Posted on 05/28/2026 8:18:53 PM PDT by DoodleBob
○ 1 THE VIRUS WAS ENGINEERED IN A LABORATORY IN CHINA. Because the pathogen first emerged in Wuhan, China, President Donald Trump and others have claimed, without evidence, that it started in a lab there, and some conspiracy theorists believe it was engineered as a bioweapon.
Why It’s False: U.S. intelligence agencies have categorically denied the possibility that the virus was engineered in a lab, stating that “the Intelligence Community ... concurs with the wide scientific consensus that the COVID-19 virus was not man-made or genetically modified.” Chinese virologist Shi Zhengli—who studies bat coronaviruses and whose lab Trump and others have suggested was the source of COVID-19—compared the pathogen’s sequence with those of other coronaviruses her team had sampled from bat caves and found that it did not match any of them. In response to calls for an independent, international investigation into how the virus originated, China has invited researchers from the World Health Organization to discuss the scope of such a mission.
Why People Believe It:People want a scapegoat for the immense suffering and economic fallout caused by COVID-19, and China—a foreign country and a competitor of the U.S.—is an easy target. Accidental lab releases of pathogens do sometimes occur, and although many scientists say this possibility is unlikely, it provides just enough legitimacy to support a narrative in which China intentionally engineered the virus to unleash it on the world.
○ 2 COVID-19 IS NO WORSE THAN THE FLU. Since the beginning of the pandemic, Trump has lied about the disease’s severity, saying it is no more dangerous than seasonal influenza. Trump himself admitted to journalist and author Bob Woodward in recorded interviews in early February and late March that he knew COVID-19 was more deadly than the flu and that he wanted to play down its severity.
Why It’s False:The precise infection fatality rate of COVID-19 is hard to measure, but epidemiologists suspect that it is far higher than that of the flu—somewhere between 0.5 and 1 percent, compared with 0.1 percent for influenza. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that the latter causes roughly 12,000 to 61,000 deaths per year in the U.S. In contrast, COVID-19 had caused 200,000 deaths in the country as of mid-September. Many people also have partial immunity to the flu because of vaccination or prior infection, whereas most of the world has not yet encountered COVID-19. So no, coronavirus is not “just the flu.”
Why People Believe It:Their leaders keep saying it. In addition to his repeated false claims that COVID-19 is no worse than the flu, Trump has also said—falsely—that the numbers of deaths from COVID-19 are exaggerated. In fact, reported deaths from COVID-19 are likely an undercount.
○ 3 YOU DON’T NEED TO WEAR A MASK. Despite a strong consensus among public health authorities that masks limit transmission of coronavirus, many people (the president included) have refused to wear one. Georgia’s governor Brian Kemp went so far as to sign an executive order banning city governments from implementing mask mandates. He even sued Atlanta’s mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms when she instituted one, although he has since dropped the lawsuit. Nevertheless, as coronavirus cases spiked around the U.S. during the summer, even states that were once staunch holdouts implemented mask orders.
Why It’s False:Masks have long been known to be an effective means of what epidemiologists call source control (preventing a sick patient from spreading a disease to others). A recent analysis published in the Lancet looked at more than 170 studies and found that face masks can prevent COVID-19 infection. It has also been widely established that people can be infected with and spread COVID-19 without ever developing symptoms, which is why everyone should wear a mask to prevent asymptomatic people from spreading the virus.
Why People Believe It:Early guidance on masks from the CDC and the WHO was confusing and inconsistent, suggesting that members of the general public did not need to wear masks unless they had symptoms of an infection. The guidance was in part driven by a shortage of high-quality surgical and N95 masks, which the agencies said should be reserved for health care workers. Even though face coverings are now mandated or recommended in many states, some people refuse to wear one because they consider it emasculating or a violation of their civil liberties.
○ 4 WEALTHY ELITES ARE USING THE VIRUS TO PROFIT FROM VACCINES. In a book and in the conspiracy theory film Plandemic, Judy Mikovits, who once published a high-profile but eventually retracted study on chronic fatigue syndrome, makes the unsubstantiated claim that National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases director Anthony Fauci and Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates could be using their power to profit from a COVID-19 vaccine. She also asserts without evidence that the virus came from a lab and that wearing masks “activates your own virus.” An excerpt from the film was widely shared by anti-vaxxers and the conspiracy theory group QAnon. The video was viewed more than eight million times on YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram before it was taken down.
Why It’s False:There is no evidence that Fauci or Gates has benefited from the pandemic or profited from a vaccine. In fact, Fauci has sounded alarms throughout the pandemic about the risks of the virus, and Gates has a long history of philanthropy geared toward eliminating communicable diseases. Mikovits’s claims about the virus’s origin and the efficacy of masks also have no scientific support.
