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international affairs media and media people

The Man the Media Missed

Searching for the world’s most compromised scientist? Look past über-​bureaucrat Anthony Fauci. Get a load of Peter Daszak of EcoHealth Alliance. He’s in the thick of it.

The “it” being the lies peddled by China’s totalitarian state, the World Health Organization (WHO), important parts of the government-​funded American science establishment and — last but not least! — the vast majority of U.S. media. 

The Lancet printed and the media reported the infamous open letter from scientists declaring a lab-​leak origin of the virus to be unlikely, either without saying or without knowing that the scientist leading the effort to gather the 27 scientists’ signatures was the bag-​man taking U.S. taxpayer money and re-​gifting it to the actual Wuhan lab in question

Yes, Dr. Peter Daszak.

The good doctor also managed to secure a spot on the WHO’s much-​ballyhooed on-​site China probe — as the sole American investigator — to look (fecklessly) for COVID’s origin. Still, Daszak and company enthusiastically declared a lab-​leak “unlikely,” which the media mindlessly echoed … until even the WHO’s director-​general backed away from it.

The problem is not confined merely to one or two rogue papers or cable channels: it’s also endemic to social media. Facebook, which blocked coverage and silenced those of us trying to speak and learn about the origin of COVID-​19, turns out to have actually used — you guessed it! — Daszak as its go-​to expert to advise them on what info to block.

How did our news hounds miss this trifecta?

Even now — after Dr. Fauci and others agree we need an investigation into the origins of the CCP virus, and as several major articles present additional evidence that the virus may have come from Wuhan gain-​of-​function “research” — the news-​media response to its own obvious failures is to continue to blame … Trump.

The idea seems to be that the Sheer Awfulness of Trump somehow provides valid excuse to ignore China’s horrible behavior around the origin of COVID — silencing doctors, destroying important evidence and lying to the world — enabling its subsequent spread to pandemic level. 

Is this really all the result of mere incompetence?

If you believe that, I’ve a wet market to sell you.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.


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Categories
Accountability general freedom

Pandemic Turning Point

While reading an article in The Hill, about the loss of life that the lockdowns will cause — “millions of years of life” — I saw news anchor Judy Woodruff, on PBS News Hour, put on a dour face to intone the latest U.S. coronavirus death count: over 98,000.

But the United States is not just one unit. The United States are … very different. Fifty different. Most states have had few coronavirus deaths. Indeed, the map of mortality shows only a few hot spots, with New York City the worst. 

Why? One key factor appears to be population density, particularly housing density and living quarters crowding. Lots of that goes on in New York City — and, PBS tells us, on Navaho lands.

Yet not all crowded conditions are as worrisome as once thought. Many were much exercised about Florida’s Spring Break beachgoers, but no major outbreaks occurred there.

This may be the result of the virus not being spread as experts initially thought: by asymptomatic carriers — as “A study on infectivity of asymptomatic SARS-​CoV‑2 carriers” indicates.

Japan’s prime minister, Shinzō Abe, has withdrawn the nation’s state of emergency … with less than 900 dead. Back in the U.S., the states are responsible for the lockdowns, but President Trump urges an end to them, and the other day even Dr. Fauci acknowledged that lockdowns also kill.

Emile Phaneuf, writing at FEE​.org, makes clear what has been foggy in popular discourse: it’s not “lives versus ‘the economy’” but “lives versus lives.” Mr. Phaneuf explains the economic logic of better policy regarding contagions.

Will our “leaders” listen in time for Round Two of the virus expected in the Fall?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.


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