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-===== Dr. Angela (Angie) Rasmussen, PhD  =====
+====== Angela Rasmussen ======
-(Context see her character smears & attacks on [[:Robert Malone]] MD)
+{{ ::angela_angie_rasmussen_phd.png?200|}}
+Dr. **Angela (Angie) Rasmussen**, PhD
+(See Angie's character smears & attacks on [[:Robert Malone]] MD)((https://www.campfire.wiki/doku.php?id=covid-19_pandemic:propaganda&s[]=propaganda#new_york_times_attack_on_dr_robert_malone))
 Project Leaders and Veterinarians((https://web.archive.org/web/20200407140152/https://angelarasmussen.org/))
-{{ ::angela_angie_rasmussen_phd.png?400|}}
 Dr. Rasmussen graduated from Smith College with a BA in Biological Sciences (2000) and received a MA (2005), MPhil (2006), and PhD (2009) in Microbiology and Immunology from [[:Columbia University]]. She did her postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Washington and previously held faculty positions at the University of Washington and the Columbia Mailman School of Public Health.
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-===== Major Media "Expert Opinion" =====((https://web.archive.org/web/20200614043924/https://angelarasmussen.org/bylines))
+===== Public Funded Information =====
 ==== CoVaRR-Net ====
+{{ ::angie_rasmussen_misinfo_mask_pinocchio_nose.png?400|}}
 Let evidence be our guide: [[:Misinformation]] most insidious when it comes from health-care professionals
-Jan 27, 2022 by Concerned researchers and experts from CoVaRR-Net((https://web.archive.org/web/20220128000330/https://healthydebate.ca/2022/01/topic/covid-misinformation-from-health-care-professionals/))
+Jan 27, 2022 by Concerned researchers and experts from CoVaRR-Net((Abraham, N., Caulfield, T., Gommerman, J., Kindrachuk, J., Langlois, M.-A., Morris, A., Rasmussen, A., Saginur, R., & Tokhmafshan, F. (2022, January 27). //Let evidence be our guide: Misinformation most insidious when it comes from health-care professionals.// Healthy Debate. https://web.archive.org/web/20220128000330/https://healthydebate.ca/2022/01/topic/covid-misinformation-from-health-care-professionals/))
-Eradication of SARS-CoV-2 was not the primary goal of COVID-19 vaccination campaigns and never has been. Rather, the goal from the start has been to limit morbidity and mortality caused by COVID-19 – an entirely reasonable end goal, which vaccines have achieved as indicated by an ever-growing body of evidence, including three independent large-scale studies showing more than 80 per cent effectiveness of three doses of COVID-19 vaccine against hospitalization and death due to Omicron– an impressive feat given that current vaccines were modelled against the ancestral virus rather than Omicron.
+//Eradication of SARS-CoV-2 was not the primary goal of COVID-19 vaccination campaigns and never has been.// Rather, the goal from the start has been to limit morbidity and mortality caused by COVID-19 – an entirely reasonable end goal, which vaccines have achieved as indicated by an ever-growing body of evidence, including three independent //large-scale studies showing more than 80 per cent effectiveness of three doses of COVID-19 vaccine against hospitalization and death due to Omicron–// an impressive feat given that current vaccines were modelled against the ancestral virus rather than Omicron.
 Indeed, accumulating data show that three vaccine doses confer robust immunity that protects against divergent viral variants, including Omicron. This is due to successful imprinting of the immune response against the SARS-CoV-2 spike, something Doidge incorrectly and derisively refers to as “[[:Original Antigenic Sin]].” But rather than this being a bad thing, evidence shows this imprinting is precisely what elicits broad, cross-protective immune responses against variants in a manner exceeding that conferred by infection alone.
@@ Line 101: / Line 106: @@
 Ninan Abraham, Professor, Department of Microbiology and Immunology, Department of Zoology, University of British Columbia; Director of Equity, Diversity, Inclusion and Indigeneity, CoVaRR-Net.
-Timothy Caulfield, Canada Research Chair in Health Law and Policy, Professor, Faculty of Law and School of Public Health, University of Alberta; Director of Misinformation Assessment and Response, CoVaRR-Net.
+[[Timothy Caulfield]], Canada Research Chair in Health Law and Policy, Professor, Faculty of Law and School of Public Health, University of Alberta; Director of Misinformation Assessment and Response, CoVaRR-Net.
 Jen Gommerman, Canada Research Chair in Tissue Specific Immunity; Professor and Acting Chair, Department of Immunology, University of Toronto; Pillar 1 Co-Lead, CoVaRR-Net.
@@ Line 111: / Line 116: @@
 Andrew Morris, MD, Professor, Department of Medicine, University of Toronto; Pillar 8 Deputy, CoVaRR-Net.
-Angela Rasmussen, Research Scientist, Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization and Adjunct Professor, Department of Biochemistry, Microbiology, and Immunology, University of Saskatchewan; Pillar 2 Lead, CoVaRR-Net.
+Angela Rasmussen, Research Scientist, Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization and Adjunct Professor, Department of Biochemistry, Microbiology, and Immunology, [[University of Saskatchewan]]; Pillar 2 Lead, CoVaRR-Net.
 Raphael Saginur, Chair of the Ottawa Health Science Network Research Ethics Board; Co-Director of Bioethics, CoVaRR-Net.
 Fatima Tokhmafshan, Geneticist, Research Institute of McGill University Health Centre; Director of Community and Patient Engagement and Outreach, CoVaRR-Net.
+==== Science for Journalists ====
+April 2021 Interview with Dr. Angela Rasmussen | Module 1
+Dr. Angela Rasmussen So I'm a virologist, and I study a number of different emerging viruses, including [[:MERS coronavirus]], influenza, [[:dengue virus]], [[:Ebola virus]], and now, of course, like many of my colleagues, SARS coronavirus-2. I focus on the host response to virus infection, so how your body and your immune system responds to infection with these emerging viruses and how that relates to disease as well as the //protection that's provided by vaccines and immunization//.
+So mRNA vaccines and viral vector vaccines have actually been in development for a long time, including mRNA vaccines. By the way, that have been developed for MERS coronavirus, which is very related to SARS coronavirus-2. So we already knew a little bit about how these different types of vaccine platforms work against beta coronaviruses.
+What I am surprised about is that this process only took a year, and not just in terms of the technology, that part actually didn't take very long at all because as I just said, these technologies already existed and we're in the process of being studied. //I'm really surprised at how quickly they were able to perform really adequately powered phase III clinical trials and push it through// the regulatory process so quickly.
+That, to me, has been a very pleasant surprise. I would have thought that getting regulatory approval, testing the vaccines thoroughly to make sure that they're safe and actually manufacturing them and getting them out into people's arms would have taken longer than that.
+Maryn Mckenna- So, you mentioned the clinical trials. I think anyone who's been following that knows that from trial to trial, the different vaccines that have been approved or authorized have shown different rates of efficacy. Is that important? Are you concerned about that?
