Mark Twain is believed to have uttered this profundity about history, “History doesn’t repeat itself, but it often rhymes.” Are we catching a glimpse of COVID history beginning to rhyme with itself?

Today’s story is, “Veterinarian dies in China from rare monkey virus.” Substitute “ophthalmologist” for “veterinarian” and “bat” for “monkey” and see if you can hear the rhyme from early 2020.

A year and a half ago, in February 2020, shortly after President Trump banned travel to the US from China, we learned of this story: “Li Wenliang: Coronavirus kills Chinese whistleblower doctor.” He was a Wuhan hospital ophthalmologist who in December 2019 sent a message to fellow doctors through a chat group warning of seven cases he had seen of a virus causing symptoms resembling the SARS virus from 2003.

Four days later he was summoned to the Public Security Bureau, coerced into signing a letter of confession for “making false comments” that had “severely disturbed the social order.” A month later he was diagnosed with coronavirus and a week later he died. What a coincidence.

The next part of rhyming history is how his medical observations were treated by the state. China uses its “Public Security Bureau” while in the US we have Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Brian Stelter to determine truth. Credit China for being honest about state-sponsored censorship, unlike doublespeak from the American ruling class.

The Chinese veterinarian who recently died worked in, “A research institute that specialized in nonhuman primate breeding, the report from the Chinese Centre for Disease Control and Prevention said.” He was infected with Monkey B virus, a nasty pathogen with a 70 to 80 percent mortality rate in humans.

The good news is, “There has only been one known case where the Monkey B virus has been transmitted from human to human, in Florida in 1987.” That rhymes with what the World Health Organization assured us of at the same time the Chinese ophthalmologist was “disturbing the social order”.

The WHO tweeted in January 2020, “Preliminary investigations conducted by the Chinese authorities have found no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission of the novel #coronavirus (2019-nCoV) identified in #Wuhan.” How did that turn out?

YouTube screen grab

Was this only one case of monkeypox far away in China? No. A few days ago we learned that the CDC was investigating in Texas, “A case of an unusual virus called monkeypox in a traveler coming from Nigeria.” Just a coincidence? Maybe or maybe not.

Days later it is worse. The New York Post reports that the CDC is monitoring for monkeypox, 200 people in 27 states who were exposed to the Nigerian man.

Texas public health officials quickly decided this was nothing to be concerned over, saying "We have determined that there is very little risk to the general public." This statement has a familiar rhyme from last year.

In February 2020, when Dr, Fauci was beginning his never-ending media tour, he told a USA Today reporter, “Risk of coronavirus in USA is 'minuscule'; skip mask and wash hands.” How did that turn out?

There was a short-lived outbreak of monkeypox in the US in 2003, due to a shipment of animals from Ghana. Monkeypox is similar to the Ebola virus in that it is of high lethality but low transmissibility. Such viruses often kill their host before the virus can replicate and spread, making outbreaks short lived.

Smallpox vaccination is also 85 percent effective in preventing monkeypox. Routine smallpox vaccination ended in the US in 1972 with eradication declared in 1980, meaning many Americans are immune to both smallpox and monkeypox. Unless this is not your father’s monkeypox.

What if virology laboratories are playing with these pox viruses, research into transmission or vaccines, or gain of function research as was done with coronaviruses in the Wuhan Institute of Virology?

One intelligence report states, “Dozens of countries are conducting research involving animal pox viruses, according to a descriptive survey performed for the U.S. intelligence community’s Open Source Center.”

Dr. Fauci certainly understands this type of research. He was a co-author on a 2005 paper acknowledging, “The potential threat of the smallpox virus as a bioterror weapon has long been recognized, and the need for developing suitable countermeasures has become especially acute following the events of September 2001.”

Here is a video of Dr. Fauci discussing “gain of function research” back in 2013, research that he denied funding in recent Senate testimony.

Rumble Video screengrab

The Wuhan Institute of Virology is also no stranger to these viruses. One such example is a 2014 paper from that institute looking at “cell to cell spread of vaccinia virus”, a virus within the pox virus family.

Let me be clear that it is appropriate for public health officials like Dr. Fauci and virology institutes to study viruses to better treat and prevent future outbreaks. If the research, however, has a more nefarious purpose, or if adequate safeguards are not in place to prevent inadvertent release of these deadly agents, or if the responsible parties obfuscate or lie, complicating or delaying the response to such an outbreak, that is when the benefits of such research fly out the window.

An even more interesting rhyme is the timing of vaccine development and the pandemic treated by said vaccine. As reported in the Daily Mail, “Chinese military scientist filed a patent for a COVID-19 vaccine BEFORE the virus was declared a global pandemic.” Undoubtedly another coincidence.

In September 2019, the FDA approved a smallpox and monkeypox vaccine as, “The only currently FDA-approved vaccine for the prevention of monkeypox disease.” If smallpox is eradicated, that leaves only monkeypox. Why spend time and money developing a vaccine for a rare pathogen? Another coincidence. Another rhyme.

Hopefully, this monkeypox news is nothing, just a normal blip in the world of viruses. But given the track record of government officials and agencies in misleading at best, outright lying at worst, these news reports set off alarm bells, especially in a world recovering from a horrific viral pandemic and draconian government response.

Was COVID a fluke of nature? Or was it a controlled and managed pandemic? Was it simply a means of getting rid of President Trump and his agenda or was it part of a “great reset”? Is the pandemic still working or is it losing steam, in need of a “booster shot” of sorts?

Is it time for another scare? Could monkeypox be COVID part two, the booster shot? Hopefully not but time will tell.

Brian C Joondeph, MD, is a physician and writer.

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