Guest essay by Eric Worrall
Apparently Smallpox, Polio, Malaria, Typhoid, Scarlet Fever and the Black Death were the feeble products of the pre-pandemic world, before global warming made things worse.
How Climate Change Is Ushering in a New Pandemic Era
A warming world is expanding the range of deadly diseases and risking an explosion of new zoonotic pathogens from the likes of bats, mosquitoes, and ticks
By JEFF GOODELL
DECEMBER 7, 2020 7:00AM ETJennifer Jones spent most of her summer at home, as so many of us did, trying to avoid the plague. Jones, 45, lives in Tavernier, a community in the Florida Keys just south of Key Largo, and passed a lot of time in her yard, puttering around with plants. At some point, a mosquito landed on her. That’s not unusual in Florida, and Jones doesn’t remember this mosquito bite in particular. But it was not a garden-variety backyard mosquito. It was Aedes aegypti, an exquisitely designed killing machine that is one of the most deadly animals in human history. By one count, half the people who have ever lived have been killed by mosquito-borne pathogens. Aedes aegypti, which first arrived in North America on slave ships in the 17th century, is capable of carrying a whole arsenal of dangerous diseases, from yellow fever to Zika.
…
The Covid-19 pandemic is often compared to the 1918 influenza, which killed at least 50 million people globally. But it is perhaps more accurately seen as a preview of what’s to come. “We have entered a pandemic era,” wrote Dr. Anthony Fauci of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases in a recent paper he co-authored with his NIAID colleague David Morens. The paper cites HIV/AIDS, which has so far killed at least 37 million, as well as “unprecedented pandemic explosions” of the past decade. It’s a deadly list, starting with the H1N1 “swine” influenza in 2009, chikungunya in 2014, and Zika in 2015. Ebola fever has burned in large parts of Africa for the past six years. In addition, there are seven different known coronaviruses that can infect humans. SARS-CoV spilled over from an animal host, likely a civet cat, in 2002–03, and caused a near-pandemic before disappearing. Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) coronavirus jumped from camels to people in 2012, but never found a way to spread efficiently among humans, and died out quickly. Now we have SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19.
The reasons for this new era of pandemics are complex, but as Fauci and Morens point out, one of the main drivers is the climate crisis, which is shaking up the natural world and rewriting disease algorithms on the planet. Thawing permafrost in the Arctic is releasing pathogens that haven’t seen daylight for tens of thousands of years. The Vibrio bacteria that causes cholera, a diarrheal disease that haunted big cities like London and New York in the 19th century and still kills tens of thousands each year, thrives in warmer water. An even more deadly strain of the same bacteria, Vibrio vulnificus, while rare, has been detected more and more frequently in bays and estuaries on the East Coast, particularly around Chesapeake Bay. Vibrio vulnificus, if you happen to eat shellfish, might give you a bad stomachache (in rare cases, it can be fatal). If the bacteria gets in a cut or wound, however, it becomes a flesh-eating horror and kills one in five people who come in contact with it.
…
Read more: https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/climate-change-risks-infectious-diseases-covid-19-ebola-dengue-1098923/
I really wish greens would stop pushing the falsehood that mosquitoes and mosquito borne diseases need a warm climate to thrive.
During the depths of the Little Ice Age, Malaria was an endemic killer in Northern Europe. It didn’t matter that far Northern Little Ice Age Summers were short, and that the climate was freezing cold most of the year. All the Malaria mosquitoes needed was a few weeks of adequately warm weather in Summer, to breed and infest the far North with deadly pathogens.
Mosquitoes are still a problem in the far North. Anyone who thinks mosquitoes are in short supply in the Arctic because of the cold climate should try visiting in late Spring / early Summer. Some of the prolific clouds of mosquitoes which thrive in cold climates are capable of carrying Malaria and other dangerous pathogens.
As for the impact of Global Warming on Covid-19, there is strong evidence Covid-19 prefers cold, dry winter weather. According to the University of Sydney, high humidity drags Covid-19 virions out of the air, dramatically reducing the risk of transmission.
… Professor Ward said there are biological reasons why humidity matters in transmission of airborne viruses.
“When the humidity is lower, the air is drier and it makes the aerosols smaller,” he said. “When you sneeze and cough those smaller infectious aerosols can stay suspended in the air for longer. That increases the exposure for other people. When the air is humid and the aerosols are larger and heavier, they fall and hit surfaces quicker.” …
Read more: https://www.sydney.edu.au/news-opinion/news/2020/06/02/winter-time-could-be-covid-19-time.html
If we want to get rid of Covid-19, and reduce our risk of exposure to all airborne respiratory virus infections, including viruses yet to be discovered. we need more hot, humid weather.
Bring on the global warming.
The headline reads, “Fauci: ‘We have entered the Pandemic Era’ because of Climate Change”
Propaganda on top of propaganda. (Research used for political reasons = propaganda.)
Fauci’s credibility was low before this, but now it has dropped into negative numbers.
Regards,
Bob
But, with Biden, Fauci Rules will rule.
Faici is a complete fraud. he may have done good work on HIV, but he has since sold out to Big Pharma and now spouting only lies.
