"Something wicked this way comes"
Still asking: Was SARS-CoV-2 a spreading viral threat?
American writer Scott Morefield said on X today:
I couldn’t care less about where the virus came from. How about the useless masks, the killer jabs, the tyrannical lockdowns? THOSE are the real concerns, and the system will still barely scratch the surface on them.
I wrote last year about the orthodoxy of SARS-CoV-2 ‘origins’ being insignificant compared with ‘the response’ and revisited the theme recently in an essay with Jonathan Engler:
Morefield’s phrase “where the virus came from” calls to mind the well-known couplet from Macbeth, spoken by the Second Witch in Act 4, scene i, as she senses the title character approaching:
By the pricking of my thumbs,
Something wicked this way comes.
The witch was right on two counts:
Something was coming (Macbeth).
The something was wicked and, by this point in the story, had become a threat.1
In early 2020, agencies and officials around the world said something similar:
Something (a novel coronavirus) wicked (able to kill or make groups of people sick) this way (headed to your city/country) comes (is spreading from human to human).
Were they right? Does it matter?
Remember: It was something wicked this way comes and virus from afar storylines which permitted responses involving the upending of fundamental liberties, violations of bodily autonomy, and severe breaches of medical ethics. Those in power were able to impose these measures because people were quickly and easily persuaded that a wicked coronavirus was en route.
Maybe you’re thinking,
Something was coming - or had already come sooner - but it wasn’t as wicked as they said.
This is similar to an idea Trish Wood expressed.
A ‘lousy bioweapon’ spreading across the globe by passing between humans and making people sick would still be wicked, yet there’s no reason to believe scientific hocus-pocus is able to execute such a feat .
As X user Matt Mobyed observed, various parties would have us believe that scads pandemic potential pathogens are being kept all over the world and the only thing protecting humanity from being incapacitated or wiped out by these creatures “on the regular” is the “superhuman competence” of adherence to safety measures.
“Given everything we've seen from these folks over the past 5 years, is it reasonable to conclude this is the case?” he asked.
No, it’s not, and reality was far more tragic than Macbeth.2
MANY wicked things came our way with the WHO’s pandemic declaration, including lies, democide, propaganda, coercion, force, and fear.
None was a novel spreading coronavirus.
Minor adjustments made post-publication for clarity and emphasis.
…as the witches portended.
Including in Scotland, where Macbeth is set.
Thank you
We few, we skeptical few, we band of brothers.