Fauci's Worst Nightmare Just Appeared in Front of Congressional COVID Origin Committee
If Dr. Anthony Fauci thinks he will escape unscathed for his role in helping fund the coronavirus pandemic, he might be in for a rude awakening.
Explosive testimony from Dr. Robert Redfield, the former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, suggests Fauci’s worst nightmare is about to unfold.
The virologist testified on Wednesday before the House Oversight Committee’s select subcommittee investigating the origins of COVID-19.
In a stunning revelation, Redfield said Fauci — then the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases — and his boss, Dr. Francis Collins — then the head of the National Institutes of Health — excluded him from meetings investigating the origins of the coronavirus in order to push a single narrative.
That contrived narrative shut down any suggestion that the virus might have come from a lab leak at the Wuhan Institute of Technology in China.
During the hearing, Republican Rep. James Comer of Kentucky asked Redfield, “You have said before that you were locked out of conversations about the lab leak by Dr. Fauci and Dr. Collins. Do you think they kept you out of the conversations because you believe COVID-19 may have come from a lab?”
Redfield said yes, and underscored that creating narratives is categorically anti-scientific.
“I had a different point of view, and I was told they made a decision that they would keep this confidential until they came up with a single narrative, which I will argue is antithetical to science,” he said.
“Science never selects a single narrative. … We foster debate, and we are confident that with debate, science will eventually get to the truth. This was an a priori decision that, ‘There’s one point of view that we’re gonna put out there, and anyone who doesn’t agree with it is going to be sidelined.’
“I was ‘only’ the CDC director, and I was sidelined,” Redfield recounted.
Comer said he believes Fauci and Collins conspired to shut down any discussion about the lab leak theory in order to hide their involvement in funding deadly gain-of-function research that was being done at the Wuhan Institute.
“Well, I think Dr. Fauci and Dr. Collins got caught with their hand in the cookie jar,” the chairman of the House Oversight and Accountability Committee said. “They got caught supercharging viruses in an unsecure Chinese lab.
“They wanted to push the envelope, and so they got together to cover themselves, cover up their story and wipe their fingerprints of the virus that has killed more than 1 million Americans.”
Republican Rep. Nicole Malliotakis of New York also expressed outrage at the apparent coverup of the lab leak theory.
“For two years, myself and the other Republicans on this subcommittee connected the dots,” she said. “We exposed the evidence supporting our strong belief that COVID was developed and leaked from the Wuhan lab.
“And during those same two years, the same Democrats that sit on this committee, they only hindered, they obstructed, they refused to hold hearings and get to the truth. Now, we see mounting evidence supporting that COVID-19 originated from the lab in Wuhan, China, run by the Communist Chinese Party.”
Redfield said he had expressed concerns to Fauci back in January 2020 that the virus may have originated from the Wuhan Lab and urged him to investigate this hypothesis — only to be shut out of discussions on this topic.
Specifically, he said he was excluded from a February 2020 meeting of 11 scientists across five time zones examining the origins of the coronavirus.
“I was told later [about the call] … I didn’t know I was excluded,” Redfield testified.
“I didn’t know there was a Feb. 1 conference call until the Freedom of Information [Act request] came out with the emails. And I was quite upset — as the CDC director — that I was excluded from those discussions.”
Looking back over the past three years, it’s obvious the public was repeatedly lied to about the pandemic.
Numerous Americans, including Republican Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, believe Fauci should be held accountable.
In 2021, Paul pointed out that there is documented proof that the NIAID under Fauci gave hefty grants to the Wuhan Institute, which used the money to perform gain-of-function research into bat coronaviruses.
Gain-of-function research involves transforming pathogens into mutant “super-viruses” by making them deadlier and more contagious.
Paul has accused Fauci of lying when he denied that the NIAID funded labs that performed gain-of-function research, saying there’s a paper trail going back years showing that the agency did bankroll this dangerous research at Wuhan.
If it turns out that Fauci bears any responsibility for a pandemic that killed over 1 million Americans and led to shutdowns and restrictions that destroyed the U.S. economy and violated Americans’ civil liberties, he should be vigorously prosecuted.
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Dying from COVID-19 or Dying with COVID-19?