He is lying. No one knows what a “pandemic era” is let alone can detect one. Just like the global warming tipping points, we would have had them already, if they existed, because the planet has been much warmer than now many times in the not too distant past, the last 10,000 years.
He is an evil man and also a cosmic joke as he has positioned himself to ruin the world with bad advice.
He didn’t do good work on HIV. He’s always been a fraud.
didn’t he just plagiarise the French researcher who really did the work and then try to publish first? Since US has more weight than France, they ended up having to “share” the recognition.
Faux-xi always was a cheat a liar and a fraud. Nothing new to see.
Welcome to the Pandemocene.
That’s correct. Fauci said that HIV was predominantly not a gay disease and that 30 million Americans would eventually be infected. He should have been fired decades ago.
They sure have the people pegged. Fools herding fools.
Politics 101….
If your planning for extreme events proves to be inadequate….blame climate change.
Or just skip the planning and blame climate change anyway
Fauci is NOT a fool. He is raking in the money and also power. Unfortunately, the President is a fool as he has been badly advised to listen to Fauci. He is evil.
You are right Charles, Follow the Money!
And who is printing the money ?
Read the paper – it doesnt at all say what this report claims.
https://www.cell.com/cell/pdf/S0092-8674(20)31012-6.pdf
If we’re going to hang Fauci let’s not fabricate false evidence
From the Rolling Stone article:
“The reasons for this era of pandemics are complex, but as Fauci and Morens point out, one of the main drivers is the climate crisis, which is shaking up the natural world and rewriting disease algorithms on the planet”
First time I read “Fauci and Morens”
I read it as “Fauci and Morons”
The rolling stone writer is making it up. Read the paper itself. Lots of info about pandemics through history but nowhere is climate change or climate crisis referenced. Not even in the paragraphs about environmental conditions. Always check the media, they are usually misinformed or lying. It is obvious the writer of this article hasn’t read the Morens-Fauci paper either.
I read the paper before commenting. Fauci uses the term, environment, numerous times. I assume Jeff Goodell made the leap to climate change.
But the point, have you contacted the writer or the Rolling Stone editor informing them the article incorrectly misrepresented the paper?
Most readers here know it happens all the time.
Yes, and that’s odd because the paper that this article refers to makes zero mention of “climate change” or “global warming”. You would think if that was something the authors believed influenced pandemics they would have mentioned it in the published paper. It’s almost as though the Rolling Stone author got this quote out of Fauci to push his agenda, not Fauci’s.
There is no quote from Fauci other than “We have entered a pandemic era”. Mr. Worrall’s headline is meant to confuse.
Googling “Fauci” and “climate change” yields hundreds of links to people trying to smuggle Fauci’s name into their own agendas. But probably because of the browser’s patronization of the breathless AGW-ers, it is difficult to find anything Fauci himself has said about climate change. Maybe he’s said something. Maybe he hasn’t. But it sure as heck is NOT in the article linked by the writers at Rolling Stone. Nor does Mr. Worrall make that clear. Fauci is certainly an icon for a lot of people on the left. But for that we’re supposed to hate him?
Yes, maybe a better title would be “We have entered the pandemic era because of modernity.”
Yes, because of global air travel.
If you had to trek thousands of miles on foot to get some where else, you’d either be dead from the virus you were carrying, or it would have run its course before you got anywhere.
Yes, that is it exactly….guess Fauci never even considered the Wright brothers’ invention when factoring reasons why diseases move around the planet so quickly. Such a simple explanation that doesn’t require a bunch of exotic reasons.
mr. moffat: A very quick read indicates to me that it is not in this article. Another commenter (luv u guys) found it in another article. The post doesn’t say it’s in this paper. A classic and highly unethical maneuver, don’t put in the peer-reviewed work, just tell the reporter and the story will have a climate-change flavor without exposing the authors to scientific rigor that might be applied to their work.
This reminds me of the whole Katrina meme, “we can see climate change here and now”. Gore et al made the mistake of pressing the IPCC to say so. Ultimately the IPCC debunked it based in part on the models, we had only warmed .1 C (or whatever) in the models (observations showed a pause, dammit!), not enough to affect hurricanes. The debunking was duly ignored, and warmistas and their press acolytes continue to this day with this nonsense, undeterred by the IPCC.
So, no surprise that Fauci follows the meme rather than the science. Even in the models, we have not warmed enough to make pandemics worse. Fauci could find that out if he chose to, but he chooses- not. Maybe he’s a good doctor, but he’s a lousy activist. I wouldn’t take his advice on how to wipe a bottom.
You’re absolutely right. I searched the paper for “climate”. There’s just one occurrence in this sentence:
“Some of these features(e.g., ease of detecting disease and immunity, seasonality in tropical versus temperate climates) are subjective and situationally variable; see text andreferences for the individual diseases.”
No mention of climate change.
The word “global” occurs frequently, but with no connection to global warming.
So, if Fauci believes pandemics are or will get worse due to climate change, it’s remarkable that there’s no mention of it in this paper.
