Only allowed to come into society after a couple of weeks of quarantine.

Great. More untested, unproven measures without a shred of data to support them.

Oh boy.
Once NZ opened up then covid deaths started to happen in much larger numbers.

So why did you stop the SOOPER effective masking and lockdowns? Did the citizens of New Zealand suddenly stop caring about vulnerable people?

We did that in 2022.
But the deaths were 1/5th to 1/10th of what would have happened if we opened up in 2020.

So were those deaths acceptable to you? I'm just trying to figure out why, if New Zealanders cared so much and understood the importance of masking and lockdowns, at what point did you decide it was OK to stop doing those things and therefore let people die?