David Robertson

Our piece just out at BMJ on the history of respiratory pandemics and why endings are never clear cut. 'pandemic closure is better understood as occurring with the resumption of social life, not the achievement of specific epidemiological targets.' bmj.com/content/375/bm…

Pleased to share the program of our upcoming conference “Care, Control, and Biopolitics: Reckoning with the Covid Governance”, which will take place at the University of Graz on 28–30 April 2026. The meeting will bring together scholars from different disciplines to reflect on how the Covid era reshaped governance, public debate, and the relationship between care and control in contemporary societies. I am particularly delighted that @toby00green will deliver the keynote lecture. As is well known here on Twitter, Toby has been instrumental in opening serious historical and intellectual debate about the wider significance of the pandemic, not least through his pioneering work on Covid as a world-historical crisis. Toby is also convening a major conference at the British Academy in London this July, which continues and expands this emerging conversation from another perspective – so I am pleased to share that program, too! 😊 murielblaive.substack.com/p/program-of-g…

@biotechonomics @Rebecca21951651 @loofymectin @Ayjchan @gadboit @ban_epp_gofroc @angoffinet “Your friends”? The people in this thread and elsewhere want the truth, not friendships. I’d encourage you to write more openly about this subject. I’d certainly read it (I’ve missed it for some time, actually).

Andersen & cronies claim SARS1 circulated for months or years in an intermediate host, during which time it moved 1,000 km from Yunnan to Guangdong. They now claim SARS2 circulated for much less time in an intermediate host and also moved 1,000 km from Yunnan to Wuhan. How? 🧵

Most (if not all) people in high level positions seem to have mastered the skill of lying with ease (at least to some degree)...or perhaps, to be more generous, mastering the “George Costanza” method of convincing themselves that whatever they say is true, which means, in their minds, they are not lying.

In 2019, I started the @healthy_scept project, funded by the @wellcome, and including some favourite colleagues, especially @agnesjuliet and @AmazzoneFuriosa. Thanks to @HurstPublishers it's finally in book form and available for (discounted) preorder. waterstones.com/book/healthy-s…

@equal_ibrium Conversely, scientists with no experience in public health (such as virologists) were gladly put in charge of the pandemic response...

Your reminder that the Covid response was insane in part because journalists would contact any pseudo-scientist actively tweeting about Covid and uncritically report their views. Think Eric Feigl-Ding. Maybe in that sense, Bluesky is the new science Twitter. Great.

@nycexpatmom Such an obvious attempt to entice people to pay for the service.

Defense Intelligence Agency considered lab leak in March 2020 usrtk.org/covid-19-origi… “The molecular biology capabilities of WIV and the genomic assessment are consistent with the hypothesis that SARS-CoV-2 was a lab-engineered virus that was part of a bank of chimeric viruses in Zhengli Shi’s laboratory at WIV that escaped from containment.”

6 years ago today "One thing I find kinda funny....if they're not able to predict the pandemics they themselves cause, then I'd say their program is in pretty bad shape" - Kristian Andersen

@Bryce_Nickels I’m shocked he can “recall” whether or not he ever read it.

ANTHONY FAUCI: "Forget it, I didn't read it" Even Anthony Fauci thought the WHO's Covid Origins investigation was a joke: Q - "The WHO..sent a team to China to investigate the origins of COVID-19…[and] produced a report from that trip. Do you recall reading it?" Anthony Fauci - "No, I did not read it…I mean, I skimmed through it, I believe…But I -- I mean, the easiest way to get me not to read something is to make it multiple, multiple, multiple pages." Q - "And this was like 350, so it was --" Anthony Fauci - "Yeah, so forget it. I didn't read it"

NIH Director: "[T]he best available evidence suggests that the pandemic was the result of a lab accident that happened in Wuhan" Interviewer: "What percentage odds of that being true, would you say? NIH Director: "It’s pretty close to certain." nytimes.com/video/opinion/…

Incredible interview with NIH Director Jay Bhattacharya @DrJBhattacharya @NIHDirector_Jay youtu.be/1GCHMsPsRY4?si…

It's as if everyone now thinks lockdowns were a bad idea & no one admits having cheered them on. Like, if WHO had supported lockdowns, they can understand why people would quit. This pattern of lying openly to everyone's face is a main reason so many people are going crazy.

I never understood the shenanigans around Covid if only on the basis of this particular graph. Masks and lockdowns were clearly useless against Covid as there was no difference in mortality between France and Sweden - but the measures *were* very good at destroying the economy, society, and the rest of public health!

This was one of the things that irked me so much about lockdowns: the naïve scientistism, the total denial of political agency — lockdowns were not choices we make among competing options but an inevitable consequence of the epidemiological situation. It bellied the ignorance of so many scientists that the so-called ‘scientific’ advice they gave were really political choices made. It showed a total and utter ignorance of how human society operates. And this coming from a field of science which is supposed to study human interactions.

The @who now claims it never supported lockdowns in 2020. Let's look at some receipts. Feb 2020 The WHO Potemkin tour of China proclaims the Chinese lockdown "proven" to stop human "transmission chains", buying time for "vaccine development". who.int/docs/default-s… 1/15

@Jonathan_Witt @DrJBhattacharya @WHO Apparently there is a UNICEF letter/petition from 2020/21 urging that schools remain open that WHO was invited to sign but chose not to do so. Would be worthwhile finding (I had a brief search to no avail).

@equal_ibrium @DrJBhattacharya @WHO Absolutely criminal whichever way you swing it.

Is it just me, or are all the @WHO high officials and scientists who pushed the world into lockdown in 2020 now swearing up and down that they never recommended lockdown? I, for one, have no confidence that they would not recommend the world lock down again, given the chance.

@Jonathan_Witt @DrJBhattacharya @WHO “We didn’t encourage or endorse lockdowns. We just remained silent as they were implemented and children around the world were denied socialisation/education in the name of disease control.”

It’s not just you, Jay. They’re distancing themselves from it like it’s the toxic waste it always was. But here’s the problem: almost every major public health agency and official worldwide, Sweden (Tegnell) being the notable outlier, pushed lockdowns. So if the WHO now claims it never recommended them, it’s effectively throwing all of those people under the bus. There are only two coherent options: 1. The WHO backed lockdowns and public health officials followed that lead; or 2. The WHO did not back lockdowns, and public health officials knowingly acted against WHO guidance. Which is it?

@MurielBlaivePhD @DrJBhattacharya @DrTedros @HHSGov @WHO Global public health’s WMD moment.

@DrJBhattacharya @DrTedros @HHSGov @WHO The great gaslighting has begun. Next thing you know, the WHO will claim they have *always said* that Covid was a lab leak...

This @HHSGov statement concerning @WHO contains inaccurate information. The truth is as follows: While WHO recommended the use of masks, physical distancing and vaccines, WHO did not recommend governments to mandate the use of masks or vaccines and never recommended lockdowns. WHO supported sovereign governments with technical advice and guidance that was developed on the basis of evolving evidence on #COVID19 for them to make policy decisions in the best interests of their citizens. Each government made their own decisions, based on their needs and circumstances.

@casertron3000 @WHO He never recommended lockdown but was very keen to make sure lockdowns lasted as long as possible.