It’s worth looking at the quoted article, which is quite long. It quotes Fauci several times, but in no quotation does he mention climate change. In one quote he does mention human changes to the environment, which is obviously correct. Environmental factors e.g. large bodies of still water are important. But I repeat: in no actual quotation does Fauci mention climate change. The writer of the article simply made it.
The article does include quite a lot of climate change nonsense unrelated to Fauci. One example: a scientist claims that people – particularly poor people – will suffer more from viruses due to hunger caused by climate change. Of course, that’s a complete lie. Globally, the world is producing more food per head of population than ever before. Farm productivity has been increasing for many decades. A recent large NASA study showed that the planet is dramatically greening and the main driver of this is increased CO2.
In a nutshell, the article is full of climate change propaganda based on lies and exaggeration.
After a bit of googling I haven’t found an actual quote in which Fauci claims any link with climate change. Can anyone find such a quote?
Chris Wright
I agree with you, Bob, and see this essay he co-authored as another example of how far from the Infectious Disease field he has wandered into the Politicized Medicine for Fun and Profit field. I do not trust him at all.
I second that thought, Bob. Fauci is one of the worst charlatans around.
Best wishes to you.
Gee, who’d a thought Fauci was a hack?
Dr. Grouchy should have been fired decades ago. He gives wrong advice, pretends to be an expert on a new pandemic still in progress, and then reverses hs own advice. Typical goobermint bureaucrat.
Fauci said nothing about “climate crisis”, climate change, or any kind of warming in the article. The Fake News Rolling Stone made that up.
I am not a Fauci’s fan, but (Morens, Fauci, Sep-2020) is a sound scientific paper, well worth reading.
This is how the Fake News & Big Tech, supporting it, sow division & conflict.
The single worst mistake Trump made, listening to this Democrat.
Erm, 1348 Black Death et al dates as well as say 1665 The Plague et al dates were during the Little Ice Age. The problem with lefty idiots is that they didn’t pay attention in school. Their attention span is about five minutes. They never ‘read around the subject’. They die alone and ignorant.
The conspiracy of ignorance masquerades as common sense.
Agree.
The biggest pandemic the world is facing is the pandemic of outright ignorance of the science governing climate change and what humans could possibly do to modify such if they wanted to.
The biggest pandemic the world is facing is the pandemic of outright ignorance
You could have stopped there.
Example of a lefty teacher: https://rumble.com/embed/v918r5/?pub=4
So people are just able to make completely unfounded claims in papers and just get them published? What’s an example of “the natural order being upset” where we got a recent disease?
In the new web page journalism, you get paid per megabyte of text…it doesn’t have to be right, or researched….your track record of attracting “clicks” is all that counts… and ensures the sale of your next journalistic effort. Climate change and environmental degradation articles are especially good “end of times” keyboard fodder that you don’t even need to get out of bed to write. You can even put a “donate” button on your own website and people will send you money, especially if you have a “.org” domain, and a couple of pictures of beach litter.
This is a blatant lie. Climate change is supposedly seen for decades, right? Yet the last worldwide pandemic was in 1910. Now it’s 2020 and we have another pandemic – a couple of years ago the “experts” were saying that “we are overdue for another pandemic”. And now suddenly it’s because of Climate Change!!!
Also notice how many of those viruses and pandemics come from China. And notice how Wuhan had a level-3 bio laboratory cleared to work with military grade pathogens.
Gain of function research became prohibited in the U.S. and with Fauci’s help was exported to be carried on in China, with U.S. funding.
The CCP has infiltrated U.S. government and has corrupted officials and the media. It’s been reported that China has a majority ownership in Dominion Voting Systems. The potential ramifications are frightening.
The research was actually passed onto China’s Wuhan Virology laboratory as the director ‘Bat Lady’ had been doing the SARS-CoV gain of function research with the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill. She took their expertise back with her to Wuhan.
Well, those are the people who think there are too many of us on the planet, so I believe it’s not as frightening for *them*.
And yes, gain of function research…
https://www.nature.com/news/engineered-bat-virus-stirs-debate-over-risky-research-%201.18787
“An experiment that created a hybrid version of a bat coronavirus — one related to the virus that causes SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) — has triggered renewed debate over whether engineering lab variants of viruses with possible pandemic potential is worth the risks.”
Article from 2015. And it seems the same guys who worked on the gain of function research this year in Wuhan, were also appointed to… find the origin of coronavirus by WHO. Who watches the watchers?
when i put my mind to it, i can be quite eloquent and, if necessary, verbose.
in this instance, i am drawn to the Infantry side of my vocabulary, but, given these august scenes, i’ll simply say … ESAD you raving loon.
you were wrong on AIDS.
you were wrong on H1N1 (swine flu)
and you’ve been wrong on the ChiCom Crud from day one.
plus you lied to the American public, then admitted to it.
yeah, FOAD, dirtbag.
no love,
me
Now, now. Unleashing military acronyms on the unsuspecting is to be avoided. Didn’t they teach you that during the transition back to civilian life? Tell us how you really feel. 😂🤣
A true infantryman wouldn’t use an acronym…
redc1c4c sez:
“yeah, FOAD, dirtbag”
Please try to be more polite so this blog keeps the respect it has earned
over the past decade, and honor your military experience. Next time please write: “FOAD, Mister Dirtbag, Sir”
So winter weather is COVID risk-free ? And summer is deadly. Funny, quite the opposite of reality. Once again.
