The scientific process combined with free speech is a powerful weapon to improve knowledge and overturn authoritarian mistakes.

Five pieces in pretty quick order suggest there is a media sea change in their understanding of the quality of their reporting - "Fact-Checking" Takes Another Beating by Matt Taibbi,  The 60-Year-Old Scientific Screwup That Helped Covid Kill by Megan Molteni, Flip Flop Fauci and the Origin of Covid by el gato malo, People Bring the Receipts After Fauci Attempts to Dodge Connections to Wuhan Lab by Katie Pavlich, and Origin of Covid — Following the Clues Did people or nature open Pandora’s box at Wuhan? by Nicholas Wade.  All of them amount to indictment of the mainstream media, mostly by members of the mainstream media. It appears that there are too many facts emerging to warrant the continuation of a false media narrative - i.e. that there is a scientific consensus that Covid-19 emerged as a zoonotic from the wild and did not have a lab origin.  

Also here.

The Great Revealing continues to unfold.  

And part of what it reveals is what independent observers have said all along.  There are powerful elements in academia, the mainstream media, and the Deep State who have sought to suppress free speech and independent individuals in order to carry-out repressive state policies inconsistent with our Constitution as well as protect both corporate and international interests allied with academia, the mainstream media, and the Deep State.

There has been plenty to criticize about the CDC Covid-19 response, much of it related to the fact that the CDC turned its back on its own pre-established pandemic plans and sought to pursue actions long ago repudiated by deep data from around the world.

Among the failings has been 1) a failure to establish reliable and meaningful measures of infection and death at the beginning of the pandemic, 2) a failure to follow well established pandemic procedures, 3) a failure to develop Covid-19 treatments in addition to the focus on vaccination, and 4) a failure to acknowledge or investigate Covid-19 origins.

To me, the first three are among the most serious failings, warranting an entirely new leadership of the CDC.  But the fourth is not insignificant, owing to how it might inform the institutional responses to the first three.

Since the beginning, there has been doubt cast on the theory that Covid-19 was simply a zoonotic which jumped the species barrier in a Wuhan wet market.  That was the messaging from the Chinese Communist Party and it was strongly endorsed by academia, the mainstream media, and the Deep State in the US.  

Very early on there was indicative evidence which has become increasingly compelling that Covid-19 was man-made (more properly, man-refined) and escaped from the Wuhan Institute of Virology through lax security and safety protocols.

In the first seventeen months of the pandemic, technology social media platforms, academia, the mainstream media, and the Deep State have sought to suppress discussion of the evidence for a laboratory source of Covid-19.  Commenters, experts and academics were deplatformed, derided, shamed and otherwise had their speech suppressed with a full court press by an apparent coalition of authoritarians seeking to dispense with free citizens enjoying free speech.  The response by the State interests was both vitriolic and damaging to individuals.

But, fortunately, it was insufficient.  

Evidence kept mounting for a lab origin, China's ham-fisted efforts to prevent WHO from investigating and the simple courage of real scientists have slowly and slowly undermined the official position.

It is not known yet whether Covid-19 originated in the Wuhan Institute of Virology but it has certainly shifted from an impossibility to a possibility to a probability.  

In the process, other issues have been revealed which further shame academia, the mainstream media, and the Deep State.  The US has a ban on gain of function research on viruses as inherently unsafe.  However, there are military, health, and scientific grounds for continuing that research.  

It has now become clear that the National Institutes of Health, through the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases has contracted gain of function research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology which is illegal in the US.  Who heads the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases?  Anthony Fauci.

Who was one of the earliest proponents of a natural Covid-19 emergence rather than a lab escape?  Anthony Fauci.  Who has been the chief advisor to the presidents during the Covid-19 pandemic?  Anthony Fauci.

The potential conflict of interest is staggering.  The man who might have been responsible for the research and development of Covid-19 also in charge of the nation's response?  Why isn't this more of a media scandal?

Partly it is of course pure asymmetric politics on the part of the chattering Mandarin class of academia, the mainstream media, and the Deep State.  Partly it is that we do really simply not yet know.  But the desperate measures to forestall free speech and shutdown speculation argues some sort of self-interest that cannot be ignored.

There is a plausible explanation that let's Fauci at least partially off the hook.  Fauci's National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases pretty clearly has funded gain of function research overseas to get around American safety regulations.  But was Fauci aware?  The primary contract went to an outfit familiar to Fauci, EcoHealth Alliance.  A contract which ran from at least 2014-2019.  EcoHealth Alliance then subcontracted gain of function work to be done by a bat virologist at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, Dr. Shi.  

Was Fauci aware that his NIAID was funding gain of function virus research at Wuhan Institute of Virology?  Possibly not.  NIAID contracted with EcoHealth Alliance and EcoHealth Alliance contracted with Dr. Shi.  There is at least plausible deniability.

But again, actions by Fauci and others since the beginning of the pandemic give pause.  The denials were so vehement, they seemed out of proportion and it is only Congressional hearings which have forced the acknowledgement that NIH via NIAID was indeed providing the funds for virus gain of function research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

These past ten days seem to have seen a sea change.  Almost indicative of strategic communications decision.  No longer are the denials of funding so vocal or powerful.  The emphasis has shifted to definitions, complexity and nuance.  Almost always an indication that someone has been caught out in a lie.  

All of the above are indicators of bad culture, institutional corruption and startling Mandarin Class treachery.  They are not looking out for the best interests of the American people.  They are protecting their own interests and sinecures.

But there is one more element in this Great Revealing Story.

Early on, and ever since, I pointed out the poor institutional response in terms of establishing clear measurement mechanism, clear definitions, and a focus on all causes death data.  For long periods it has almost seemed like there has been a deliberate effort to focus on the wrong measures.

And some of this is simply that we never knew how poorly our established measurement practices were, particularly in regard to pneumonia and flu.  We were fairly lackadaisical about definitional differences between the two and across a nation of 330 million, that inexactitude carried over in the the pandemic era.  

It is greatly to be desired that after this is all over, and it will pass, we will refocus on how we measure and distinguish pneumonia deaths, from flu deaths, from Covid deaths and any other lung infections.  Science will get better.

The 60-Year-Old Scientific Screwup That Helped Covid Kill by Megan Moltini reveals another public health knowledge gap.  Read the whole article but it does come down to the fact that the medical and health establishment has accepted for decades some assumptions which were never properly investigated in the first place.  

Again, hopefully, this new knowledge will be investigated and validated post Covid-19 emergency because it is quite consequential.  If correct, it reveals once again that there is no validity to the claim to "follow the science."  Science is a process and a self-correcting one where there is freedom of speech.

Covid-19 has provided the impetus to investigate assumptions and our tradition of free speech has allowed us to recognize that the medical establishment has been operating with incorrect information for more than half a century with potentially catastrophic consequences.

If we can avoid ass-covering and the blame game, we can use the pandemic to significantly upgrade both our knowledge and our preparedness.