+Dr. Angela Rasmussen I'm not concerned about that, because to a certain degree, this is like comparing apples and oranges. These trials were all done differently. //They were all overseen by different independent study monitoring boards or data safety monitoring boards//. They were all done in many cases in different populations of people that have different risk for infection, and they are all different vaccines. //They all are very good at preventing severe or lethal COVID-19. So they keep people out of the hospital, they keep people alive.// And that's really the major end points that we want for these vaccines.
+Maryn Mckenna- So, people are being vaccinated around the world. As the vaccines roll out,
+what's your biggest concern regarding them?
+Angela Rasmussen -So I really have two concerns, and some of them are really country dependent. Some of them are more global. But the two major themes are [[:vaccine hesitancy]] and equitable vaccine access. So even in countries that that have large supplies of the vaccines right now, there have been major issues with equitable access to the vaccine.
+I'm very worried about [[:vaccine hesitancy]] over the long term, and this is different in different countries. There are many reasons for vaccine hesitancy, but the issues with equity that I mentioned earlier actually contribute to vaccine hesitancy, because if people think, well, they're not prioritizing me or
+my community for vaccines, then why should we take them? Also there is a lot of [[:misinformation]] that has been out there just swirling around about the vaccines; //that they were developed too quickly, that they may not be safe//, as I mentioned before, that one vaccine is going to be more effective than another.
+All of this can erode people's confidence in the process by which the vaccines were developed and make them more reluctant to take those vaccines. So I think over time, we really need to be focused not just on equity and making sure that everybody can access the vaccines, //but also that people understand that the vaccines are going to be net beneficial for everybody// and address people's concerns, which are very reasonable in many cases.
+So I think a lot of people are under the **mistaken impression that vaccines are supposed to completely prevent any kind of infection**. This is something that's usually referred to as sterilizing immunity. //Sterilizing immunity is great when you can get it,// but we have a number of effective vaccines that that don't rely on [[:sterilizing immunity]].
+For speed and also for the real problem overall with the public health concern with COVID is not just are people getting infected with SARS coronavirus-2, it's are people getting sick and going to the hospital and dying from COVID-19.
+And so the clinical trials were designed to assess how well the vaccines can prevent COVID-19, not necessarily how well they can protect against infection with SARS coronavirus-2. And I think that a lot of people are confused because they may think that infection automatically means that you have the disease, but there are a number of people who have asymptomatic or very, very mild COVID-19 after being infected with SARS coronavirus-2.
+So if you have, most of the people who would have otherwise gotten COVID-19 and ended up in the hospital or maybe even died from having it, if all of a sudden those people are vaccinated and they are getting asymptomatically infected, then that's no longer a public health problem. They're going to continue to live
+healthy and productive lives. //So that's what the vaccines were originally evaluated for//.
+Dr. Angela Rasmussen So, continue to take precautions until you can get vaccinated, until most of the people in your community can get vaccinated. //But the vaccines really are the way to ending this pandemic//, both through reducing the burden of disease and likely at population level, reducing transmission.
+So by reducing community transmission, by taking normal exposure //risk-reduction precautions that we have been taking throughout the pandemic, such as masking and physical distancing,// increasing ventilation, practicing good hand hygiene, avoiding crowds, things like that, if you can do as many of those as possible, you will reduce community transmission that will not only reduce your risk of contracting one of these variants, //it will also reduce the risk that new variants will emerge// in the future that could have more of an impact in terms of transmissibility or the ability to get around immune responses.
+The biggest disappointment of the pandemic for me is the lack of global cooperation and collaboration. Normally, the [[:World Health Organization]] is sort of the central clearinghouse for this. But in this case, many of the wealthier countries, including the US, where I'm from, have really responded to this in a very
+nationalized way.((https://web.archive.org/web/20210712135517/https://journalismcourses.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/Interview_with_Dr_Angela_Rasmussen_Module_1.pdf))
+((https://web.archive.org/web/20210712135517/https://journalismcourses.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/Interview_with_Dr_Angela_Rasmussen_Module_1.pdf))
+===== Major Media "Expert Opinion" =====((https://web.archive.org/web/20200614043924/https://angelarasmussen.org/bylines))
+==== Canada The Chronicle Journal ====
+Canada monitoring 'whole slew' of variants, says chief public health officer
+Jul 8, 2021
+Angela Rasmussen, a virologist at the University of Saskatchewan's Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization, said there has been a pattern of panicking that vaccines won't work every time there is a new variant.
+"It's like 'Oh no, new mutations,' but actually Lamda doesn't really have new mutations, it just has new combinations of mutations that we've already seen before," she said.
+Early studies, including one from New York University published July 2, suggest Lambda may be a bit resistant to antibodies produced by the mRNA vaccines from [[:Pfizer]]-BioNTech and [[:Moderna]], but concluded it is not by enough "to cause a significant loss of protection against infection."
+Rasmussen also said most vaccine tests on variants are done in labs, not people, and give an incomplete picture of how immunity from vaccines work, including T-cells, which are separate from antibodies but also help kill viruses.
+Rasmussen is part of a new network of Canadian scientists that launched this week specifically to collaborate on studies of COVID-19 variants.
+The Coronavirus Variants Rapid Response Network, known informally as [[:CoVaRR-Net]], is funded by the [[:Canadian Institutes of Health Information]]. It has already launched eight different studies to see how variants are spreading in Canada, including wastewater monitoring for variants in four major cities, and closer looks at how they are responding to vaccines.
+They also have a project to develop better education for the public about what variants are and how they affect the pandemic. Rasmussen said people really need to understand that mutations and variants are a normal evolutionary process. Viruses spread by making copies of themselves inside human or animal cells, and most of those copies aren't perfect.
+Sometimes, the virus gets lucky and the mutation makes it stronger, said Rasmussen. That can mean it infects people more easily, it could make you more sick when it does infect you, or, and this is perhaps most worrying to many, resist vaccines.
+A variant is labelled as being "of interest" if it suspected of doing one of those three things, and has been found in multiple places. It is elevated to being "of concern" if any of those suspicions are confirmed.((https://web.archive.org/web/20220411152944/https://www.chroniclejournal.com/news/national/canada-monitoring-whole-slew-of-variants-says-chief-public-health-officer/article_263d452a-c29a-551a-9daf-5e093cce26a4.html))
 ==== FORBES ====
-=== A Virologist Explains Why COVID-19 Coronavirus Isn’t Really Dangerously Lingering On Surfaces For Weeks === ((https://web.archive.org/web/20200522080602/https://www.forbes.com/sites/coronavirusfrontlines/2020/04/07/a-virologist-explains-why-hyped-studies-tell-us-very-little-about-the-likelihood-of-covid-19-coronavirus-transmission/#4ffb18c31abe))
+A Virologist Explains Why COVID-19 Coronavirus Isn’t Really Dangerously Lingering On Surfaces For Weeks ((https://web.archive.org/web/20200522080602/https://www.forbes.com/sites/coronavirusfrontlines/2020/04/07/a-virologist-explains-why-hyped-studies-tell-us-very-little-about-the-likelihood-of-covid-19-coronavirus-transmission/#4ffb18c31abe))
 April 7, 2020 Angela Rasmussen - Coronavirus Frontlines Contributor Group - Healthcare
@@ Line 125: / Line 199: @@
 Coronavirus Frontlines is a special series where we are sharing the perspective of experts at the forefront of combating the COVID-19 pandemic.