Faux FauXi witch-doctor and hyperbolic hysterical PLANdemic.
~90 y.o. Placido Domingo recovered from CoViD-19 in March 2020
Rolling Stone as a source ?
Is this the article referred from Aug 2020 in Cell, Volume 183, Issue 4, 12 November 2020, Pages 839-840
Emerging Pandemic Diseases: How We Got to COVID-19
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0092867420310126
And that is a very thorough overview of pandemics, and virology.
Good article but is alarmist and surprisingly has no mention of PCR, cycle threshold, testing frequency or any attempt to normalize “cases” for testing.
Like a rolling stone
A like a rolling stone
Like the FBI and the CIA
And the BBC, BB King
And Doris Day
Matt Busby
Dig it, dig it, dig it
Dig it, dig it, dig it, dig it, dig it, dig it, dig it, dig it
Congratulations on winning the prize for most stupid article of the week on WUWT!
Aedes Egypti and Anopheles species (i.e. the ones that carry the nasty stuff) have strict ranges of habitat according to (warm) temperature. As the world heats up, these ranges will increase (indeed they have already increased)- so the good Dr is correct in broad brush terms. The mosquitos that live in Sweden are a completely different species and don’t carry things like malaria, chikungunya, Japanese Encephalitis, yellow fever etc.
There is now one spill over event every year on average- mostly caused by deforestation, humans wandering into habitats where they shouldn’t, and the bloody Chinese eating all sorts of dodgy shite in their wet markets.
And yes a warming planet will lead to the increased spread of arboviruses.
Hi Steve45, You clearly are misinformed. You need to educate yourself. One of the worst outbreaks of malaria was in the early C20th in Siberia, Russia.
The link below will allow you to read what an expert says on malarial prevalence and its relation to climate. Its certainly not what you seem to think.
https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld200506/ldselect/ldeconaf/12/12we21.htm
Breathe Steve…just breathe
Here is an example of Malaria
https://www.intechopen.com/books/towards-malaria-elimination-a-leap-forward/malaria-eradication-in-the-european-world-historical-perspective-and-imminent-threats
Once it was as far North as Sweden.
Not anymore!
Gee I provided a link Malaria in Northern Europe. Please read it.
Steve45,
For an official view on Climate Change and Malaria, read “ Climate Change and Malaria: A Complex Relationship,” by S.D. Fernando, United Nations, UN Chronicle at-
http://www.un.org/en/chronicle/article/climate-change-and-malaria-complex-relationship
“…Historically, malaria was endemic in Europe, including Scandinavia but was eliminated in 1975- despite the increase in global temperature-due to better socio economic conditions, improved irrigation and drainage,adoption of new farming methods,behavioural changes and access to better health care.”
It looks clear that malaria does not need heat and humidity alone to flourish.
Others have commented on malaria outbreaks in Russia etc.
Has Fauci the witch doctor ever studied the history of pandemics over the millennia?
And yet here is a rare disease in Winterpeg
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/trench-fever-rare-disease-winnipeg-homeless-1.5830902
It seems to do just fine in the cold as long as a lack of hygene permits it. Note in the article the references to testing and estimates of prevalence in Seattle and San Francisco. Past victories of Public Health that were achieved by public sanitation are being destroyed by neglect while while idiots like this promote various hobbyhorses.
One curio of this pandemic is how few knew someone who died of Covid-1984
Where were all the extra hearses?
I once worked at a place called Mortlake, in what is now South West London, where the boat race ends. The name should be a clue; it was a mass burial pit for the victims of bubonic plague in the 15th century.
Less than 1% in the UK have died of SARS-CoV-2 A sense of proportion is required. You won’t get it from the like of Fauci et al.
I really wish greens would stop pushing the falsehood that mosquitoes and mosquito borne diseases need a warm climate to thrive.”
I guess the early colonists as well as the workers on the Erie and Rideau canals REALLY did die of “bad air” rather than mosquito borne diseases.
Who knew???
We have entered the Pandemic Era (if such a thing exists) because of cheap air travel.
Phew, so cruise liners etc are off the hook.
A long haul plane will fly 350 people across the world, and do it again tomorrow. A cruise liner will take 2,000 people and shuttle them around the Mediterranean, up and down an America coast etc.
I’m of a different mind about this. I think the increased travel reduces the risk of serious pandemic because everyone is exposed to more things more frequently, which builds a broader, stronger base of immunity that can quickly squelch new things.
Oh yeah… My department, but wait… How come air crews were NOT amongst the first to be infected and decimated ? We don’t all fly only inbound overseas import cargo after all.
Covid sick leaves numbers of our industry are actually dramatically low.
What’s sure is that aircrews are made of women and men with nerves of steel, trained to ignore panic, analyze information and our Bravo-Sierra detection radars are finely tuned.
and you all have to be in very good states of health all the time.