Why People Believe It: Wealthy or influential figures such as Gates and Fauci are often the target of conspiracy theories. Trump has at times attacked Fauci, a member of his own coronavirus task force, calling him an “alarmist.” Some of the president’s followers may find it more palatable to believe that Fauci is exaggerating the severity of the outbreak than to acknowledge the Trump administration’s failure to contain it.
○ 5 HYDROXYCHLOROQUINE IS AN EFFECTIVE TREATMENT. When a small study in France suggested the malaria drug hydroxychloroquine might be effective at treating the disease, Trump and others seized on it. The study is now widely criticized, but some people have continued to tout the medication despite growing evidence that it does not benefit COVID-19 patients. In a tweet, Trump called the hydroxychloroquine treatment “one of the biggest game changers in the history of medicine,” and he has mentioned it repeatedly in his public coronavirus briefings, continuing to hype the drug. In late July he retweeted a video featuring Stella Immanuel, a Houston, Tex.–based physician (whohas made questionable assertions in the past, including that doctors had used alien DNA in treatments and that demons cause certain medical conditions by having sex with people in their dreams), claiming that hydroxychloroquine is an effective treatment for COVID-19. The video was viewed tens of millions of times before social media companies took it down.
Why It’s False:Several studies have shown that hydroxychloroquine does not protect against COVID-19 in those who are exposed. The Food and Drug Administration initially issued an emergency use authorization for the drug, but the agency later warned against its use because of the risk of heart problems and ultimately revoked its authorization. And in June the National Institutes of Health halted its clinical trial of the medication, stating that although it was not harmful to patients, it did not provide any benefit.
Why People Believe It:Initial reports suggested hydroxychloroquine might be a potentially promising drug, and people are most likely to believe the first things they learn about a topic, a phenomenon called anchoring bias. And because Trump has repeatedly claimed that the drug is effective, his supporters may be more likely to believe reports that confirm their views rather than those that challenge them.
○ 6 INCREASES IN CASES ARE THE RESULT OF INCREASED TESTING. As coronavirus cases surged in the U.S., Trump frequently claimed that the spikes were merely the result of more people being tested. He has tweeted that “without testing ... we would be showing almost no cases” and has said in interviews that the reason numbers appear to have gone up is that testing has increased.
Why It’s False:If this scenario were true, one would expect the percentage of positive tests to decrease over time. But numerousanalyseshave shown the opposite. The rate of positive tests rose in many states (such as Arizona, Texas and Florida) that had big outbreaks this past summer, and it decreased in states (such as New York) that controlled their outbreaks. In addition, hospitalizations and deaths increased along with cases, providing more evidence that the national increase in positive tests reflected a true increase in cases.
Why People Believe It:There was a severe shortage of tests in the U.S. early on during the pandemic, and their availability has increased (although actual testing remains far short of what is needed). It is logical to wonder whether more cases are simply being detected—if you look only at total cases and not at the proportion of positive tests or the rates of hospitalization and death.
○ 7 HERD IMMUNITY WILL PROTECT US IF WE LET THE VIRUS SPREAD THROUGH THE POPULATION. Early on in the pandemic, some speculated that the U.K. and Sweden were planning to let the coronavirus circulate through their populations until they reached herd immunity—the point at which enough people are immune to the virus that it can no longer spread. (Both nations’ governments havedenied that this was their official strategy, but the U.K. was late to issue a full lockdown, and Sweden decided against widespread restrictions.)
Why It’s False:There is a fundamental flaw with this approach: experts estimate that roughly 60 to 70 percent of people would need to get COVID-19 for herd immunity to be possible. Given the high mortality rate of the disease, letting it infect that many people could lead to millions of deaths. That tragedy is what happened during the 1918 influenza pandemic, in which at least 50 million people are thought to have perished. The U.K.’s COVID-19 death rate is among the world’s highest. Sweden, for its part, has had significantly more deaths than neighboring countries, and its economy has suffered despite the lack of a shutdown.
Why People Believe It: They want to get back to normal life, and without a widely available COVID-19 vaccine, the only way to achieve herd immunity is to let a substantial number of people get sick. Some have speculated that we may have already achieved herd immunity, but population-based antibody studies have shown that even the hardest-hit regions are far from that threshold.
○ 8 A COVID-19 VACCINE WILL BE UNSAFE. Worrying reports have emerged that many people may refuse to get a COVID-19 vaccine once it is available. Conspiracy theories about potential vaccines have circulated among anti-vaxxer groups and in viral videos. In Plandemic, Mikovits falsely claims that any COVID-19 vaccine will “kill millions” and that other vaccines have done so. Another conspiracy theory makes the ludicrous assertion that Gates has a secret plan to use vaccines to implant trackable microchips in people. Most Americans still support vaccination, but the few voices of opposition have been growing. A recent study observed that although clusters of anti-vaxxers on Facebook are smaller than pro-vaccination groups, they are more heavily interconnected with clusters of undecided people. One Gallup poll found that one in three Americans would not get a COVID-19 vaccine if it were available today and that Republicans were less likely to be vaccinated than Democrats.
