Jessica Hockett, PhD

The latest Malone News article, authored under Robert Malone’s Substack account, presents an opportunity for me to distinguish the views that Dr Malone and the wide range of individuals, groups, and organizations who have been associated with him continue to promulgate from my own views, some of which are shared by others.

Readers of my tweets and articles over the past six years are aware that my perspective on the COVID event has evolved commensurate with my interpretations of difference kinds of evidence, as well as my experiences with & observations of others in the dissident arena (some of which are documented here).

The following table is based on Dr. Malone’s piece and distills what he (and others) are advancing versus what I (and others)* currently advance, across seven issues.

Issue	Malone (and others)	Hockett (and others)
Core/Critical Dispute	Whether SARS-CoV-2 emerged naturally or through laboratory research.	Whether a novel, risk-additive SARS-like pathogen emerged, spread, caused a new disease, and produced the events attributed to it.
Lab v Natural	Rejects the natural-origins explanation in favor of an increasingly confident lab-origin explanation.	Rejects a time-bound lab-origin/natural-origin (and specific situations related thereto) as a false binary that limits possibilities and accepts “spread” claims without question
Baric’s testimony	Evidence that gain-of-function research was real and that SARS-CoV-2 was probably or “almost certainly” man-made.	Evidence about what research was proposed or performed — not evidence of a pathogen resulting from that research escaped, spread, or caused a pandemic.
Proximal Origin paper	Authors privately considered lab scenarios while publicly presenting natural origin as settled.	Authors’ correspondence may demonstrate dishonesty and the pretense of certainty, but disagreement over unproven origin scenarios about an entity never shown to be novel, transmissible, or causal of illness does not establish either one
Sequence and laboratory evidence	Furin-cleavage sites, ACE2 binding, tissue culture, reverse genetics, and humanized mice make laboratory creation plausible.	Those things may point laboratory activity or the existence of items labeled SARS-CoV-2; they do not establish novelty, causation, transmission, timing, or population-level effect.
“The pandemic”	Treats “the pandemic” as an established biological phenomenon: “The virus claimed millions of lives,” and gain-of-function research “probably caused” it.	A pandemic is alleged; its “causal chain” must be demonstrated. Death attribution, testing, coding, protocols, propaganda, and anomalous mortality events cannot simply be collapsed into “the virus killed millions.”
Accountability	Determine which experiments created SARS-CoV-2, who funded them, and where they were conducted.	Investigate laboratory work, but also hold identifiable people and institutions responsible for declarations, policies, testing, coding, medical actions, data practices, and propaganda — without assuming a laboratory pathogen caused the event. Stop pretending that vaccine development isn’t a primary objective of gain-of-function research, and that vaccines have ever been safe, effective, etc.

In essence, Robert Malone continues to focus on “COVID origins” at expense and to the exclusion of many other questions, while remaining somewhat conflicted, logically. He correctly says the newly-released documents “do not prove 100% that SARS-CoV-2 came from a laboratory” but elsewhere concludes the virus was “almost certainly man-made” and that gain-of-function research “probably caused one of the biggest pandemics” ever. 

The documents Dr. Malone highlights may provide support for some assertions:

1. Gain-of-function experiments were proposed and performed.
2. Ralph Baric regarded some proposed work as gain-of-function.
3. Scientists continued debating laboratory scenarios.
4. Public certainty exceeded private certainty (for selfish and indefensible reasons, in some instances).
5. Funding, oversight, and disclosure warrant investigation.

They do not, without additional evidence, establish:

1. That one of those experiments produced SARS-CoV-2.
2. That any resulting material left a laboratory.
3. That “it” replicated and spread among people.
4. That “it” caused a clinically distinct disease.
5. That “it” caused the deaths attributed to COVID-19.
6. That “it” produced New York City, Bergamo, or a global “pandemic.”

These are also distinctions I tried to make in a open letter to Matt Ridley: alarming experiments, concealed records, conflicted researchers, dishonest scientists, and changed opinions do not show that “a novel, risk-additive, transmissible pathogen departed a lab and caused the events of spring 2020.” (My reply to Ridley and Anton van der Merwe took the points a bit further: identifying, sequencing, culturing, or modeling something doesn’t establish its real-world causal role.)

I also differ from Dr. Malone with respect to Ralph Baric. He treats Dr. Baric’s presence on the 1 February 2020 call and his involvement in coronavirus research as ominous or indicting. I’ve previously observed Baric was an obvious person for officials to consult, that he publicly leaned toward natural origin while leaving both possibilities open, and that nothing then released showed he believed he had created a pandemic virus. My main criticism of Dr. Baric, and many other virologists or scientists and pharmaceutical companies, do not appear to have truly questioned whether SARS-CoV-2 was a spreading, disease-causing entity in the first place.

In truth, neither Ralph Baric nor Senator Paul’s latest round of documents “blow up “the official COVID narrative, because the official narrative, at its core, revolves around the idea that something from a point source suddenly emerged and spread around the word, caused a new disease, warranted a response, and killed millions. Dr. Malone is essentially leading readers to take evidence of research and concealment as further evidence of a pandemic event.

Let’s pretend for a second SARS-CoV-2 “is” an agent from a laboratory. How would that knowledge or “admission” — or an admission about uncertainty about origin — have changed anything, in Dr. Malone’s view? Arguably, even if every virologist on the planet said in March 2020, “It’s from a lab!” the inhumane and illegal actions taken by the WHO and leaders of many nations would have been worse.

To be clear, I have no objection to examining what virologists and health authorities were saying to one another at and before the outset of critical events in the first months of 2020, late 2019, and much earlier. If we’re considering emails, those that document deliberations between those that the WHO says it “brought together” to develop the first “test” commended by the agency, discussions between those that named and classified SARS-CoV-2, and reactions to questions from the lead virologist on the naming paper are just as important (if not more important) to examine closely, because they point to much uncertainty about transmissibility and novelty — and point toward causality being in no one’s remit.

The most ironic aspect of Robert Malone’s latest piece might be the emphasis on suppression of scientific debate. Does he recognize (or, better yet, is allowed to recognize) that there are many scientists and analysts who dissent from State-Sponsored narratives about COVID-19, hold “No Pandemic” views, and who continue to dismissed, minimized, or ignored by him and the domestic and international networks that support his work in one way or another?

Scientific debate has not been restored merely because the “permitted” range of opinion has expanded from “natural origin” to “laboratory origin” while continuing to exclude whether the alleged putative agent exists, functions as purported, or caused a pandemic at all.

---

* Although I am recognize that others hold the same or similar views, some long before I did, I am not in this piece representing anyone else.

False Binaries that ‘Limit the Spectrum of Acceptable Opinion’ in the COVID-19 Debate and Perpetuate Lies Told by The Powers That Be (Part 1)

False Binaries that ‘Limit the Spectrum of Acceptable Opinion” in the COVID-19 Debate and Perpetuate Lies Told by The Powers That Be (Part 2)

On Robert Malone (Briefly)