That help imho
And we have to be in close contact with about anything you can imagine.
Traditionally there’s no segregation nor social distance. Cabin and flight deck crew travel in the same bus, stay in the same hotel, have meals together and at the end, lock themselves for long hours in a confined space shared by a few hundreds of other perfectly unknown individuals. Day after day.
So we are either somehow immune to panic or super-persons with unknown to the rest of mankind powers. Maybe both?
Cabin crew are all fairly young, that makes a huge difference.
Still dreaming of Pan Am glamour back-seam tales? Confidence, often times you’re not alone. However…
Reality check, flight attendants are very important & respected crew members, seniority matters in their career and we don’t recycle them past the age of 25.
Your post is rendered irrelevant by the opening sneer. I never believe anything from people who sneer, they are generally idiots. From observation, by far the majority of cabin crew are under 40.
Your problem Harry, deal with it. I’m good with the real seniority pyramid of our industry and wisdom of the time proven humor that comes with.
People who live or work in close proximity to others probably are building immunity. Which in part explains the lighter (known) case numbers and case fatality rates experienced by the East Asians. From recent WSJ articles…
From Fauci’s linked article:
If Trump prevails I suspect the sainted Dr. Fauci will be done and we won’t have to listen to his preaching from a position of authority again.
He can’t be fired, however, our favorite epidemiologist got the flu according to him. How does a renowned Dr known for proclamations like Masks don’t work to yeah I had to lie they do work get the flu?
Indeed. As a career civil servant (IE swamp creature), Trump can’t directly fire him. He can sideline him, as he has done to a degree already, but he can’t fire him.
“The reasons for this new era of pandemics are complex, but as Fauci and Morens point out, one of the main drivers is the climate crisis, which is shaking up the natural world and rewriting disease algorithms on the planet.”
Somehow, I doubt that Fauci actually said that. Warmunists do tend to take liberties, don’t they. In any case, it is, as someone pointed out, lies on top of the Big Lie. They like to build their lies like an onion. Peel back one lie, and there’s another beneath it.
Sometimes when the news is slow, you don’t think leftists won’t link Phenomenon X to Climate Change.
But then they do.
Andrew
“We have entered a Psychotic Era” because of Climate Clowns.
Fauci is one of them.
A woman in the Florida Keys gets bit by a mosquito so … Climate Change ©???
That has to be lamest hook for a story I can remember. Dog bites man so … Climate Change ©.
SE Wisconsin during a wet spring/summer, OMG the skeeters! EEEK! They swarm the legs and bite fast.
Two words for Fauci: Mandatory Retirement.
Doctor F has taken us from the Anthropocene to the Pandemicene.
… and with the MSM, we’ve been in the Fauxene for quite a few years.
It is a shame that great scholars in their field make fools of themselves with green political activism.
“great scholars in their field”
lol
Andrew
And with that pronouncement I’m going to have to put Dr. Anthony Fauci in the same category as: Al Gore, Michael Mann, Phil Jones, and a few others; a category of people whose words I don’t accept on “face value.”
And so it begins…..
Now anyone can be a climate scientist.
The left will now use any influenzas as a means of control.
Fauci, you already got the job. No need to keep sucking up.
Claims so big, so fast, so[sp]urious we can’t keep up. Hey, it works for them.
The article from Rolling Stone magazine comes to show that magazines like that aren’t always to be believed at, certainly not when it comes to climate change. It is true that new and exotic viruses have been introduced into humans because of the ever-increasing encroachment into nature – whether by means of development, the wildlife trade, poaching, or the like – and it is true that pandemics have increased from that sort of source. And this is yet another nasty side effect of the destructive humans-with-nature interaction, alongside diminishing biodiversity and endangered species and lost ecosystem services (e.g. pollination). But to tie all of this with climate change is just disingenuous and takes away from the main reasons for the rise of these new infectious diseases. For example, how could it be that such viral diseases did not appear during the Medieval Warm Period but do appear now – it’s not because of changes in global climate, but rather due to the ever-changing human-natural interface.
Another point that that article is missing is that throughout human history it’s always been an era of epidemics/pandemics – and right up until pretty recently, medicine was unable to do much of anything about those diseases, but now it can. Just in the early/mid 20th century, infectious diseases which are now preventable and/or treatable, like polio, diphtheria, scarlet fever, and typhus, were quite common, led to death or permanent disability, and scared the living daylights out of people. Besides which, while many new, exotic viral diseases have shown up in the past 50 or so years, only two of them – AIDS and COVID-19 – have become major global pandemics, and only of them (COVID-19) has massively disrupted social life, travel, entertainment, etc. all around the world.
I fully support Dr. Fauci and his sensible advice, such as wearing masks and keeping a physical social distance of 6 ft/2 m, though he falls short when describing this time around and onwards as an “era of pandemics”.
From the above excerpts of the Jeff Goodell article in Rolling Stone magazine (not my “go to” rag for medically-accurate information): the paper co-authored by Dr. Anthony Fauci “cites HIV/AIDS, which has so far killed at least 37 million, as well as “unprecedented pandemic explosions” of the past decade.”