Why It’s False:Vaccines save millions of lives every year. Before a vaccine is approved in the U.S., it must generally undergo three phases of clinical testing to show that it is safe and effective in a large number of people. The top COVID-19 vaccine candidates are currently being tested in large-scale trials in tens of thousands of people.
Why People Believe It:There is good reason to be cautious about the safety of any new vaccine or treatment, and the politicization of the fdaunder the Trump administration has raised legitimate concerns that any vaccine approval will be rushed. Nevertheless, previous safety trials of the top vaccine candidates did not find major adverse effects; larger trials for safety and efficacy are now underway. Nine pharmaceutical companies developing vaccines have pledged to “stand with science” and not release one unless it has been shown to be safe and effective.
I’m with you.
https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/4020712/posts
Estimation of clinical trial success rates and related parameters (Vaccine clinical trials succeed only 33% of the time and take about nine years )
Biostatistics ^ | April 2019 | Chi Heem Wong, Kien Wei Siah, Andrew W Lo
Posted on 12/13/2021, 12:28:31 AM by DoodleBob
I have a good friend who’s Dad was sent to the hospital and they couldn’t even see him before he died in their “care.”
And then we do back tests in their propaganda, highlight their lies and condescending attitude, and then they wonder why “ Nearly half of the physicians believe that patients have less trust in their treatment recommendations today than they did several years ago ...” https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/4020712/posts
The author of this tripe remains employed by SA, and has a new beau, hantavirus.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/author/tanya-lewis/
As ELP said, welcome back my friends to the show that never ends.
For the times I was forced to wear one, mine was from fakemaskusa.com. It was made of mesh and I didn’t care if my beard hair poked through. It was a complete farce.
Only retards wear masks now. (and the occasional and remarkably rare actual sick person.)
Just prepping us for the next election cycle. It worked for the lemmings once. Had acquaintances that claimed they were wearing the diaper just to get along. Rather than stand their ground they chose the easy route which was the whole exercise in control. I am still waiting for some balls in a vice over this but I am sure that will never happen. So how stupid is the American public in general? Very.
My son’s entire department had not been together for a couple years during the scam time. They decided to have a Christmas lunch.
My son had a religious exemption from the shot mandate and had to jump through all kind of hoops.
Everyone else int eh department dutifully lined up like sheep and took the shot.
His boss made sure to let everyone know that my son was non-vaxxed. (That was the day my son began his new job search)
A day or so after the lunch, suddenly everyone, and I mean everyone except for one got sick.
These brilliant engineers and scientists never connected the dots that the only one to not contract the Wuhan Red Death after the lunch was the pureblood.
He tossed the boss under the bus at his exit interview and actually received a letter of apology from a very large well known government contract company.
I’m very proud of him for sticking to his principles.
One of mine took the first shot since she worked in a health care realm and hadn’t really researched it enough. She regrets it now. The rest of us beat the system.
Bttt
Two days ago on the way to work I saw a fifty something year old woman driving the car next to me with a mask on and all the windows up. It was about 55 degrees @ 7:30 in the morning. She was driving a small Honda car. I also observed that she did not have a wedding ring on her left hand.
THEY ARE STILL AMONG US!
gasdr
Medmom(or something like that)
Dugaway Duke
were the three biggest vax promoters that I recall
Funny thing is Bill Gates and his family didn’t get jabbed and congress exempted themselves.
Crime of the century. It worked. Shutdown of the world’s economy, trillions $$$ of paper dollars printed up, hundreds of millions of people tricked by fear into injecting a deadly MRNA substance into their bodies.
I have a friend who is an ICU nurse at one of the major Boston hospitals.
She told me that the hospitals all had an incentive to list the cause of death as covid. That the hospital was paid X amount(I do not recall the amount, but it was thousands of dollars) IF the patient died WITH Covid-19.
There was an additional government compensation IF the patient died while on a respirator.
At the time, hospitals were not allowed to do elective surgeries. Neither were clinics. So, NO knee or hip replacement. No Boob jobs, face lifts, tummy tucks, etc.
These surgeries are VERY profitable for hospitals.
Plastic Surgeons and Orthopedic surgeons were out of business.
So, hospitals were looking for a way to pay the bills and stay in business.
THEREFORE, EVERYONE that tested positive for COVID-19 DIED WITH COVID.
