Science journalist @mattwridley just shared some fascinating ideas about Covid-19 with @Liberal_Studies. Here are just a few of them:

1. Russian flu that killed 1M in 1889 may have been a novel coronavirus that morphed into a common cold. If so, future waves are not inevitable!

2. Respiratory viruses may become less deadly over time, because they spread best when hosts are healthy enough to go out and cough on others. A reason for optimism!

3. No one knows why viruses are seasonal, but it's possible that Vitamin D (created by sunshine) plays a role.

4. Ridley says it's now clear that the Wuhan wet market was not where the virus jumped to humans, but was a super-spreader event. There is mounting evidence that Covid in fact came from the Wuhan lab, and may have been known to China in 2012. The West needs to push for the truth.

5. Ridley says scientific models are junk and we need to push back against model-driven policy: for example, the Imperial College model said 90,000 deaths by June in Sweden without a lockdown and 40,000 with a lock down. Sweden did not lock down and has so far had 5,000 deaths.

6. Part of the reason we’re in this mess is because the WHO was so focused on climate change and other trendy topics that it failed to focus on vaccine technology. There has been little vaccine innovation in the past 20 years.