Yale epidemiologist Dr. Harvey Risch told Epoch Times’ “American Thought Leaders” TV show that much of the panic over the last two years because of COVID has been manufactured by authorities, out of all proportion to the danger the virus presented.
“I think that the people who were in the nominal positions of authority initially spread a much worse picture of the dire nature of this,” Risch said.
“…we quickly learned who was at risk for the #pandemic & who wasn’t,” says Dr. Harvey Risch.
“However, the #fear was manufactured for everybody. And that’s what’s characterized the whole pandemic, is that degree of fear & people’s response to the fear.”https://t.co/HC2KB0P4vS
— Jan Jekielek (@JanJekielek) December 5, 2021
The message was “[t]hat everybody was at risk, everybody could die, everybody needed to find protection,” said Risch. “Everybody needed to stay in their homes and not go out, not socialize, and so on—to protect themselves [and] society.”
The level of fear affected everyone, yet the actual virus affected a population that was small, and that was very predictable by virologists according to Risch. The young and health were barely susceptible to the virus while the old and sick were very vulnerable, which is a typical pattern of a pandemic.
The issue takes added significance as the world grapples with the new omicron variant of the virus which seems milder, but is greatly mutated compared to other variance of the COVID-19 virus.
The discovery of the variant has caused authorities to rush to institute new restrictions on populations around the world and has raised the fear level to new heights.
“This is probably the most mutated virus we’d ever seen,” said virologist Alex Sigal, who is leading the team of researchers that first identified the new [Omicroin] variant, according to CBS News.
“It’s more of a Frankenstein than others,” Sigal added, drawing on the vocabulary of pop culture fear.
More mutated doesn’t necessarily mean more deadly or more dangerous, however. Thus far studies have shown that while the Omicron variant is more transmissible, the symptoms that come with the variant are milder.
“People infected with the omicron variant of the novel coronavirus may have a tendency to show mild or no symptoms,” reported the Japan Times, “although the variant’s infectiousness could be stronger than that of the delta variant, according to experts.”
Risch pointed out that novel viruses emerging from wet markets in China is not a new phenomenon, which in fact it happens almost every year.
“What was different about this one is that China has admitted to those right away and tried to fix them, whereas the present one, it did not do that,” Risch said.
“It withheld information about it for two months, at least, and that withholding of information is a totally different behavior than how China has been in the past,” he added.
