The real doctors and scientists debate whether there was a new virus circulating in 2020

Independent scientists and doctors are showing their corporately funded counterparts how science and medicine should be done.

In a WhatsApp group, independent professionals with differing views have been debating whether there was a new virus, a novel pathogen, spreading across the world during 2020.  A virus that caused “the covid pandemic.”

Some argue that there wasn’t a novel virus pandemic but rather a pandemic of measures in response to one.  Others argue that there was a novel virus which caused the illness known as covid, with a set of symptoms that can be identified and diagnosed.

What’s most heartening, especially for those of us who don’t have the expertise or experience, is that scientists and doctors are doing what all scientists and doctors should be doing: having an open and transparent debate.  We don’t have to pick a side.  All we are required to do is support independent scientists and doctors while they continue to try to establish, beyond a doubt, what has happened.

A few weeks ago, Where Are the Numbers published an article titled ‘Spikeopathy does not explain the ‘novel’ symptoms associated with covid-19: An investigation into competing alternative explanations’.  The article was written in response to a debate taking place in a WhatsApp group whose members include doctors, data experts and scientists.  Included in the debate were American pulmonary specialist Dr. Pierre Kory and Zimbabwean general practitioner Dr. Jackie Stone.

Where Are the Numbers is a Substack page currently authored by Professor Martin Neil, healthcare entrepreneur Jonathan Engler and Jessica Hockett, who has a PhD in social science.  Previously the page was authored by Professors Martin Neil and Norman Fenton.

Last week, Dr. Kory published an article in response to the ‘Where are the Numbers’ article.  The title of Dr. Kory’s article is ‘Debate: Was Covid-19 A Pandemic Caused by A Novel Pathogen or Was It Created Solely by Harmful Policies and Fear Propaganda?’

In an article to highlight the two articles that represented the two sides of the debate, Where Are the Numbers said:

Kory decided to also respond to many other points made in the WhatsApp conversation by three other prominent discussants – Sean Flanagan, Dr. Mike Yeadon and Nick Hudson. This has muddied the waters somewhat, allowing Kory to change the frame for the conversation, dodge the specifics of our criticism, and instead address multiple points and arguments we did not indeed make (even though we might agree with them). Hence, much of Kory’s response is NOT the response to our article at all.

Rather than address evidence for/against there being a novel disease entity (covid-19) which appeared around the world due to pandemic spread, with features exclusive to and explicable by the concept of spikeopathy, he instead addressed the argument that there was “no novel pathogen”. This was not the argument we made in our article.

Our response to Dr Pierre Kory, Where are the Numbers, 16 January 2024

Bearing the above in mind, and consequentially that the debate is likely still ongoing, below we have highlighted some of the points made in the two articles.

Where Are the Numbers: Spikeopathy

Prof. Neil, Engler and Dr. Hockett debated on WhatsApp with Dr. Kory and Dr Stone whether covid-19 was ‘novel and deadly’ and whether there was indeed a ‘pandemic’ by any reasonable definition at all.

Where Are the Numbers (“WATN”) listed the specific signs and symptoms associated with covid-19 according to Dr. Kory and Dr. Stone. They attribute these symptoms to ‘spikeopathy’, associated with the spike protein in the SARS-CoV-2 virus, WATN wrote.

Several of the signs of covid, according to Dr. Kory and Dr. Stone, could be seen using a computed tomography scan, or CT scan.  However, after reviewing the medical literature, WATN found that most of the papers on covid-19 CT findings actually suggest findings indistinguishable from those associated with influenza or bacterial pneumonia.

They also reviewed the literature for evidence of other symptoms.  “We did not find any compelling evidence reported linking happy hypoxia to covid-19. Neither did the literature confirm that dry lung was strongly diagnostic of SARS-CoV-2 infection. Likewise, many of the papers and reviews we reviewed made no mention of diarrhoea, loss of taste and smell and micro clotting or other ‘blood issues’,” WANT said.

