Letter: Weeding through the conspiracy theories | Letters | reformer.com – Brattleboro Reformer

To the editor: Conspiracy theories have probably been around since humans began to communicate. On the other hand, conspiracies have also been around for the same time. The problem has always been figuring out which were real and which were fake. With the advent of social media, the number of fake conspiracies has been exponential on steroids.

Unfortunately, the oceans of fake conspiracies have so clouded the scene that true conspiracies can be going on right under our eyes, generally disregarded because of that cloud. I would like to address one of those.

I am no virologist, but I am a doctor with some knowledge and the ability to get information. That said, I am increasingly convinced that the coronavirus is a virus that was genetically engineered in a lab in Wu Han and got out accidentally or intentionally.

I offer in evidence the following: To this date, and to the best of my knowledge, scientists have yet to identify any animal infected or carrying this virus. That fact, if it remains a fact, virtually eliminates the possibility of zoonotic transmission. Also, respiratory viruses want to spread as widely as possible, as quickly as possible. And respiratory viruses, like all viruses, mutate.

Consequently, when respiratory viruses mutate, they typically do two things. They become more contagious, and they weaken in their lethality. By weakening their ability to kill, they keep their hosts alive to spread their offspring. The COVID-19 virus is getting more lethal with each incarnation.

What does that mean? Well, let me offer a new conspiracy with few if any facts to back it up. What if the virus continues to mutate until it becomes increasingly lethal and immune to vaccines, and as new vaccines come along, it continues to mutate and we enter an existential race against what may have been programmed to be a doomsday virus.

Happy Trails.

Bob Fagelson

Brattleboro, July 6

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