☕️ Coffee & Covid ☙ Wednesday, September 8, 2021 ☙ China's Frustration 🦠

In today’s roundup: The Arizona Attorney General puts the kibosh on employer vaxx mandates, a new EcoHealth document dump sheds some light on Covid origins, a Washington Post report on the NIH’s ...

Good morning C&Cers! In today’s roundup: The Arizona Attorney General puts the kibosh on employer vaxx mandates, a new EcoHealth document dump sheds some light on Covid origins, a Washington Post report on the NIH’s tragic undermining of gain-of-function restrictions, the NIH gives money to study vaccine effects, the US intelligence agencies publish their “blockbuster” report on their three-month investigation into Covid origins, an Ohio judge backtracks on ivermectin, Japanese folks react to the safe and effective contaminated Moderna vaccines, a new variants pops up in our Covid relationship, Governor DeSantis speaks to herd immunity, and I give you a little Fauci timeline.

🗞 *THE C&C ARMY POST* 🗞

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🔗 For all you link junkies, I’ll post the links in the first comment on Facebook. We’re working on something for Substack readers.

🗞*COVID NEWS AND COMMENTARY*

🔥 Arizona’s Attorney General Mark Brnovich issued an advisory opinion yesterday that the City of Tuscon’s “vaccinate or suspend” policy violates state law and the U.S. Constitution. Tuscon’s state law is similar to Florida’s “vaccine passport ban”, SB 2006, which bars government entities from conditioning access to property or services on Covid-19 vaccine status.

In an opinion last month, Arizona’s AG also said private businesses in Arizona have to allow medical or religious exemptions for employees when it comes to COVID-19 vaccine mandates. Brnovich clarified the extent of the religious exemption, saying “A sincerely-held religious belief includes a moral or ethical belief against receiving a COVID-19 vaccination that has the strength of a traditional religious view. The sincerity of that belief should be judged based on the employee’s words and conduct at the time the conflict about the Covid-19 vaccine arises and not based on prior words or conduct,” said Brnovich’s office on Tuesday.”

So.

🦇 Another 900 pages of internal government documents have been obtained by public-records requestors related to the Wuhan lab’s coronavirus experiments. And guess what they show? They conclusively show that the virus must be natural and could not possibly have been designed in a lab.

Hahaha! Just kidding! The new docs include grant proposals from the money-laundering outfit euphemistically known as the “Ecohealth Alliance.” One proposal has the helpful title, “ Understanding the Risk of Bat Coronavirus Emergence.” It describes an ambitious plan to “investigate the ecology, evolutionary biology, and transmission dynamics of bat coronaviruses at the human-wildlife interface.” Uh huh. The “interface.” In other words, the “border.” Where you cross over.

“Specifically, we will conduct field studies in China to obtain high-quality samples from bats, and identify, characterize and isolate known and novel coronavirus,” the grant proposal says. “We will analyze the patterns of coronavirus transmission among bats and other wildlife, and the risk of spillover to humans.”

Sounds totally legit. I wonder if they identified the risk of a global pandemic and a constitutional crisis. I wonder if they identified THAT risk.

Not so much, at least, not specifically. The grant proposal says, “There is also some risk of exposure to pathogens or physical injury while handling bats, civets, rodents or other animals, their blood samples or their excreta. Virus isolation may be a challenge.”

Well, KEEPING the virus in isolation could be a challenge. Good thing they were doing it over in China, huh?

Scientists reviewing the new documents took a dim view of what they saw. Richard Ebright, a molecular biologist at Rutgers University, tweeted:

The materials confirm the grants supported the construction—in Wuhan—of novel chimeric SARS-related coronaviruses that combined a spike gene from one coronavirus with genetic information from another coronavirus, and confirmed the resulting viruses could infect human cells.

The documents make it clear that assertions by the NIH Director, Francis Collins, and the NIAID Director, Anthony Fauci, that the NIH did NOT support gain-of-function research or potential pandemic pathogen enhancement at WIV are UNTRUTHFUL.”

Untruthful. Meaning, Fauci lied about it. Imagine that. I know, you’re shocked. Shocked and appalled.

“The viruses [EcoHealth] constructed were tested for their ability to infect mice that were engineered to display human-type receptors on their cell,” biologist Ebright wrote to The Intercept after reviewing the new documents. Ebright also said the documents show that EcoHealth engineered TWO different types of novel coronaviruses in order to infect humanized mice. You know, studying the risks. “While they were working on [a] SARS-related coronavirus, they were carrying out a parallel project at the same time on [a] MERS-related coronavirus,” Ebright said.