WATN concluded that the symptoms described by Dr. Kory and Dr. Stone can be explained by a single over-arching cause, that of a novel spikeopathy mechanism associated with SARS-CoV-2.

You can read Where Are the Numbers’ full argument HERE.

Dr. Pierre Kory: Was Covid-19 a Pandemic Caused by a Novel Pathogen?

Retired pharmacologist and former pharmaceutical executive Dr. Mike Yeadon disagreed with Dr. Kory and Dr. Stone. “I’m sure you’re describing what you saw, but there’s a problem.  The epidemiological evidence doesn’t square with there being a highly transmissible and above average mortality,” he said.

PANDA’s chairman Nick Hudson lends supporting data for the Where Are the Numbers hypothesis that propaganda and harmful policies were the cause of the pandemic.

“The perpetrators knew exactly what they were doing. Don’t miss the section on how autonomic responses can create flu-like symptoms,”  Hudson said.  “Read this whole thread,” he said referring to the Twitter thread by Champagne Joshi embedded below, which you can also read on the Threadreader App HERE.

Dr. Kory explained that he could not address all the events and data being put forward during the debate, but as a clinician, “the only point I wish to and believe I am able to counter is the assertion that ‘there was no novel pathogen’.”

“We maintain that there was a novel pathogen which caused a novel syndrome and that it was initially particularly deadly in many areas (Lombardy, NYC, Seattle, Detroit, New Orleans and others), and not just to the old,” he said.

He countered the argument that antibodies to Sars-CoV-2 were found in numerous places in 2018 and 2019 before the Wuhan outbreak by stating that “whatever was causing antibodies to be made in certain places in 2018 or 2019 did not have the pathogenicity of the ‘new variant’ which seemingly escaped or was leaked out of Wuhan.”

He referred to those following the debate to a Wall Street Journal article in 2020 “which might support the “emergence of a new deadly strain” of SARS-CoV2 from Wuhan.”

This article described the first evidence that a pathogen was circulating in Wuhan with novel characteristics, i.e. the ability to transmit through the air, he said.

Noting the Wall Street Journal’s description of the CDC’s reaction to an article about a new pathogen on the Wuhan Health Ministry website which was flagged by the CDC early warning system, Dr. Kory said: “I believe this was the first warning that something big and bad had just been leaked or escaped and spelt trouble due to its high transmission properties.”

The declaration appeared to be supported by the clinical reality on the ground – lots of people getting sick with a minority getting really sick, he added.

“I know this did not happen everywhere, I personally do not have the knowledge or expertise to explain the transmission patterns globally, but my best guess is something nefarious contributed to the anomalous spread, something as preposterous as deliberate widespread release in certain targeted cities and areas.

“Beyond the evidence above that a novel pathogen with significant airborne transmissibility likely emerged from Wuhan in December 2020, is the fact that Fauci et al immediately embarked on a massive cover-up of their bioweapons research being implicated (if not obvious, “gain of function” research is bioweapons research). Why did they go to such lengths to cover up the origin of a pathogen ‘that didn’t exist?’”

Outside of a biopsy of tissue or culture of a pathogen, there are no uniquely diagnostic criteria for any disease, Dr. Kory explained. “Learning how to discern among overlapping symptoms, findings, and blood tests and radiographic abnormalities is literally the core skill of a medical doctor … If you doctor long enough, you find that discerning amongst diseases is not as difficult as when you start out.”

“Although a number of the abnormalities are non-specific when they present in clusters or simultaneously, then you can differentiate Covid as a unique and/or novel syndrome by comparing to how pre-existing infectious or viral disease syndromes present.

“Even if not ALL features [detailed in Dr. Kory’s article] were present in the hospitalised patient, generally most of them were present, and I had never seen a syndrome with such reproducibility of this constellation of symptoms and findings, thus leading to what I felt was a high specificity of diagnosis.”

You can read Dr. Pierre Kory’s full argument and rebuttal of Where Are the Numbers’ argument HERE.