News Round-Up: US Congress Report on Covid, Academics’ Self-Censorship and Paying A Billion To Wind Farms for Not Producing Energy

Every week, the editorial team of Freedom Research compiles a round-up of news that caught our eye, or what felt like under-reported aspects of news deserving more attention.

Over the past week, the following topics attracted our attention:

• US Congressional Covid Committee: Covid-19 originated from Wuhan laboratory.

• Academic freedom in decline: 77% of university staff says so.

• Refusing the rainbow: Premier League players have had enough of ‘pride’ declarations.

• UK: paying a billion to wind farms for not producing energy.

• Canadian township fined for refusing to celebrate Pride month.

US Congressional Covid Committee: Covid-19 originated from Wuhan laboratory

After two years of investigation, the US Congressional Select Subcommittee On The Coronavirus Pandemic has concluded that dangerous virus research in Wuhan, China, is the most likely source of Covid-19.

According to a report published by the committee, Covid-19 has biological characteristics that are not found in nature, reports The Daily Mail. There is evidence to support a single introduction of the virus to humans, not multiple zoonotic spillover events; and Wuhan – where the virus was first detected – is home to China's largest SARS research lab, the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV).

The report also cited US intelligence reports that several researchers at the WIV were sick with a Covid-like virus in the fall of 2019 and noted a lack of direct evidence linking the virus to animals at the nearby Wuhan wet market or its supply chain. WIV has long been at the center of the contentious lab leak debate because researchers there routinely tinker with and genetically modify viruses to become more virulent or transmissible. This kind of gain-of-function (GOF) research often involves genetically modifying viruses similar to SARS-CoV-2 to see how they could become more effective at infecting people and making them seriously ill.

US Congressional Select Subcommittee On The Coronavirus Pandemic has concluded that dangerous virus research in Wuhan is the most likely source of Covid. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.

In recent years, considerable efforts have been made in the virus research community to deny the laboratory origin of the virus. For example, in March 2020, The Lancet published an open letter from 27 renowned scientists in the field stating: “We stand together to strongly condemn conspiracy theories suggesting that COVID-19 does not have a natural origin.” As the signatories were indeed prominent figures in the scientific world, considered to be at the top of their field, this in itself began to work as an argument against anyone talking about the possibility of a laboratory origin, and each subsequent fact-check was able to turn the article into a club to hurl at sceptical voices. It also triggered censorship on social media, as for example, any suggestion that the virus may have come from the lab was banned on Facebook until May 2021, with such claims being removed from the platform. The fact that 26 of the 27 scientists who signed the letter had direct professional links with the same Wuhan research lab, i.e. a conflict of interest, only came to light later.

Other important Covid era health figures had their own reasons to try and divert attention from the Wuhan lab. For example, in a letter to a colleague, Anthony Fauci, the White House Covid policy coordinator who became the 'face' of the US Covid crisis, called talk of a lab origin ‘a shiny object that will go away in time’, but in fact also had a direct conflict of interest on the issue. The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), which he headed, had been funding coronavirus gain-of-function experiments at the Wuhan Institute of Virology since 2014, and it is possible that the Covid-19 virus was developed with the support of these grants. We have previously written extensively on the laboratory origin of the virus here.

However, the origin of the virus is only one aspect of the whole crisis that the report reflected, and we plan to address the other conclusions it reached in the near future.

Academic freedom in deep decline: 77% of university staff say so

77% of university staff believe academic freedom has become more restricted on campus over the past decade, according to a major new survey, GB News writes.

The global poll, conducted by Times Higher Education, revealed particularly strong concerns in the United States, where 83% of academics reported diminishing free speech.

British universities showed similar trends, with 80% of UK-based staff reporting increased limitations on academic freedom. Students are increasingly dictating lecture content, with academics reporting they must carefully manage what they say in classrooms. "Student consumers now increasingly dictate what they want to hear in lectures and seminars," reported one academic. A British legal academic admitted he now teaches "with as little personality as possible because significant numbers of students find offence in anything that they dislike." One UK psychology academic explained it was "increasingly difficult to argue with any position deemed contentious by activists", on topics including gender, colonialism, and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Refusing the rainbow: Premier League players have had enough of ‘pride’ declarations

Manchester United planned to walk-out in rainbow jackets prior to their match against Everton last Sunday, to show their support to LGBTQ+ agenda, but it did not happen, The Daily Mail reports citing The Athletic. The reason was that their Moroccan star player Noussair Mazraoui refused to wear a rainbow jacket. Mazraoui, who is a devout Muslim, told his colleagues that he would not be wearing the jacket and cited his religious faith as his reasoning. United decided that no player would then wear the tracksuit, so that Mazraoui would not be singled out publicly – with the decision reportedly just taken hours before kick-off on Sunday.

It used to be about the game, players are now asked to participate in making statements they do not believe in and have started to refuse. Photo: Peter Glaser/Unsplash.

His move comes after England and Crystal Palace defender Marc Guehi defied a Football Association reprimand by writing a religious message on his rainbow-coloured captain's armband – and Ipswich Town skipper Sam Morsy has now twice refused to wear the rainbow armband.

UK: paying a billion to wind farms for not producing energy

British bill payers have spent £1 billion (€1.21 billion) to temporarily switch off wind turbines so far this year as the grid struggles to cope with their power when there is an abundance of wind, The Telegraph writes.

More wind energy capacity means more “curtailment” in windy conditions as the grid cannot be overwhelmed. Photo: Nicholas Doherty/Unsplash.

The amount of wind power “curtailed” in the first 11 months of 2024 stood at about 6.6 terawatt hours (TWh), according to official figures, up from 3.8 TWh in the whole of the last year. Curtailment is where wind turbines are paid to switch off at times of high winds to stop a surge in power overwhelming the grid. Households and businesses pay for the cost of this policy through their bills. The cost of switching off has reached about £1bn so far this year, according to an analysis of market data by Octopus Energy. This is more than the £779 million (€942,6 million) spent last year and £945 million (€1.14 billion) spent in 2022.

Canadian township fined for refusing to celebrate pride month

The Ontario Human Rights Tribunal in Canada decided in November that the township of Emo will have to pay damages after refusing to proclaim Pride Month back in 2020, CBC writes.

Canadian township of Emo was fined for not showing any support for LGBTQ+ pride month back in June 2020. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.

Borderland Pride, which is an activist 2SLGBTQIA+ organisation in Canada, requested Emo to declare June as Pride Month and display a rainbow flag for one week, but the township refused, resulting in a years-long process in which the tribunal ruled against the township.

The tribunal ruled Borderland Pride will be awarded $15,000 (€10,167), with $10,000 (€6778) coming from the township itself and the other $5,000 (€3389) coming from Emo mayor Harold McQuaker.

In addition to the compensation, the tribunal has also ordered McQuaker and Chief Administrative Officer of the municipality to complete a "Human Rights 101" training course offered by the Ontario Human Rights Commission within 30 days.