EcoHealth didn’t have much to say about it. Nothing to see here. When asked about the newly-disclosed grant proposals, Robert Kessler, communications manager at EcoHealth Alliance, said, “We applied for grants to conduct research. The relevant agencies deemed that to be important research, and thus funded it. So I don’t know that there’s a whole lot to say.”

In other words, go take a short jump off a long bridge, or vice-versa, if you don’t like your new pandemic.

🦇 The Washington Post published an article last week headlined “Science in the Shadows — Controls on ‘gain of function’ experiments with supercharged pathogens have been undercut despite concerns about lab leaks.” It describes how the WaPo’s investigative team discovered that starting in 2017, Dr. Fauci began a series of NIH policy changes that eviscerated the long-standing prohibitions on “gain of function” research. One change in particular completely removed the review board’s ability to block dangerous projects.

Fauci also approved making the review committee secret and non-public. Since then, HHS, which administers the review committee, has kept its work confidential: No agendas, meeting minutes or other records of its proceedings are public. Even the names of the federal officials assigned to serve on the committee, which spanned the Obama, Trump and Biden administrations, are now secret. For some reason. Not because biological weapons design was involved. Oh, no. That would be ridiculous.

Fauci rejected criticism of the secrecy. “To the extent that we can be transparent, that the system would allow us to be transparent, we go overboard to be transparent,” Fauci said.

Well, he SHOULD go overboard. In the middle of the Pacific Ocean. But that’s another discussion.

The Post identified at least 18 projects funded between 2012 and 2020 that appear to include gain-of-function experiments. NIH funding for the 18 projects totaled about $50 million, and occurred at 13 different institutions. Eight projects were approved after the review committee’s power was weakened in 2017.

But, you know, who cares?

🦇 Last month, the US’s intelligence agencies quietly released their long-awaited report on the origins of Covid-19, summarizing months of backbreaking investigative work that the agencies — all working together — put into this critical project. They left no stone unturned. The report whitewashes the whole thing. It concludes that the US intelligence services have — somehow — “ruled out” that Covid was a bioweapon. But it also concludes that the government’s top spies are at a complete loss, an utter standstill, to solve the mystery. They are baffled. And, the report suggests that the mystery will have to remain unsolved, probably for years to come.

The report explains that, unfortunately, China just won’t cooperate in the investigation. So what can they do? Their hands are tied.

But I’ve been thinking. I have a great idea. Try to follow me here. If only we had some kind of group or agency or something that could get information for us when other governments won’t cooperate! Wouldn’t something like that be helpful right now? Maybe the intelligence agencies can think of somebody who could handle that for us.

It gets worse. The report is only 500 words long. Yep, you read that right. Months of working day in and day out to get to the bottom of this mystery and they only came up with 500 words. An eighth grader could have done better. On loose leaf paper. In handwriting. And the report completely ignores information that can even be readily found on Google. Even these days. Instead, the reports focuses on and reinforces questions that are, for the most part, completely unknowable. One of those great unsolvable enigmas.

The best part is that the report actually uses some of its 500 words to DEFEND China for refusing to cooperate with the investigation. It actually says that China’s failure to cooperate has been motivated by “frustration” that the international community is “using the issue to exert political pressure on China.” Well, okay then. I guess it’s alright if it’s political pressure. That’s not fair. They’re totally frustrated and who can blame them.

Thank goodness for the crack squad of highly-motivated personnel in our intelligence services. Am I right? What does “utterly useless” mean? Asking for a friend.

💉 The NIH awarded about $2M in grants to study how women’s menstrual cycles are affected by the safe and effective Covid vaccines. An article in the Epoch Times says that the grants support research to try to figure out whether the menstrual changes are linked to Covid-19 vaccination, and if so, how long the changes last.

Now, is it just me, or would all this have been something good to know BEFORE approving the vaccines? I’m just asking, don’t cancel me.

“These rigorous scientific studies will improve our understanding of the potential effects of Covid-19 vaccines on menstruation, giving people who menstruate more information about what to expect after vaccination and potentially reducing vaccine hesitancy,” said NICHD Director Diana Bianchi.

Well, if it’s to reduce vaccine hesitancy. By all means. Of course. Let’s do it.