-You may have heard reports that researchers found RNA material from the coronavirus on the Diamond Princess cruise ship 17 days after the ship was vacated. Or maybe you heard that there was widespread environmental contamination of viral RNA in COVID-19 patient rooms at the University of Nebraska Medical Center. Or perhaps you read an article saying that viral RNA could be detected up to 37 days in patients following the onset of COVID-19 disease. This might put in your head that COVID-19 patients are effectively clouds of contagion for months, shedding the virus for days before they knew they were sick and long after they recovered.
+You may have heard reports that researchers found RNA material from the coronavirus on the Diamond Princess cruise ship 17 days after the ship was vacated. Or maybe you heard that there was widespread environmental contamination of viral RNA in COVID-19 patient rooms at the [[:University of Nebraska]] Medical Center. Or perhaps you read an article saying that viral RNA could be detected up to 37 days in patients following the onset of COVID-19 disease. This might put in your head that COVID-19 patients are effectively clouds of contagion for months, shedding the virus for days before they knew they were sick and long after they recovered.
 Calm down. And rest assured that this is not necessarily the case. That’s because the test used to detect the virus in these studies doesn't actually measure whether it’s still infectious. Let’s break down some of the science.
@@ Line 131: / Line 205: @@
 The test in these studies uses a very well-established technique called quantitative reverse-transcription polymerase chain reaction, or qRT-PCR. This test demonstrates whether a person is infected or not by detecting the presence and relative quantity of viral RNA. Basically, “Is the virus in your system?” So what you might think about qRT-PCR tests is that measurements of how much viral RNA is detected corresponds directly to how infectious a person is. But that’s not what those tests are looking for.
-For reasons that are not fully understood, patients that have recovered from a viral infection have cells that can continue to produce viral RNA without actually making infectious virus particles. That means it is not only possible but common to detect viral RNA without there being any infectious virus present.
+For reasons that are not fully understood, patients that have recovered from a viral infection have cells that can continue to produce viral RNA without actually making infectious virus particles. That means it is not only possible but common to detect [[:viral RNA]] without there being any infectious virus present.
 Fortunately, two studies((https://web.archive.org/web/20200526065300/https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.03.15.20036673v2)) have investigated the ability of virus to remain infectious on different materials in the environment. Although the length of time that virus on a surface remains infectious is dependent on environmental conditions such as temperature and humidity, no virus remained infectious on surfaces for anywhere near 17 days. Furthermore, in both studies, the amount of infectious virus was greatly reduced after several days. This suggests that risk of infection from virus on objects or surfaces in the environment can be minimized by diligent cleaning and disinfection practices.
-=== Worried Your Pet Has COVID-19? This Virologist Breaks Down The Science Of Animal Infections ===
+==== Worried Your Pet Has COVID-19? This Virologist Breaks Down The Science Of Animal Infections ====
 Editors' Pick|Apr 13, 2020 - Coronavirus Frontlines - Angela Rasmussen Contributor
-Earlier this month, news broke that a Malayan tiger at the Bronx Zoo tested positive for SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. Nadia, along with her sister Azul, two Amur tigers, and three African lions exhibited signs of respiratory disease. Apart from being incredibly on-brand for this pandemic, given the popularity of the Netflix documentary Tiger King, this raised a number of concerns. Will domestic pets get COVID-19? Can we transmit the virus to pets? Can we get the virus from our pets?
+Earlier this month, news broke that a Malayan tiger at the [[:Bronx Zoo]] tested positive for SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. Nadia, along with her sister Azul, two Amur tigers, and three African lions exhibited signs of respiratory disease. Apart from being incredibly on-brand for this pandemic, given the popularity of the Netflix documentary Tiger King, this raised a number of concerns. Will domestic pets get COVID-19? Can we transmit the virus to pets? Can we get the virus from our pets?
 The Good News
-Zoonotic transmission is when humans contract an infection from animals. The primary good news is that so far, there is no evidence suggesting that humans have contracted [[:SARS-CoV-2]] zoonotically from their pets. In fact, analysis of the genome sequence of the virus recovered from Nadia suggests that she was infected with a strain circulating in humans. This was determined when the viral genome sequence from Nadia was uploaded to the NextStrain database and compared with all the SARS-CoV-2 isolated sequences from human patients around the world. This suggests that anthroponotic transmission—from humans to animals—infected Nadia.
+Zoonotic transmission is when humans contract an infection from animals. The primary good news is that so far, there is no evidence suggesting that humans have contracted [[:SARS-CoV-2]] zoonotically from their pets. In fact, analysis of the genome sequence of the virus recovered from Nadia suggests that she was infected with a strain circulating in humans. This was determined when the viral genome sequence from Nadia was uploaded to the [[:NextStrain]] database and compared with all the SARS-CoV-2 isolated sequences from human patients around the world. This suggests that anthroponotic transmission—from humans to animals—infected Nadia.
-Fortunately, most people do not keep tigers or other big cats as household pets or interact with them frequently. However, the news about Nadia the tiger’s case of COVID-19 broke several days after a team from the Harbin Veterinary Research Institute in China released data that domestic cats and ferrets are susceptible to infection with SARS-CoV-2.
+Fortunately, most people do not keep tigers or other big cats as household pets or interact with them frequently. However, the news about Nadia the tiger’s case of COVID-19 broke several days after a team from the [[:Harbin Veterinary Research Institute]] in China released data that domestic cats and ferrets are susceptible to infection with SARS-CoV-2.
 Yet another study indicates more bad news, showing that of approximately 100 cats studied in Wuhan, 15% had developed antibodies to the virus, meaning that they were previously infected. The question of cat susceptibility and the potential for zoonotic transmission is by no means settled, but it does have important implications for controlling SARS-CoV-2 spread over the long term.
-If it turns out that cats or other domestic animals can transmit the virus zoonotically to humans, they could become a potential reservoir for SARS-CoV-2. A reservoir is a population of susceptible animals that can carry the virus and potentially seed new outbreaks in the human population. In addition to being popular pets, there are millions of feral cats in the United States and around the world, comprising a huge potential reservoir for SARS-CoV-2 in the wild. It’s critical to do more research to assess the risk to cats, as that also might help prevent future COVID-19 outbreaks both in humans and in our furry friends.((https://web.archive.org/web/20200702021023/https://www.forbes.com/sites/coronavirusfrontlines/2020/04/13/worried-your-pet-has-covid-19-this-virologist-breaks-down-the-science-of-animal-infections/#669a16f9281c))
+If it turns out that **cats or other domestic animals can transmit the virus** zoonotically to humans, they could become a potential reservoir for SARS-CoV-2. A reservoir is a population of susceptible animals that can carry the virus and potentially seed new outbreaks in the human population.
