Upon his return from his fact-finding mission to China, Lipkin launched a media blitz as a 'leading expert'. He repeatedly downplayed the virus and the need to wear masks.

The Columbia University website quoted Lipkin as saying: “So far, there is no evidence that the Wuhan virus will spread to the same extent as SARS, which reached 33 countries.”

On Feb 10, he told NBC that SARS-nCoV-2 is “not nearly as challenging for us as influenza.”

Making a live appearance onthe Doctor Oz show on March 12, Lipkin, to allay people's concerns about the need for masks, said: “One of the things I try to emphasize whenever I talk about this virus is … we will almost certainly have additional fatalities ... but it is not as dangerous as some people may suggest - so if for example we look at this like seasonal flu - it’s gonna be much less than say 1% of people - that’s not to say that we won’t lose lives and it’s not important.” (timestamp 4:00)

In March/April he was advising people not to wear masks, saying "they're not useful" (timestamp 4:00) and describing a suggestion to have people maskup as "crazy" - despite having seen a “compelling” 2003 WHO study “that showed that face masks whether surgical or N-95 had a dramatic impact on community transmission”. (Lipkin's words) (timestamp 32:35)

That's a leading expert using his massive public platform to knowingly spread disinformation. Pure and simple.

Somehow, he (or any of the many other experts who were putting out the same bullshit - including all of Australia's Chief Medical Officers) avoided any blowback from that whatsoever. So i was surprised to read today a headline story about Biden attacking Trump for doing the same thing.

“He had the information,” Mr Biden said. “He knew how dangerous it was. And while this deadly disease ripped through our nation, he failed to do his job on purpose. It was a life-and-death betrayal of the American people.

“It’s beyond despicable, it’s a dereliction of duty. It’s a disgrace.”

I'm not defending Trump, just pointing out that Lipkin (not a Trump supporter), who pushed the same disinformation/lies across as much media as he possibly could (whilst also saying how great China is), gets off Scott free.

Actually i've got more tolerance for politicians lying to us than i do scientists. At least with politicians we half expect it, but scientists are forever trading off this 'we always just report the facts' nonsense, when in fact, some of them, are deliberately spreading lies - with horrific consequences.

So the question is: Is this lying being directed by the CCP, with whom Lipkin has deep ties (see previous posts)? If so, to what end?