👨‍⚖️ Welp, that didn’t last long. An Ohio judge who previously ruled that a local hospital must provide ivermectin to a Covid-19 patient over the hospital’s objections just reversed himself. Judge Howard said that, after a 14-day temporary stay requiring the hospital to provide the drug, the patient hadn’t proved he would be irreparably harmed if the drug were withheld. The judge appeared to focus on the fact that the patient was still being treated without clear signs of improvement (his outside doctor said he “seemed” to be getting better).

Anti-right-to-try activists took a victory lap. A spokesperson for the hospital celebrated the ruling, saying it was “positive in support of respect for science and the expertise of medical professionals.”

The patient’s lawyer says they won’t appeal the ruling. “The ivermectin has done enough good. Thirteen days worth of ivermectin is a very good supply,” the lawyer said. “We’re hopeful that that could turn the tide and get Mr. Smith off the ventilator.” So. Good luck, Mr. Smith.

💉 I reported recently on how Japan recalled about 2 million doses of Moderna because they were contaminated with tiny stainless steel microparticles. It’s up to 2.6 million now. And I reported how a half million people had already gotten jabs out of the contaminated batch. And I reported how all the experts and media personalities gassed on about how harmless stainless steel microparticles are. They’re actually good for you, if you think about it. That’s why they were recalling the drugs. Because it’s totally safe and harmless.

Well, according to reports yesterday, three people have died so far after getting the “enhanced” vaccine. The third man, 49, got his second Covid-19 jab on August 11 and was pronounced dead the following morning. Seeya. Media personalities and experts say you can’t prove it was the vaccine. They focused on the fact that the man’s medical records showed he was allergic to BUCKWHEAT. So. It could be that. You never know.

In totally unrelated news, Japan’s prime minister, Yoshihide Suga, just announced he would resign this month, amid “criticism” over his handling of the pandemic.

🦠 It’s not me, it’s mu. According to widely publicized “estimates,” a new variant, called “Mu,” has been “estimated” to be in 49 states. Whatever that means. But it could be bad. Super bad. “The Mu variant is found to have key mutations linked to greater transmissibility and the potential to evade antibodies,” a statement from LA County’s Public Health service says. “More studies are needed to determine whether Mu variant is more contagious, more deadly or more resistant to vaccine and treatments than other COVID-19 strains.” More studies. Meaning, they don’t know. So… set the worry meter on five for now.

Get ready to hear all about Mu. Frankly, though, I’m sick of talking about Mu. Can we talk about me for once?

🦸‍♂️ Governor DeSantis just ripped Fauci’s idiotic idea of vaccine-based herd immunity a new one. In a press conference yesterday, the Governor said:

“Not that I ever expect to be quoted properly. What I said was, if you’re gonna force vaccine mandates on people, just understand what the data is showing us about the vaccine … The vaccinations have NOT created herd immunity. So if the idea is, you force everyone to do this and that will create herd immunity, that has NOT happened. It’s still spreading … Fauci also said, if 50% were vaccinated, you would not see any surges any more. Well, that isn’t true. Look at the Pacific Northwest, look at Hawaii. Huge surges … The theory behind it is that if you make everyone have to do this under penalty of law, then somehow you wouldn’t have any spread. I think we just have to be honest about what it’s doing and what it’s not doing. We had HOPED that if you had 50% then you wouldn’t have [more spread]. We had hoped you could build herd immunity that way. That hasn’t happened. It’s not happening in Israel, it didn’t happen in the UK, it’s not happening in the United States.”

Well, he’s not wrong. But Fauci sure has been, hasn’t he.

📚 For your entertainment and edification, here’s a short timeline of stupid stuff Fauci has said about herd immunity in under a year:

November 12, 2020. “Fauci says end to pandemic is in sight, thanks to vaccines.” (Bloomberg)

December 15, 2020. “Fauci predicts U.S. could see signs of herd immunity by late March or early April.” (NPR)

March 11, 2021. “Fauci gives sunnier outlook for end of pandemic: U.S. will see ‘big, big difference’ by Summer or early Fall.” (Forbes)

August 25, 2021. “Fauci says no end to Covid pandemic before Spring 2022, at the earliest.” (Seattle Times)

America’s top Covid doc! But don’t worry, he’s telling the truth THIS TIME.

Have a wacky Wednesday and I’ll see you back here tomorrow for a new roundup.

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