+In addition to being popular pets, there are millions of feral cats in the United States and around the world, comprising a huge potential reservoir for SARS-CoV-2 in the wild. It’s **critical to do more research to assess the risk to cats**, as that also might help prevent future COVID-19 outbreaks both in humans and in our furry friends.((https://web.archive.org/web/20200702021023/https://www.forbes.com/sites/coronavirusfrontlines/2020/04/13/worried-your-pet-has-covid-19-this-virologist-breaks-down-the-science-of-animal-infections/#669a16f9281c))
 ==== LEAPS Mag ====
@@ Line 169: / Line 245: @@
 In addition, rhesus monkeys that were experimentally infected with SARS-CoV-2 and allowed to recover were protected from reinfection after a subsequent experimental challenge. These data tentatively suggest that most people are likely to develop neutralizing IgG, and protective immunity, after being infected by SARS-CoV-2.
-However, //not all COVID-19 patients do produce high levels of antibodies specific for SARS-CoV-2. A small number of patients in one study had no detectable neutralizing IgG. There have also been reports of patients in South Korea testing PCR positive after a prior negative test, indicating reinfection// or reactivation. These cases may be explained by the sensitivity of the PCR test, and no data have been produced to indicate that these cases are genuine reinfection or recurrence of viral infection.
+However, //not all COVID-19 patients do produce high levels of antibodies specific for SARS-CoV-2. A small number of patients in one study had no detectable neutralizing [[:IgG]]. There have also been reports of patients in South Korea testing PCR positive after a prior negative test, indicating reinfection// or reactivation. These cases may be explained by the sensitivity of the [[:PCR test]], and no data have been produced to indicate that these cases are genuine reinfection or recurrence of viral infection.
 Complicating matters further, not all serology tests measure antibody titers. Some rapid serology tests are designed to be binary—the test can either detect antibodies or not, but does not give information about the amount of antibodies circulating.  //Based on our current knowledge, we cannot be certain that merely having any level of detectable antibodies alone guarantees protection from reinfection,// or from a subclinical reinfection that might not cause a second case of COVID-19, but could still result in transmission to others. These unknowns remain problematic even with tests that accurately detect the presence of antibodies—which is not a given today, as many of the newly available tests are reportedly unreliable.
@@ Line 177: / Line 253: @@
 By Angela Rasmussen - Aug 26, 2020
-//Since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic, there have been anecdotal reports of COVID-19 patients becoming reinfected with SARS-CoV-2.// Until this week, there was no concrete evidence demonstrating that SARS-CoV-2 reinfection could occur. A man who previously recovered from COVID-19 in March tested positive at an airport screening site this month while returning to his home in Hong Kong. According to a paper from researchers at Hong Kong University, viral genome sequencing showed that he was infected with two different genetic variants of SARS-CoV-2 and was therefore authentically reinfected, although the authors have not presented data to rule out contamination, which can readily occur in labs that process many clinical samples that may all contain different variants of the virus. (The paper was recently accepted for publication in Clinical Infectious Diseases.) Since then, two more cases of reinfection have been reported in the Netherlands and Belgium, although no data has been made available to confirm these findings.
+//Since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic, there have been anecdotal reports of COVID-19 patients becoming reinfected with SARS-CoV-2.// Until this week, there was no concrete evidence demonstrating that SARS-CoV-2 reinfection could occur. A man who previously recovered from COVID-19 in March tested positive at an airport screening site this month while returning to his home in Hong Kong.
+According to a paper from researchers at [[:Hong Kong University]], viral [[:genome sequencing]] showed that he was infected with two different genetic variants of SARS-CoV-2 and was therefore authentically reinfected, although the authors have not presented data to rule out contamination, which can readily occur in labs that process many clinical samples that may all contain different variants of the virus. (The paper was recently accepted for publication in Clinical Infectious Diseases.) Since then, two more cases of reinfection have been reported in the Netherlands and Belgium, although no data has been made available to confirm these findings.
 But this is not cause for alarm. You cannot tell whether something is going to have a major impact on the pandemic by looking at a solitary case, or even a handful of cases. Maria Van Kerkhove, head of the emerging viruses unit at the [[:World Health Organization]], emphasized that this needs to be studied at the population level before making any broader conclusions. Currently there’s very little evidence to suggest that reinfection is common.
-So what can we learn about [[:reinfection]] from these case reports and the relatively scant data they provide? Not much. But now we can begin to see how it aligns with other evidence about reinfection and immunity to SARS-CoV-2 and develop hypotheses that can then be tested in more rigorous clinical studies or in experimental models.
+So what can we learn about [[:reinfection]] from these case reports and the relatively scant data they provide? Not much. But now we can begin to see how it aligns with other evidence about reinfection and immunity to SARS-CoV-2 and develop hypotheses that can then be tested in more rigorous clinical studies or in [[:experimental models]].
-Most commonly, a [[:PCR test]] //is used to diagnose SARS-CoV-2 infection,// which specifically detects and amplifies a small piece of the viral genome directly. But antibody tests, which are what’s most relevant here, quantify antibody titers. Some can also determine how many neutralizing antibodies in a serum sample can inactivate either authentic SARS-CoV-2 or a surrogate virus.
+Most commonly, a [[:PCR test]] //is used to diagnose SARS-CoV-2 infection,// which specifically detects and amplifies a small piece of the viral genome directly. But antibody tests, which are what’s most relevant here, quantify [[:antibody titers]]. Some can also determine how many neutralizing antibodies in a serum sample can inactivate either authentic SARS-CoV-2 or a surrogate virus.
 This type of nonsterilizing immune protection against disease has been observed in all of the studies testing vaccines in rhesus macaques: Not all the vaccinated animals were protected against infection, but they were much less sick, at least in terms of their clinical presentation, laboratory values, respiratory rates, and tissue pathology, compared with control animals. None of this is surprising, nor does it suggest that reinfection is going to be a huge problem for public health, at least by being frequently associated with severe COVID-19. In fact, it doesn’t tell us much at all because you can’t definitively investigate what happened in a single case study in a rigorous or controlled way.
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 ==== New York Times ====
-=== Another group of scientists calls for further inquiry into origins of the coronavirus === ((https://web.archive.org/web/20210513180730/https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/13/science/virus-origins-lab-leak-scientists.html))
+Another group of scientists calls for further inquiry into origins of the coronavirus ((https://web.archive.org/web/20210513180730/https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/13/science/virus-origins-lab-leak-scientists.html))
 May 2021 by James Gorman and Carl Zimmer, The New York Times
-A photo provided by [[:EcoHealth Alliance]] shows researchers collecting samples from bats for analysis in Guangdong province, China, in April 2019. A group of 18 scientists stated Thursday, May 13, 2021, in a letter published in the journal Science that there is not enough evidence to decide whether a natural origin or an accidental laboratory leak caused the COVID-19 pandemic.
+A photo provided by [[:EcoHealth Alliance]] shows researchers collecting samples from bats for analysis in [[:Guangdong province]], China, in April 2019. A group of 18 scientists stated Thursday, May 13, 2021, in a letter published in the journal Science that there is not enough evidence to decide whether a [[:natural origin]] or an accidental [[:lab leak]] caused the COVID-19 pandemic.