If you died in a car accident, but also tested positive for covid, you died WITH COVID.
Get your leg bitten off by a shark, but tested positive for Covid...
As always FOLLOW THE MONEY.
No one who had an in got the Vaccine.
NO ONE in government who DID NOT WANT the jab got it.
However, they were given a BLANK COVID CARD. Then they were told to fill it out with the date and batches of their vaccine.
I know this for a FACT because I was given a blank card and told to fill it out.
I was given that card by a friend who works in the State Government
Sometimes I’d have to wear a mask when my wife was in a medical appointment, so I’d cut the two inside layers out of a blue mask. Looked about the same but I could breathe. Before I started doing that, I had a homemade mask made of duct tape, yarn, and a single layer of surgical gauze.
The whole thing was ridiculous, since I wear a full beard.
And the other dirty secret was that if you came into the U.S. via commercial airliner, you needed to show the COVID-1984 jab compliance card to be allowed to board the flight (unless you were an illegal alien on a Jao Bai-din flight), but if you arrived by korporate jet, you didn't have to show such a card to anyone.
There's a youngish woman in this neighborhood who still drives around alone (in a Fiat 500), windows up and mask on. Maybe she has a legitimate medical reason for this, but I doubt it.
I worked in Healthcare. I saw this stuff going on. It was very difficult for me. I took the vaccine for COVID very early, when it became available to first responders, working in a job that required me to be onsite. And I did it even though in my eyes, we fully understood just what COVID was and how dangerous it was around the middle-to-end of April 2020. And when I watched what happened in the next two years, it left a mark on me I have not been able to erase.
With the vaccine, I never thought “everyone should be mandated to get it”. I abhor that mindset.
I got it because I felt it helped patients feel safer and calmer in coming to the hospital, the same reason I got the flu shot every year at the behest of the hospital that employed me all those years. I don’t get sick often, almost never. In 40 years, mostly working at the same hospital (a rarity these days)
I got an annual flu shot, which makes my life easier because my wife doesn’t feel the same way about these things. I have always been more of a “natural immunity” person, because...knock on wood...I cannot even remember getting the flu, and only rarely, once every few years, get a cold.
For years, you could refuse the annual vaccine, but if you did, you wouldn’t get a special sticker for your badge which was visible to others, and would be required to wear a mask between November and March (I think). I didn’t do it because growing up, my family traveled extensively overseas (my dad was career Navy) so we were pumped full of vaccinations that other kids never got, Yellow Fever, Bubonic Plague, Cholera, things like that. (The Cholera one was the worst-all six of us kids got sick as a dog for two days, and our arms where we got the shot were inflamed a deep red and were VERY sore)
And myself, going into the Navy, got all those weird vaccinations again. Point is, vaccines in my life were no big deal to me. I got them when asked, encouraged, and eventually...mandated.
And in 2023, there were rumblings early in that summer that the hospital was going to make the Flu and the COVID vaccines mandatory in the fall. I agonized over this, because it was clear to me that the vaccine was far more of a potential risk, but even more, because they planned to made it mandatory. When I say I agonized over this, that word it correct.
For about six months, it was the first thing I thought of in the morning, and obsessively throughout the day. It was tearing me apart inside, and I wondered if I should quit. My career would essentially end, because all the highly specialized knowledge I had that was a mix of clinical experience and IT experience would not get me a job outside of healthcare. I couldn’t go to another hospital.
Then, they made the vaccinations voluntary.
Thing is, all of this made me very disillusioned and resentful towards something I had spent nearly my entire adult life working at, something I was good at, at a hospital I believed was very hight quality, they valued and respected me, and I absolutely felt like I was making a positive difference with respect to both patients and my co-workers, due to the nature of my job.
And I wasn’t ready to give all that up. But initially, at the end of 2020, a lot of people did leave due to those policies.
It was distressing to me to see the way the entire medical community, which should have known better, completely bought into this hoax involving the way ÇOVID was perceived and presented to the world. COVID itself was not a hoax, it was real, but they made it appear far more deadly than it actually was, and I have never been able to look at medicine the way I did before.
Before my eyes, I saw Medicine become an ARM of the government, instead of an ancillary entity that it had been. I don’t feel the same way about it, so this loss of trust has been very deep and real to me.
But just as much or even more so, the response people had to the entire COVID thing deeply affected my view of people in general, and not in a good way. If people were sheep, that would have been one thing, because I have always viewed my fellow humans as herd animals to a degree. But with COVID my fellow humans weren’t just sheep, they were sheep with words and weapons they used in anger to coerce and compel me.
Yup.
I went into the my local grocery store a couple weeks back and about half of the stock boys were wearing masks. Which I thought was odd. Maybe they had been sick and were getting over a cold/virus.
Total crap article.
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