Well, as the article itself notes, we can compare that statement to the WWI-era epidemic which killed at least 50 million people worldwide and which in the SINGLE month of October, 1918 killed about 195,000 people in just the US. — source: https://www.history.com/news/spanish-flu-deaths-october-1918#:~:text=After%20taking%20the%20lives%20of,11%20announcement%20of%20the%20armistice.
We have never since experienced such a high mortality rate from any pandemic or epidemic virus of any type. So, ” ‘unprecedented pandemic explosions’ of the last decade”? . . . I think not.
Also,
“The 1918 influenza pandemic was the most severe pandemic in recent history. It was caused by an H1N1 virus with genes of avian origin. Although there is not universal consensus regarding where the virus originated, it spread worldwide during 1918-1919. . . . “It is estimated that about 500 million people or one-third of the world’s population became infected with this virus. The number of deaths was estimated to be at least 50 million worldwide with about 675,000 occurring in the United States. Mortality was high in people younger than 5 years old, 20-40 years old, and 65 years and older. The high mortality in healthy people, including those in the 20-40 year age group, was a unique feature of this pandemic.” —source: https://www.cdc.gov/flu/pandemic-resources/1918-commemoration/1918-pandemic-history.htm
In comparison, the current COVID-19-attributed worldwide death toll stands at “only” 1.55 million and the current COVID-19-attributed United States death toll stands at “only” about 285 thousand.
Naturally, Dr. Fauci strokes his own ego by claiming that what he is having to deal with (the COVID-19 pandemic) is UNPRECEDENTED. It clearly is not, even according to the CDC website.
If anybody needed more proof that Fauci is a crackpot, this should put it to rest. The guy has jumped the shark.
Lolololololol Who believes the utter nonsense DemoRat fauci speaks, after all he loves hilary Clinton, and is really good friends with pedophile Bill gates…
Bill gates was on Epsteins plane a number of times and over 60+ thousand indecent images of children were found on a computer at his personal home…
I don’t see that this article says precisely what the author claims, but it seem apparent from my reading of several of his reviews over the past couple of decades, that Fauci organizes these essays according to certain biases — bug biases. One of his biases is a tendency toward “worst-case” hysteria. And he is prone to generalizations that appear not proven, and perhaps even contrary to what he has written elsewhere. For instance, in this paper
No. While some pathologic patterns might be unusual, the clinical and epidemiological patterns seem very much like he and this same co-author described for the 1918 epidemic in a review of some 15 years ago. The claim here is slightly exaggerated, perhaps for effect. Fauci in several reviews, and by how he has behaved in this pandemic, seems guided often by a morbid vision of huge fractions of populations ill at one time, overwhelming services. And his thesis is that things are getting worse because of our increasing population, density, and behavior. Yet, has there been a better period in which to live? Until the Faucis get into the act of command from on high, we have increasing wealth, greater longevity at better health. In fact, our wealth and prior advances in life expectancy do make us susceptible to things like COVID-19, but we should give up these gains?
While I can’t see that Fauci blames climate change for much of anything directly, he does so indirectly, and he makes rather extreme claims. Here is one nearing the conclusion of the article.
We need to redesign the world, and change human behavior to stop the spread of potential future pandemics — which he claims with the usual hedge words (may, might, could…) are increasing; but his prescriptions seem to make the problem, encroachment on nature, worse rather than better. In fact, his prescriptions are vague, and inconsistent, as he seems to be trying a shot at immunizing himself from being proved wrong in any way. There is a bit of megalomania in the man.
The worst thing about this is he admits, sort of, to all of us being in a constant battle over survival of the fittest, but that we are at a disadvantage with regard to pathogens, especially single stranded RNA viruses which mutate early and often. Good luck using his vague guidance.
So, if “overcrowding in dwellings ” is a bad thing, lockdowns were the worst thing one could have done, especially to ethnic communities who tend to have multi-generational households.
Therefore, those who demand lockdowns are racists.
Fauci’s magic mask is special, because it doubles as a chin-guard.
Look at his picture…mask down and laughing at this very serious matter….Fauci will be 80 in a few weeks….even older than his new benefactor – Joey the Clown Biden.
Not to worry, Biden’s pick of Xaviera Becerra as his administration’s Secretary of Health and Human Services will step in to save the day. 😉
I mean, just look a Becerra’s extensive, relevant experience gained earning a degree in Law and then serving as a lawyer at a legal assistance corporation, than as an administrative assistant for a state senator, then as a deputy attorney general in the California DoJ, then serving one term in the California State Assembly, then serving as US House of Representative member from California for 24 undistinguished years, finally becoming California’s 33rd Attorney General in 2017.
Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xavier_Becerra ) cites Becerra’s voting record but does not list ANY legislation that he authored or co-authored during his jobs in the California Assembly and the US House . . . and that includes legislation specific to health care and human services.
However, the aforementioned Wikipedia article does have this to say about his recent performance as California Attorney General:
“In December 2020, Becerra was faulted by state district attorneys for not taking leadership to help stop what was described as the biggest taxpayer fraud in California’s history. Investigators said federal pandemic unemployment benefits worth $400 million to possibly over $1 billion were fraudulently obtained in the names of ineligible prisoners by criminal associates. The vast majority of this money will likely never be recovered, prosecutors said.”