 The organisers of the letter, [[:Jesse Bloom]], who studies the evolution of viruses at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, and [[:David Relman]], a microbiologist at Stanford University, said they strove to articulate a wait-and-see viewpoint that they believe is shared by many scientists. Many of the signers have not spoken out before.
@@ Line 212: / Line 291: @@
-Early last month, I got my third Covid vaccine shot. I now realize this was overkill and I’m fairly embarrassed about it, but at the time I felt like I was operating in an information vacuum.
+Early last month,** I got my third [[:Covid vaccine]] shot.** I now realize this was overkill and I’m fairly embarrassed about it, but at the time I felt like I was operating in an information vacuum.
 As I’ve written before, I participated in the [[:Johnson & Johnson]] vaccine trial. //Even though I initially got the placebo, the study offered me the opportunity to get the real thing weeks before I’d have otherwise been eligible, and I gratefully accepted.// At the time, public health authorities were telling everyone to take the first shot you could get.
@@ Line 220: / Line 299: @@
 Some other people were quietly doing the same thing I had. Right after getting the Pfizer shot, I called the J.&J. trial to confess, in case the people running it needed me to drop out. The person I spoke to said that while it wasn’t ideal, I should keep participating, and that I wasn’t the only volunteer who’d gone out and gotten a second vaccine.
-The evidentiary void around J.&J. seemed to grow more frightening with the spread of the Delta variant. Previously, data from Britain had shown that a single dose of either Pfizer or AstraZeneca provided pretty good protection against Covid infection. With Delta, single-dose protection went way down, to around 35 percent.
+The evidentiary void around J.&J. seemed to grow more frightening with the spread of the [[:Delta]] variant. Previously, data from Britain had shown that a single dose of either [[:Pfizer]] or [[:AstraZeneca]] provided pretty good protection against Covid infection. With Delta, single-dose protection went way down, to around 35 percent.
-For weeks, no one knew what that meant for the J.&J. vaccine.  [[:Angela Rasmussen]], a virologist at the Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization at the University of Saskatchewan, had the Johnson & Johnson shot, and has been hearing from people who’d also gotten it and were scared.
+For weeks, no one knew what that meant for the J.&J. vaccine.  [[:Angela Rasmussen]], a virologist at the Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization at the University of Saskatchewan, had the [[:Johnson & Johnson]] shot, and has been hearing from people who’d also gotten it and were scared.
 “I really don’t blame people — they keep hearing all this stuff about two shots, two shots, Delta, you need to be fully vaccinated,” she told me earlier this week. “And nobody’s really saying anything about Johnson & Johnson.” Many people, she said, “feel that they’ve been left behind because there really isn’t any new information coming out about it.”
@@ Line 250: / Line 329: @@
 CBC: We're facing a fifth wave here driven by the Omicron variant. Why is a booster shot so important?
-Rasmussen: The booster shot, it turns out, is really important in terms of reducing your risk of contracting Omicron and also making sure that your protection against severe disease remains high. Some studies have shown that two doses of the vaccine provide pretty good protection against severe illness.
+Rasmussen: The booster shot, it turns out, is really important in terms of reducing your risk of contracting Omicron and also making sure that your protection against severe disease remains high. Some studies have shown that two doses of the [[:vaccine]] provide pretty good protection against severe illness.
-It's good news in the sense that there is still protection against severe disease, but they found that with a booster shot, it also improved protection against getting infected in the first place, taking it back up to about 70 per cent. And it really did boost the protection against severe disease back up into that 90 per cent range. Getting a booster shot will also improve the protection you have that will help keep you out of the hospital if you do happen to have a breakthrough case.
+It's good news in the sense that there is still protection against severe disease, but they found that with a booster shot, it also improved protection against getting infected in the first place, taking it back up to about 70 per cent. And it really did boost the protection against severe disease back up into that 90 per cent range. **Getting a booster shot will also improve the protection** you have that will help keep you out of the hospital if you do happen to have a breakthrough case.
 CBC: We've got children heading back to school and, of course, there are still those kids under five who are not yet eligible for any vaccine. Do you have any final thoughts on those issues?
@@ Line 268: / Line 347: @@
 Her husband had already departed, and she was planning to follow on Tuesday. But the growing chance of picking up an infection en route, potentially endangering family members, including a three-year-old niece who is not vaccinated, changed her mind.
-“It sucks, but I think I made the right move,” Dr. Rasmussen said. Colleagues in Saskatoon have invited her to spend some time over the holiday, she said, “so it won’t just be me alone listing to Christmas music, crying.”
+“It sucks, but I think I made the right move,” Dr. Rasmussen said. Colleagues in [[:Saskatoon]] have invited her to spend some time over the holiday, she said, “so it won’t just be me alone listing to Christmas music, crying.”
-On top of personal considerations, Dr. Rasmussen said she does not want to be caught up in quarantine or travel delays outside Canada while an Omicron wave is imminent. She expects to be back in her lab at the start of the new year overseeing experiments that will test the ability of the variant to jump from humans to about 30 other animal hosts, including domestic pets, livestock and wildlife from beavers to bears.((https://web.archive.org/web/20211224021941/https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-when-might-the-looming-omicron-wave-peak-how-scientists-are-tracking/))
+On top of personal considerations, Dr. Rasmussen said she does not want to be caught up in quarantine or travel delays outside [[:Canada]] while an Omicron wave is imminent. She expects to be back in her lab at the start of the new year overseeing experiments that will test the ability of the variant to jump from humans to about 30 other animal hosts, including domestic pets, livestock and wildlife from beavers to bears.((https://web.archive.org/web/20211224021941/https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-when-might-the-looming-omicron-wave-peak-how-scientists-are-tracking/))
@@ Line 285: / Line 364: @@
 Video Transcript
-AKIKO FUJITA: Welcome to Yahoo Finance Live. I'm Akiko Fujita along with Brad Smith. It was roughly two years ago today when the first COVID-19 case in the US was reported. Test results in Washington state confirmed that case several days later. And over the next hour, we're going to be taking a closer look at the progress that has been made so far and the challenges that still lie ahead.
+AKIKO FUJITA: Welcome to [[:Yahoo Finance]] Live. I'm [[:Akiko Fujita]] along with [[:Brad Smith]]. It was roughly two years ago today when the first COVID-19 case in the US was reported. Test results in Washington state confirmed that case several days later. And over the next hour, we're going to be taking a closer look at the progress that has been made so far and the challenges that still lie ahead.
 I want to start, though, with where things stand right now. And, Brad, these numbers really do tell this story. 334 million COVID cases confirmed globally. Roughly 68 million reported in the US, and 854,000 people have died from the virus in this country alone.
@@ Line 306: / Line 385: @@
 [[:ANGELA RASMUSSEN]] Yeah, I think this discussion about whether Omicron is milder can lead to some really harmful places. So it is certainly good news that in people who've had a prior exposure, prior infection, or have been vaccinated and, ideally, boosted, do tend to have less severe disease caused by Omicron if they have a breakthrough infection.
