{"id":10675,"date":"2024-09-01T16:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-09-01T20:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cov19longhaulfoundation.org\/?p=10675"},"modified":"2024-08-29T12:37:03","modified_gmt":"2024-08-29T16:37:03","slug":"covid-19-the-preventable-pandemic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cov19longhaulfoundation.org\/?p=10675","title":{"rendered":"COVID-19: The Preventable Pandemic"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Authored by Jeff M. Smith via RealClearWorld,<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

When the Heritage Foundation released its comprehensive report<\/a> on the origins of the Covid-19 pandemic, headlines tended to focus on the cost to the U.S<\/a>. That\u2019s not surprising: At an eye-popping $18 trillion, it\u2019s almost 10 times the projected 2024 budget deficit<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/a>Arguably, however, the Commission\u2019s most infuriating conclusion was this:\u00a0The global pandemic was \u201ctotally preventable,\u201d\u00a0<\/strong>in the words of Commissioner Dr. Robert Redfield, an experienced virologist who headed the CDC during the outbreak.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Had the Chinese government been more transparent and cooperative at the outset of the pandemic, millions of lives and trillions of dollars could have been spared. The pandemic\u2019s \u201cproximal origin,\u201d the Commission found, was the Chinese government\u2019s \u201caggressive opposition to honesty, transparency, and accountability\u201d along with its \u201csystemic cover up.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Cover-Up<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The Commission\u2014a blue-ribbon team of experts led by former Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe and supported by data scientists, economists, and lawyers\u2014concluded that the SARS-CoV-2 virus began circulating months before Beijing warned the world, likely in August-September 2019. The Chinese government then not only withheld key details, it engaged in an elaborate and deadly coverup.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dr. Jamie Metzl\u2014one of the Commission\u2019s Democrats who served at the National Security Council, U.S. Senate, and State Department\u2014condemned Beijing for having \u201cdestroyed samples, hidden records, imprisoned Chinese citizen journalists, gagged Chinese scientists, blocked any meaningful international investigations, and cynically sandbagged the World Health Organization.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ratcliffe described China\u2019s behavior during this period as \u201cfrankly inexcusable.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Added Metzl: “There can be, in our view, little doubt that China’s government is primarily responsible for the COVID-19 pandemic. But for the unique pathologies of the Chinese state, there very likely would have been no pandemic at all<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Cost<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Worldwide, the COVID-19 pandemic is considered one of the seven deadliest plagues in human history, with excess deaths topping 28 million, according to some estimates. The World Bank has characterized the economic upheaval caused by the pandemic as \u201cthe largest global economic crisis in more than a century,\u201d with low-income countries hit the hardest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Commission\u2019s assessment that the pandemic cost the U.S. alone $18 trillion includes $8.6 trillion in \u201cexcess deaths,\u201d $1.8 trillion in income lost, $6 trillion in chronic conditions like \u201clong COVID,\u201d $1.1 trillion in mental health costs, and $400 million in education losses.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Origin<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

While the origin of the pandemic wasn\u2019t the focus of the Commission, notably all nine Commissioners concluded, without dissent, that the pandemic “very likely stemmed from a research-related incident in Wuhan.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Indeed, evidence continues to emerge<\/a> further strengthening the \u201clab leak\u201d theory and casting greater doubt on the \u201cnatural spillover\u201d theory. The Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) was at the time conducting dangerous gain of function experiments to make coronaviruses more transmissible to humans, and it was doing so in alarmingly unsafe conditions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The WIV experienced an unspecified \u201cincident\u201d in 2019, when several lab workers fell sick, the Chinese military abruptly assumed control of the lab, the lab mysteriously deleted its online database of over 10,000 bat virus samples at 2:00am<\/strong>, and ordered an expensive new air incinerator. A Chinese military scientist then produced a vaccine with logic-defying speed before suddenly going missing and being scrubbed from government records.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In recent months, new details have emerged about a 2018 grant proposal that sought funding to manipulate coronaviruses at the WIV in very specific ways\u2014ways that exactly match the highly unusual features of the SARS-CoV-2 virus that have never been seen in nature.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the event unveiling the Heritage report, Dr. Redfield contended SARS-CoV-2 shows \u201cclear signs of engineering\u201d<\/strong> and its origin \u201chad nothing to do with\u201d a natural spillover event at a Wuhan animal market. The full Commission report concludes that despite four years of extensive hypothesis testing, today \u201cthere is no evidentiary basis<\/em>\u201d for the theory of natural spillover. The handful of early pandemic academic papers advancing the natural spillover theory have since been hollowed out by fatal challenges to their underlying methods and conclusions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rather than a viral leap from animal to humans, Dr. Redfield contended that the pandemic was \u201ca direct consequence of scientific arrogance, with the scientists that were intentionally teaching this virus how to infect humans never recognizing something would ever go wrong. And, in fact, unfortunately this virus did escape.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Preventing Another Pandemic<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

To avoid a future pandemic and hold the Chinese government accountable, the Commission report concluded with several practical recommendations for the U.S. government:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \n
  • Establish a bipartisan national COVID commission to conduct “a review of China’s negligence and cover-up as well as an evaluation of domestic policies that were implemented” in response to the pandemic;<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • Create a bipartisan reparations or compensation task force to cover claims against the Chinese government;<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • Facilitate the filing of civil claims against China to allow civilians harmed by COVID to receive compensation by amending the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act;<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • Decouple U.S. government and commercial supply chains from Chinese state-backed companies;<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • Audit all U.S. government funding for biomedical research and related research activities in China;<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • Impose economic sanctions on Chinese officials and entities who were complicit in or supported the “distortion and concealment” of information related to the COVID pandemic.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n

    The COVID-19 pandemic was almost certainly the deadliest and costliest event of the 21st century<\/strong>. Beijing\u2019s ability to escape virtually any accountability\u2014and the global media\u2019s relative disinterest in the pandemic\u2019s origins, cost, and China\u2019s culpability\u2014are equal parts confounding and infuriating.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \u201cChina\u2019s response to SARS1 20 years ago was abysmal,\u201d Dr. Metzl argued at the Heritage event. \u201cChina\u2019s response to SARS2, 20 years later despite all these international processes, was even worse. And the reason\u2026is there was no accountability for all the obfuscation in the first case.\u00a0With 28 million people dead as a result of COVID-19 and tens of trillions of dollars in damages it simply unacceptable, and frankly\u00a0unimaginable<\/em>, that every stone should not be overturned examining what went wrong.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Authored by Jeff M. Smith via RealClearWorld, When the Heritage Foundation released its comprehensive report on the origins of the Covid-19 pandemic, headlines tended to focus on the cost to the U.S. That\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":10677,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[445,651],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10675","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-policies-politics","category-wuhan-labs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cov19longhaulfoundation.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10675","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cov19longhaulfoundation.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cov19longhaulfoundation.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cov19longhaulfoundation.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cov19longhaulfoundation.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10675"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/cov19longhaulfoundation.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10675\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10679,"href":"https:\/\/cov19longhaulfoundation.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10675\/revisions\/10679"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cov19longhaulfoundation.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/10677"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cov19longhaulfoundation.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10675"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cov19longhaulfoundation.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10675"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cov19longhaulfoundation.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10675"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}