Right man for the job? . . . clearly doesn’t seem so to me.
But he is Hispanic, so Biden and Harris can tick off one of their many campaign pledges.
Most of the comments so far seem to be from people who haven’t bothered reading Fauci’s paper. If they had they would know that there is no mention of climate, never mind “climate crisis” It is a detailed and informative article on pandemics. His conclusions as to causes of the problems lead with:
“Living in greater harmony with nature will require changes in human behavior as well as other radical changes that may take decades to achieve: rebuilding the infrastructures of human existence, from cities to homes to workplaces, to water and sewer systems, to recreational and gatherings venues. In such a transformation we will need to prioritize changes in those human behaviors that constitute risks for the emergence of infectious diseases. Chief among them are reducing crowding at home, work, and in public places as well as minimizing environmental perturbations such as deforestation, intense urbanization, and intensive animal farming. Equally important are ending global poverty, improving sanitation and hygiene, and reducing unsafe exposure to animals, so that humans and potential human pathogens have limited opportunities for contact.”
No doubt by now the commentators above will have spread the fake news around – but maybe they could at least apologise?
“The reasons for this new era of pandemics are complex, but as Fauci and Morens point out, one of the main drivers is the climate crisis”
https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/climate-change-risks-infectious-diseases-covid-19-ebola-dengue-1098923/
Bill, are you stating that rollingstone.com is wrong about what Fauci and Morens wrote?
Andrew
So Fauci and co-author Morens call for “rebuilding the infrastructures of human existence”?
What the frack? Now there’s are couple of $quadrillions to be spent over a couple of centuries.
In reality, as good ol’ Bill Shakespeare once penned, “it is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”
BTW, Bill Ockham, you first post: “. . . they would know that there is no mention of climate, never mind “climate crisis”. But then you go on to quote a paragraph from the Fauci & Morens paper’s conclusion that includes this wording: ” . . . we will need to prioritize changes . . . Chief among them are . . . minimizing environmental perturbations . . .”
It’s a pity that you cannot see the equivalence of “minimizing environmental perturbations” with controlling climate change.
Gordon, it’s a pity you can’t see what Fauci plainly wrote. The phrase “minimizing environmental perturbations” continues “such as deforestation, intense urbanization, and intensive animal farming”. It takes considerable intellectual ingenuity to translate this into “controlling climate change”.
Hmmm . . . I never knew that the phrase “such as” was to be interpreted as being all inclusive.
Thanks, Bill, for the lesson in translating “modern English”.
Indeed, I’m now more pitiful than I was before.
I know very little about Fauci as I am safely away from him in the UK. Judging by the vituperation on this list he’s obviously a very naught boy, so there must be plenty of overt climate alarmist claims by him on record without the need to interpret phrases in the paper as climate hysteria.
He lists some of his “environmental perturbations” but doesn’t include climate change. As the latter seems to be almost obligatory if you want to get a paper published these days, I wonder why he doesn’t?
If you ever needed proof that Fauci is a fraud now you have it.
PCR > 35 = BS
Mosquitoes have been unofficially considered the Alaska State Bird for decades. Nothing new here.
When Fauci retires in ’21 to the Wuhan Institute of Virology, that he helped create and fund with US Treasury money (funneled through his money laundering operations at NIAID-NIH (and cohort universities in the US), everyone will understand the “how – when – where and why” he won the Bullshit award for 2020.
Ha ha!
Here’s another one:
“This ominous forecast comes from a paper that Fauci and another medical expert published in the scientific journal Cell, with the scientists attributing their grim outlook on pandemics to one factor in particular: Climate change.”
https://bestlifeonline.com/climate-change-pandemics/
Andrew
Could you tell me where in Fauci’s article he attributes “pandemics to one factor in particular: Climate change”? He does list several factors “in particular” which contribute to pandemics but climate change isn’t one of them. Unless you think that factors like bad sanitation, deforestation and intensive animal farming are somehow the result of climate change.
Bill,
That’s a question for the author of the story I linked. Do you get that?
Andrew
So now Fauci thinks he’s the Pope.
A strange comment when the world’s population is increasing at a million a week with the fastest growth in the far hotter 3rd world countries. Moreover we are living longer and have healthier lives. The average age of death for covid was 81 years the same as the average life span. No one was dying who shouldn’t have been dying . The majority of deaths were from sick people with 2-3 other serious diseases.
of more concern – “The World Food Program is now predicting 270 Million people to face starvation in 2021 due to supply chain disruption”
of more concern – “The World Food Program is now predicting 270 Million people to face starvation in 2021 due to supply chain disruption”
And there will be worldwide famine – by the 1970s/80s – due to overpopulation. (According to the “Population Bomb” by Paul & Anne Ehrlich. Ehrlich forecasted that 65 million Americans would die of starvation between 1980 and 1989, and by 1999 the U.S. population would have declined to 22.6 million and that England will not exist in the year 2000.