-And I should add, too, that while //boosters can't completely protect somebody from getting infected with Omicron, they certainly reduce the risk of being infected. So they do reduce infection, they do reduce transmission.// It's really important to get those boosters. But there are still many, many people in the US, 40% of the population, roughly, that's eligible, that have not been vaccinated.
+And I should add, too, that while //boosters can't completely protect somebody from getting infected with [[:Omicron]], they certainly reduce the risk of being infected. So they do reduce infection, they do reduce transmission.// It's really important to get those boosters. But there are still many, many people in the US, 40% of the population, roughly, that's eligible, that have not been vaccinated.
 And I'm not convinced that Omicron actually milder in those people. //And of the people who are being hospitalized, we are seeing the unvaccinated, again, having the most serious and severe outcomes.// Furthermore, people who have been vaccinated who get Omicron don't necessarily-- they might not die, they might not be hospitalized, but that doesn't necessarily mean that it's mild. Certainly, people have taken a long time to recover from having a so-called mild case of COVID that doesn't require hospitalization.
@@ Line 316: / Line 395: @@
 [[:ANGELA RASMUSSEN]] So, frankly, I don't think that elimination is going to be possible with this virus. //This virus infects a number of different animal species. This is actually one thing that my lab works on.// And even if every human being on the planet was vaccinated, there's still potentially susceptible hosts in the form of other animals that this virus could get into.
-So endemicity is really what we're talking about. But I don't think a lot of people really have a good understanding of what endemicity means. Endemicity doesn't mean that it's milder, it also doesn't mean that it's spreading like crazy either. It means that there's a regular and predictable level of spread.
+So [[:endemicity]] is really what we're talking about. But I don't think a lot of people really have a good understanding of what endemicity means. Endemicity doesn't mean that it's milder, it also doesn't mean that it's spreading like crazy either. It means that there's a regular and predictable level of spread.
 So if we get to the point where the global population has reached population immunity, even if new variants that are emerging can infect people who have been vaccinated or immunized, that doesn't necessarily mean that the virus is just going to be spreading among them as if it were spreading through a susceptible population. //As I mentioned before, even vaccines that aren't completely protective against infection do reduce transmission.//
@@ Line 327: / Line 406: @@
 ==== Macleans Canada ====
 The team of scientists guarding Canada against COVID variants—'the known unknown'
 The Coronavirus Variants Rapid Response Network [[:CoVaRR-Net]]  will serve as Canada’s early warning system for variants that could hurl us back into pandemic misery By Patricia Treble November 29, 2021
-Rather, it’s a “known unknown” that keeps Langlois up at night: “The greatest threat will come from a variant that returns to an animal reservoir—infecting your domestic cat, for example, then mutating in your cat in a certain way that the human system will not allow. And then the virus would be transmitted back to humans in this slightly different form.
+Rather, it’s a “known unknown” that keeps Langlois up at night: “**The greatest threat will come from a variant that returns to an animal reservoir—infecting your domestic cat, for example,** then mutating in your cat in a certain way that the human system will not allow. And then the virus would be transmitted back to humans in this slightly different form.
-“This is what we consider the No. 1 threat to the current vaccines,” Langlois adds, because such a change could render all of them ineffective. In October, his network created a new pillar, “[[:host-pathogen interactions]],” led by Dr. Angela Rasmussen, an expert in the field who is a virologist at the University of Saskatchewan’s Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization.
+“This is what we consider the No. 1 threat to the current vaccines,” Langlois adds, because such a change could render all of them ineffective. In October, his network created a new pillar, “[[:host-pathogen interactions]],” led by Dr. Angela Rasmussen, **an expert in the field** who is a virologist at the [[:University of Saskatchewan]]’s [[:Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization]].
 The virus that causes COVID, says Rasmussen, “is a generalist, and it can infect a lot of different species.” Already, antibodies have been detected in white-tailed deer, as well as some zoo animals. “It’s not lost on me that a lot of the zoo animals that have been infected are big cats,” she adds. “There’s already quite a bit of data suggesting not only that cats can be infected, but that they can transmit it to each other.”
@@ Line 370: / Line 450: @@
 As women who are deeply involved in Covid-19 science, it has become clear to us that our expertise means little when it comes to real decision-making in this public health emergency. We are frustrated that our work is being overlooked and misrepresented in the media. We’re exhausted knowing that after this is all over we will have a powerful fight on our hands to reclaim the professional ground that is slipping away from us during this emergency.
-  * Caroline Buckee is an associate professor of epidemiology at the Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health.
+  * [[:Caroline Buckee]] is an associate professor of epidemiology at the [[:Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health]].
   *
-  * Bethany Hedt-Gauthier is an associate professor of global health and social medicine at Harvard Medical School.
+  * [[:Bethany Hedt-Gauthier]] is an associate professor of global health and social medicine at [[:Harvard Medical School]].
   *
-  * Ayesha Mahmud is an assistant professor of demography at the University of California, Berkeley.
+  * [[:Ayesha Mahmud]] is an assistant professor of demography at the [[:University of California]], Berkeley.
   *
-  * Pamela Martinez is a postdoctoral research fellow at the Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health.
+  * [[:Pamela Martinez]] is a postdoctoral research fellow at the [[:Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health]].
   *
-  * Christine Tedijanto is an epidemiology graduate student at the Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health.
+  * [[:Christine Tedijanto]] is an epidemiology graduate student at the [[:Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health]].
   *
-  * Megan Murray is a professor of global health at Harvard Medical School.
+  * [[:Megan Murray]] is a professor of global health at [[:Harvard Medical School]].
   *
-  * Rebecca Khan is an epidemiology graduate student at the Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health.
+  * [[:Rebecca Khan]] is an epidemiology graduate student at the [[:Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health]].
   *
-  * Tigist Menkir is an epidemiology graduate student at the Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health.
+  * [[:Tigist Menkir]] is an epidemiology graduate student at the [[:Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health]].
   *
-  * Ruoran Li is a postdoctoral researcher at the Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health.
+  * [[:Ruoran Li]] is a postdoctoral researcher at the [[:Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health]].
   *
-  * Sara Suliman is an instructor in medicine at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital at Harvard Medical School.
+  * [[:Sara Suliman]] is an instructor in medicine at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital at [[:Harvard Medical School]].
   *
-  * Bailey K. Fosdick is an assistant professor of statistics at Colorado State University.
+  * [[:Bailey K. Fosdick]] is an assistant professor of statistics at [[:Colorado State University]].
   *
-  * Sarah Cobey is an associate professor of ecology and evolution at the University of Chicago.
+  * [[:Sarah Cobey]] is an associate professor of ecology and evolution at the [[:University of Chicago]].
   *
-  * [[:Angela Rasmussen]] is an associate research scientist at Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health.
+  * [[:Angela Rasmussen]] is an associate research scientist at [[:Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health.
   *
-  * Saskia Popescu is a senior infection preventionist at Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security.
+  * [[:Saskia Popescu]] is a senior infection preventionist at [[:Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security]].
   *
-  * Muge Cevik is a clinical fellow at the school of medicine at the University of St Andrews.