People are tested for COVID-19 when they are admitted to a hospital, which means that some hospitalized people with COVID-19 are hospitalized due to a condition other than COVID-19. When a positively tested patient dies, COVID-19 is likely to be listed as the cause of death. However, dying with COVID-19 and from COVID-19 are not the same thing. Experts indicate that this situation is causing the overcounting of COVID-19 deaths. TrialSite previously reported on the complex landscape of excess deaths during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Omicron, the most contagious COVID variant so far, is the leading variant around the world in 2023, which means it’s responsible for most positive COVID-19 test results in people who are admitted to hospital. However, the early strains of Omicron appeared to be less serious than previous variants, and it’s not clear to what extent COVID-19 is contributing to the person’s condition and to what extent it’s an incidental finding.
Testing the patients who are admitted to the hospital for COVID-19 is a common practice in some countries like the U.S. and UK. However, this creates the need to distinguish between the people who are hospitalized specifically for COVID-19 and those who are hospitalized for another condition and simply happen to also have COVID-19.
Many countries have started to track this difference. At the end of 2021, data from the UK showed that among more than 8,000 hospitalized people with COVID-19, 33% were hospitalized due to another reason. A similar pattern was also observed in South Africa, where 76% of the hospitalized people with COVID-19 had another illness that led to hospital admission. Denmark has been tracking the difference since 2021 and its 2022 data showed that at least 60% of the deaths occurred in patients with COVID-19 but not from COVID-19.
It is important to make this distinction because when people who are previously stable but have chronic conditions get COVID-19, this might trigger their illness and make their condition deteriorate.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) acknowledges that the majority of deaths that are related to COVID-19 are reported as being because of COVID-19. In 2022, deaths that reported COVID-19 as a contributing factor but not as the underlying cause increased. However, the U.S. was late in making the differentiation, as some hospitals only started to track whether a person died because of COVID-19 or with COVID-19 starting from January 2023.
Tracking Dexamethasone Usage
According to Shira I. Doron, Chief Infection Control Officer for Tufts Medicine, people who have died with COVID-19 should be checked for the use of the steroid dexamethasone, a treatment that is used for COVID-19 patients with low oxygen levels. If a patient was being treated with dexamethasone, this indicates that the patient was hospitalized due to COVID-19, otherwise, the patient with COVID-19 was hospitalized because of some other reason.
In Massachusetts, both hospitalization with COVID-19 and the use of dexamethasone is tracked. Recent data from the state shows that only 30% of hospitalizations with COVID-19 were due to the virus. New York is another state that differentiates between deaths from COVID-19 and deaths with COVID-19. Data from New York shows that 57% of patients were hospitalized for COVID-19 while 43% were hospitalized with COVID-19.
Contribution of COVID-19
According to the CDC, “When a condition is identified as a contributing cause of death, the cause of death certifier believed that the condition was significant enough to contribute to the fatal outcome and was not an incidental finding.” The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) also published a guide on how to certify deaths due to or related to COVID-19.
However, sometimes it is not clear whether the person is hospitalized or died with COVID-19 or for COVID-19. COVID-19 affects many different functions in the body, and these secondary effects of COVID-19 might also lead to hospitalization or death.
Dr. Ashish Jha, dean of the Brown University School of Public Health, gave an example of a kidney disease patient. Because of COVID-19-related fever, the patient experienced dehydration which led to kidney failure. He was then hospitalized due to kidney failure. Some physicians might argue that this patient is a COVID-19 patient. Others might claim that the main reason he was hospitalized was kidney disease. These kinds of cases make it difficult to determine the leading cause.
Previously, TrialSite reported that the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) paid 20% more to U.S. hospitals in return for each COVID-19 diagnosis and treating COVID-19 patients with one of the U.S. FDA-approved treatments for COVID-19.
Criticism
Experts are criticized for the claim that they are minimizing COVID-19. However, making the distinction has many benefits. According to Tammy Lundstrom, chief medical officer at Trinity Health, tracking down the two might help healthcare professionals prioritize treatments, and understand the severity of the illness. According to Dr. Doron, another benefit of tracking COVID-19 patients is to foresee the hospital's capacity. Additionally, it will help health agencies to better track the current COVID-19 pandemic in countries.
Bottom Line
At the start of the pandemic, the primary reason people were hospitalized or died was COVID-19. Three years on, that may no longer be the case, and the real reason people are there even though they have tested positive in hospitals might be something else. Making this distinction is important in terms of obtaining up-to-date COVID-19 statistics and accordingly making necessary arrangements in hospitals.
https://www.trialsitenews.com/a/dying-from-covid-19-or-dying-with-covid-19-23f9bc06
****************************************************Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH) Also here
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com (TONGUE-TIED)
https://immigwatch.blogspot.com (IMMIGRATION WATCH) Also here
https://awesternheart.blogspot.com (THE PSYCHOLOGIST)
http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs
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