And lack of vital resource, according to , ” The Doomsday Book” by Gordon Taylor “by 2000 they [Americans] will, if permitted, be using all of them [the world’s resources].” leaving none for the rest of the world.
In 1975, the Environmental Fund took out full-page ads warning, “The World as we know it will likely be ruined by the year 2000.”
Harvard University biologist George Wald in 1970 warned, “… civilization will end within 15 or 30 years unless immediate action is taken against problems facing mankind .”
History is full of doom-sayers and their failed predictions of overpopulation, starvation, resource scarcity, etc. Why should we believe “The World Food Program” is capable of making any better predictions than all those previous failed doom-sayers (many of whom have impressive degrees from prestigious universities) did?
Bearing in mind the feeling (in some quarters) that the US has been taken over (bought out) by (US) supporters of the CCP I was interested to see what some people think of patriotism nowadays when this quote came up, quite unsolicited:
The problem there is, which country is she talking about?
NO. We can be patriotic for supporting the principles of our country (if noble and good) but not for any and all actions that a politician might take.
Well, let’s see. for the past 4 years Kamala and her fellow Dems have most definitely not been condoning the conduct of the county (under the leadership of DJT) and fought against the ideals of the constitution (as seen in their vehement rejection of constitutionalist judges, as seen in their rejection of the ideals of innocent until proven guilty, as seen in their shame impeachment where they tossed due process out the window, etc) every chance they got. Guess that proves it, by her own definition, Kamala and the Dems are *not* patriots 😀
USA Today playing both sides:
A: “COVID-19 may only be the beginning of global pandemics – a future scenario in which climate change may also play a role.”
B: “As for whether climate change could exacerbate future pandemics, Morens told USA TODAY it is too early to draw definitive conclusions.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2020/09/10/climate-change-covid-19-does-global-warming-fuel-pandemics/5749582002/
Andrew
MSN:
“This ominous forecast comes from a paper that Fauci and another medical expert published in the scientific journal Cell, with the scientists attributing their grim outlook on pandemics to one factor in particular: Climate change.”
https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/medical/dr-fauci-says-to-prepare-for-an-acceleration-of-pandemics/ar-BB18Uw6C
Andrew
No good crisis is now allowed to fade away without first being firmly attached to and caused by ‘Climate Change / Global Warming’. Fauci is a fraud and a danger to Public Health.
Climate change???!! Thats a new one. Many people will be fooled by such rhetoric, but there still some clear minded people who know the virus was man made and deliberately unleashed on the world.
As old P T Barnunn said, You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all of the time, but you can’t fool all the people all the time.
More people have been killed by fraud…
Perhaps Fauci has some inside information that the Chicoms are about to unleash another virus.
Fauci successfully got the FDA to effectively ban HCQ which has prevented use of the Zelenko protocol which has demonstrated 80% reduction in bad outcomes from covid. This has shortened the lives of many people and paves the way for big bucks to be made on the vaccines.
Eric,
I have read the paper by Morens and Fauci (2020),”Emerging Pandemic diseases:How we got to CoVid-19.”
Morens and Fauci have been ‘verballed’ by Rolling Stone.
They did not say the passage you have highlighted in red “. ….one of the main drivers is the climate crisis etc.”
What they did say is set out by Bill Ockham at 8-37am above.
That passage appears in an otherwise unremarkable and sound paper on the pandemic.
Gordon Dessler in this thread in response to Bill Ockham makes the not unreasonable point that you may read their remarks about “ rebuilding the structure of human existence” and “ prioritising changes” and “ minimising environmental perturbations” as the equivalence of endorsing the climate change dogma.
That is the line Rolling Stone and others have taken.
However the examples they give can be lauded quite independently of any endorsement of the “climate crisis”.
But there is a more important issue.
If you look at S.D. Fernando “ Climate Change and Malaria:A Complex Relationship”, United Nations, UN Chronicle at http://www.un.org/en/un/chronicle/article/climate-change-and-malaria-complex-relationship
you will see what is the “official” UN position on the topic.
There are papers footnoted there that expressly claim climate change is exacerbating malaria and widening malarial regions while others deny that.
So all Al Gore and others needed to do was quote the papers supporting the proposition that malarial regions were moving north from East Africa etc. and ignore any contrary views.
Which is precisely what the UN IPCC Assessment Reports do on issues like polar bears and other topics.
Thanks, Herbert. A model of relevance, succinctness, and clarity.
I really wish greens would stop pushing the falsehood that mosquitoes and mosquito borne diseases need a warm climate to thrive.
Indeed, several years back I had a co-worker who grew up in Alaska, the stories she could tell you about the swarms of mosquitoes in the Alaskan spring/summer when she was growing up (decades before Al Gore’s inconvenient lies).
The real reasons that viruses are seemingly more prevalent is that we have become a global village.Where once a virus would appear in a small village or Provence and could be easily contained.Now we have outbreaks and the global security is totally dependent on closing down movement of the infected whith the leaders of the infected region responsible on a global level.If a local political leader stalls or hesitates for any number of reasons the virus is out and about before you can blink.Also so many of the so called virus outbreaks mentioned in the article simply petered out or were contained they didn’t become pandemics.