+  * [[:Muge Cevik]] is a clinical fellow at the school of medicine at the University of St Andrews.
   *
-  * Sara Dada is a global health researcher at the Vayu Global Health Foundation.
+  * [[:Sara Dada]] is a global health researcher at the [[:Vayu Global Health Foundation]].
   *
-  * Helen Jenkins is an assistant professor of biostatistics at Boston University School of Public Health.
+  * Helen Jenkins is an assistant professor of [[:biostatistics]] at [[:Boston University]] School of Public Health.
   *
-  * Hannah Clapham is an assistant professor of epidemiology at the Saw Swee Hock School of Public Health at the National University of Singapore.
+  * [[:Hannah Clapham]] is an assistant professor of epidemiology at the Saw Swee Hock School of Public Health at the National [[:University of Singapore]].
   *
-  * Erin Mordecai is an assistant professor of biology at Stanford University.
+  * [[:Erin Mordecai]] is an assistant professor of biology at [[:Stanford University]].
   *
-  * Katie Hampson is a research fellow at the University of Glasgow.
+  * [[:Katie Hampson]] is a research fellow at the [[:University of Glasgow]].
   *
-  * Maimuna S. Majumder is a faculty member of the Computational Health Informatics Program at Boston Children’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School.
+  * [[:Maimuna S. Majumder]] is a faculty member of the [[:Computational Health Informatics]] Program at [[:Boston Children’s Hospital]] and [[:Harvard Medical School]].
   *
-  * Amy Wesolowski is an assistant professor of epidemiology at Johns Hopkins School of Public Health.
+  * [[:Amy Wesolowski]] is an assistant professor of epidemiology at [[:Johns Hopkins School of Public Health]].
   *
-  * Krutika Kuppalli is an Emerging Leader in Biosecurity Fellow at Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security.
+  * [[:Krutika Kuppalli]] is an Emerging Leader in Biosecurity Fellow at [[:Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security]].
   *
-  * Isabel Rodriguez Barraquer is an assistant professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco.
+  * [[:Isabel Rodriguez Barraquer]] is an assistant professor of medicine at the [[:University of California]], San Francisco.
   *
-  * Tara C. Smith is a professor of epidemiology at Kent State University College of Public Health.
+  * [[:Tara C. Smith]] is a professor of epidemiology at [[:Kent State University]] College of Public Health.
   *
-  * Emma B. Hodcroft is a postdoctoral researcher at the Biozentrum institute at the University of Basel.
+  * [[:Emma B. Hodcroft]] is a postdoctoral researcher at the Biozentrum institute at the [[:University of Basel]].
   *
-  * Rebecca C. Christofferson works in the department of pathobiological sciences at the School of Veterinary Medicine at Louisiana State University.
+  * [[:Rebecca C. Christofferson]] works in the department of pathobiological sciences at the School of Veterinary Medicine at Louisiana State University.
   *
-  * Jaline Gerardin is an assistant professor of preventive medicine at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine.
+  * [[:Jaline Gerardin]] is an assistant professor of preventive medicine at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine.
   *
-  * Rosalind Eggo is an assistant professor of epidemiology at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.
+  * [[:Rosalind Eggo]] is an assistant professor of epidemiology at the [[:London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicin]]e.
   *
-  * Lauren Cowley is a prize fellow of Bioinformatics at the University of Bath.
+  * [[:Lauren Cowley]] is a prize fellow of Bioinformatics at the [[:University of Bath]].
   *
-  * Lauren M. Childs is an assistant professor of mathematics at Virginia Tech.
+  * [[:Lauren M. Childs]] is an assistant professor of mathematics at [[:Virginia Tech]].
   *
-  * Lindsay T. Keegan is a research assistant professor of epidemiology at the University of Utah.
+  * [[:Lindsay T. Keegan]] is a research assistant professor of epidemiology at the [[:University of Utah]].
   *
-  * Virginia Pitzer is an associate professor of epidemiology at the Yale School of Public Health.
+  * [[:Virginia Pitzer]] is an associate professor of epidemiology at the [[:Yale School of Public Health]].
   *
-  * Catherine Oldenburg is an assistant professor of epidemiology at the University of California, San Francisco.
+  * [[:Catherine Oldenburg]] is an assistant professor of epidemiology at the [[:University of California]], San Francisco.
   * Roopa Dhatt is executive director and co-founder of Women in Global Health.
+==== Foreign Policy Smear Jeffrey Sachs ====
+September 15, 2022 An expert's point of view on a current event. {{ ::dr_angie_fp_lab_leak_smear_sachs_lancet_report.png?400|}}
+Conspiracy Theories About COVID-19 Help Nobody
+The continued pushing of a “lab-leak” theory is unsupported and dangerous.
+By [[:Angela Rasmussen]], a virologist at the [[:Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization]] (VIDO) at the University of Saskatchewan, and [[:Michael Worobey]], department head of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Arizona
+September 15, 2022
+In July 2020, the [[:Lancet]], one of the world’s premier medical journals, announced the creation of a COVID-19 “Commission” with the stated mission “to help speed up global, equitable, and lasting solutions to the pandemic.” Many of the commissioners are distinguished scientists, doctors, former politicians, or policy experts with a clear connection to the remit of a COVID-19 Commission. But the choice of chair was an unusual one. [[:Jeffrey Sachs]] is a Columbia University economist with no expertise in virology, evolution, epidemiology, or public health.
+Cooperation among experts in different fields is usually a positive and rewarding effort. But as a virologist specializing in host interactions with emerging viruses and an evolutionary biologist with expertise in viral pandemic origins, we find it troubling how easily Sachs has leveraged his academic celebrity to publish grave, unsubstantiated accusations under the guise of legitimate scholarship. {{ ::angie_rassmuss-_wench_quote_sachs_smear.png?600|}}
+Sachs has consistently pushed the idea that SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, was engineered in a laboratory. Michael Worobey, one of this article’s authors, has been one of the most vocal proponents of taking the idea of a lab leak seriously, proposing an influential letter published in Science that brought the hypothesis into the mainstream.
+It was a hypothesis worth considering, especially the version that posited a natural bat virus infecting an unsuspecting lab worker; the evidence now, however, overwhelmingly indicates the pandemic did not originate via any kind of laboratory incident.
+Sachs’s increasingly speculative musing about pandemic origins culminated in a recent interview with Current Affairs, in which he **directly dismissed the findings of our recent, peer-reviewed paper that established the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market as the epicenter of the pandemic,** with live animals being sold there the overwhelmingly likely conduit of the virus into humans. Instead of engaging with the evidence we used to reach this conclusion, Sachs claims that we are “creating a narrative” to avoid addressing his preferred hypothesis: The pandemic began as a result of a conspiracy between the National Institutes of Health (NIH), NIH-funded scientists, and the [[:Wuhan Institute of Virology]] (WIV).
