12/13/2023 0 Comments Batman signal projection alarm clock![]() ![]() Last Friday (June 23), the Biden Administration declassified a report that revealed a split within the U.S. While the COVID-19 pandemic global emergency officially ended on May 5, 2023, questions about its origins show no signs of abating. Between May 2020 and March 2023, I spoke frequently with him about his research, the successes and failures of the COVID-19 response, and his fears-and dreams-for the future. In the roughly three and a half years since the pandemic began, Baric has published over 250 peer-reviewed studies-a dizzying rate of productivity amounting to roughly half of his total output across a 40-year career. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Baric oversaw a staff of dozens, many of whom (like Baric) practically lived at the lab. Sequestered in a state-of-the-art Biosafety Level 3 lab at the University of North Carolina, equipped with the multiple redundancies and safety features required by the U.S. He was tasked with moving potential cures-some of which he had been developing for close to a decade-out of the laboratory and onto the market. ![]() belatedly imposed wide-ranging shelter-in-place restrictions to prevent a domestic epidemic.īaric, who has been researching coronaviruses since the 1980s, was a linchpin of the scientific response to COVID-19. A timeline, he realized, had already been set: “The U.S.,” he says, “had three months.” By March 2020, right on the Baric schedule, the U.S. As early as January 2020, Baric felt certain that the new virus’s spread was more akin to the flu than any of the human coronaviruses he had previously encountered. When SARS-CoV-2 emerged less than a year and a half later, Baric was among the first to raise the alarm. For the next 35 minutes, he laid out his prediction, with uncanny precision, of what the next pandemic would bring: a rush for bogus antiviral treatments, vast profits for companies making personal protective equipment, a global economic crash, and a rise in conspiracy theories claiming that the pandemic pathogen was designed by scientists. “This is not me,” he continued, “I’m not one of the four horsemen of the apocalypse.” Light laughter bubbled through the audience Baric smiled. “The reason is being labelled a harbinger of doom.” The screen shifted, and images of the four horsemen of the apocalypse-Death, Famine, War, and Plague-came into view, next to a headshot of a smiling Baric. “Well, I have to admit I’m a little worried about giving this talk,” Baric said. ![]() On the large projector screen hanging behind him, the following words appeared: How Bad the Next Pandemic Could Be, What Might It Look Like, and Will We be Ready. Ralph Baric stepped onto the auditorium stage at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and looked out at the sparse audience that had come to hear him speak. ![]()
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