+Sachs recently appeared on a podcast with **notorious anti-vaccine** advocate [[:Robert F. Kennedy Jr.]], where he elaborated on these claims. He believes that American and Chinese scientists collaboratively conducted so-called gain of function research—or experiments to make a pathogen more transmissible and/or pathogenic—and that this may have been part of “biodefense” research funded by the U.S. [[:National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases]] (NIAID), which does not include biodefense as its primary focus. Kennedy insinuates that this alleged work may have been a violation of the [[:1972 Biological Weapons Convention]] (BWC), a disarmament treaty that expressly forbids the development of such agents, to which Sachs replies “You can’t make this stuff up,” going on to say “a lot of this work is around the biodefense, highly classified environment and of course that means that the transparency, the understanding of what is going on here is so much less indeed than it otherwise might have been.”
+Such serious allegations should be backed up by substantive evidence. However, no such evidence is offered besides suspicions based on unfunded grant applications, speculation about [[:NIAID]] director [[:Anthony Fauci]]’s motives, and the notion that virologists are lying to protect their profession and research funds. To date, apart from these unfounded suspicions, the sole piece of evidence that supports a lab leak is the emergence of SARS-CoV-2 in Wuhan, China.
+By contrast, the evidence consistent with a zoonotic origin, meaning infections that spread between animals and humans, is overwhelming and has since rendered the likelihood of a “lab leak”—resulting from [[:bioweapons]] development or not—miniscule. Where a lab leak at the WIV might be expected to have led to the first COVID-19 cases being detected there, there were none. Instead, the majority of cases were at the largest live wildlife market in Wuhan, one of only a handful in the city with consistent sales.
+Where a lab leak might lead at most to an unprecedented single arrival of a new virus into humans, **instead we find a roughly 99 percent probability that SARS-CoV-2 spilled over at least twice, as with other animal spillovers**, with each early lineage geographically associated with Huanan. Lab leak conspiracy theorists point to a [[:WIV database]] that supposedly went offline in September 2019. **But the pandemic started in October 2019 at the earliest**. And so on.
+These interviews and appearances continue a dangerous record of meddling and conspiratorialism on his part as head of the [[:Lancet’s COVID-19 Commission]]. Although a COVID-19 “origins task force” initially included many scientists whose expertise and objectivity were praised by Sachs, it was eventually disbanded unilaterally by Sachs due to “potential conflicts of interest,” specifically connections of a minority of members to EcoHealth Alliance and WIV, two institutions accused of involvement in a “lab leak” origin of the pandemic. At the time, Sachs declared, “I just didn’t want a task force that was so clearly involved with one of the main issues of this whole search for the origins.”
+Despite having no scientific expertise on the matter, Sachs authored an opinion piece in the Proceedings of the [[:National Academy of Sciences]], making the unsupported claim that this **part of the viral genome, called the furin cleavage site, was “a deliberate introduction,**” citing an unfunded grant proposal from researchers at [[:EcoHealth Alliance]], the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and WIV, describing work that was likely never performed. **Furin cleavage sites have evolved naturally in multiple coronaviruses, including two that cause the common cold.**
+We authored a recent opinion piece explaining how we conclusively determined that the pandemic’s epicenter was the Huanan market to a general audience in plain language, including the observation that the sole piece of evidence linking the pandemic to the WIV is that it began in Wuhan. Sachs declares our viewpoint “a lie.”
+Our work comprises multiple streams of verifiable evidence that can only reasonably be explained by zoonotic emergence at the [[:Huanan]] market. Sachs denigrated and dismissed it all as a “sleight of hand” intended to draw the public’s gaze away from the WIV, presumably to provide cover for virology as a profession and avoid inconvenient questions about excluding an alternative hypothesis—a well-worn lab leak talking point. This is especially remarkable given Worobey’s advocacy for exploring alternate hypotheses. Sachs advances another standard lab leak talking point: that no one has really evaluated the lab leak hypothesis. But our work could as easily have shown that the preponderance of early cases linked to the Huanan market was a mirage, or that the outbreak had a single origin, or that early spread in Wuhan was around the WIV.
+Worobey was invited by Sachs in February, shortly after the preprint of our paper had posted, to appear as “one of a few outside experts” to speak about COVID-19 origins with the members of the [[:Lancet’s COVID-19 Commission]] who had survived his earlier purge of members skeptical of lab leak hypotheses. Although he was initially keen to participate, Worobey’s correspondence with Sachs raised multiple red flags, including pretty standard conspiracy-minded lines from Sachs like, “NIH, it seems to me, has been evasive from the start.” **Sachs had an appallingly weak grasp of the scientific work** he had invited Worobey to discuss—no questions or comments indicating a reasonable, nonexpert level of comprehension of the findings or even basic, nontechnical details of Sachs having read his paper.
+The other five experts included three people from other fields who had never published original, peer-reviewed research on any viral outbreak, let alone COVID-19. The remaining two included an expert on the antigenic evolution of [[:SARS-CoV-2]] with no previous track record of publishing on pandemic origins and a self-described “master virus hunter” who had done nothing to hunt down the origin of COVID-19 but had made specious claims about knowing about the outbreak before almost anyone else on the planet had.
+The great pandemics of history have not been caused by “lab leaks” or government cover-ups. **From the Black Death to the [[:1918 Spanish flu]] to [[:HIV]] to [[:COVID-19]], pandemics began by zoonotic spillover into the human population. We are no longer defenseless against these threats because virology research allows us to understand where these pathogens come from, how they spread and cause disease, and how to develop crucial countermeasures, such as vaccines.** Our ability to prepare and effectively respond depends on the collective knowledge gained through this research. Amateur efforts, especially when given cover by respectable institutions, are dangerous.
+Although biosafety and [[:biosecurity]] are of paramount importance, especially to virologists who actually handle these dangerous pathogens, they are irrelevant to the [[:zoonotic origin]] of SARS-CoV-2 and polarize an ongoing discussion that must occur in a multidisciplinary, bipartisan way. Fictional origin stories that politicize regulating essential research only serve to remove the science from a necessarily scientific discourse.
+The suspicion cast on virologists and epidemiologists is profoundly harmful. **Sowing distrust in evidence-based inquiries destroys opportunities for international collaborations that are essential to this work**. Biosecurity cooperation, once a relatively bright spot in U.S.-China relations, has been effectively destroyed. Pandemics by definition are global crises, and our ability to respond effectively requires global efforts, which should not be hindered by imaginary malfeasance.
+Those promoting conspiracy theories and attacking scientific findings that don’t break in the direction they wish, regardless of how well credentialed, inflict extraordinary damage on our ability to effectively advance global health. A factual understanding of the pandemic’s origin is essential to these efforts. ((https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/09/15/conspiracy-theories-covid-19-commission/))
+==== Challenging 'COVID Misinformation' "Dr" Angie vs Steve 'Ivermectin Works' Kirsch ====
+Full Twitter thread at Wayback ((https://web.archive.org/web/20221218144032/https://twitter.com/angie_rasmussen/status/1511331710859943936?s=20&t=QNr-UWiYe3A8hnmD7mQQlw))
+{{ ::angie_rasmussen_wench_w_steve_kirsch_tweets.png?600 |}}
 ===== Publications =====