The Flu Lie and the Cost of Denial

November 27, 2025 — 03:00 NYC

The claim that COVID-19 was “just rebranded flu” is not only false, it’s dangerous. We know this for several reasons:

• Genetic sequencing: SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, was fully sequenced in early 2020. Its genome is distinct from influenza viruses (Wu et al., 2020; Zhou et al., 2020).
• Clinical differences: COVID-19 caused widespread clotting, long-term organ damage, and what we now call “long COVID.” The flu does not behave this way. Doctors worldwide recognized immediately that they were treating something new and far deadlier (Gupta et al., 2020; Nalbandian et al., 2021).
• Excess mortality: Global death spikes in 2020–2021 were well above normal flu seasons — in some countries, five to ten times higher. That isn’t a PR trick; it’s human loss on a massive scale (Woolf et al., 2020; Kontis et al., 2020).
• Data transparency: Independent labs — not just “authorities” — confirmed the presence of the virus. If it were simply rebranded flu, whistleblowers and lab results would have shown it. None did, because the virus was real (Callaway et al., 2020).

Now, was COVID weaponized politically? Absolutely. Was it exploited for profit? Without a doubt — Big Pharma made billions. Were governments deceptive at times? Of course. But none of that changes the science: COVID-19 was a novel coronavirus, not “just flu.”

We can (and should) critique how power handled the crisis, how neoliberal states failed to protect workers, and how authoritarian leaders used fear to tighten their grip. But denying that the virus existed at all isn’t resistance — it’s handing ammunition to the very people who thrive on confusion. That kind of narrative only weakens the fight against fascism and corporate greed.

So yes — question authority. Expose propaganda. Demand accountability. But let’s not erase the millions who died or the families still grieving. They deserve truth, not a rewrite.

References

Callaway, E., Cyranoski, D., Mallapaty, S., Stoye, E., & Tollefson, J. (2020). The coronavirus pandemic in five powerful charts. Nature, 579(7800), 482–483. https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-020-00758-2

Gupta, A., Madhavan, M. V., Sehgal, K., Nair, N., Mahajan, S., Sehrawat, T. S., … & Mehra, M. R. (2020). Extrapulmonary manifestations of COVID-19. Nature Medicine, 26(7), 1017–1032. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41591-020-0968-3

Kontis, V., Bennett, J. E., Rashid, T., Parks, R. M., Pearson-Stuttard, J., Guillot, M., … & Ezzati, M. (2020). Magnitude, demographics and dynamics of the effect of the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic on all-cause mortality in 21 industrialized countries. Nature Medicine, 26(12), 1919–1928. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41591-020-1112-0

Nalbandian, A., Sehgal, K., Gupta, A., Madhavan, M. V., McGroder, C., Stevens, J. S., … & Wan, E. Y. (2021). Post-acute COVID-19 syndrome. Nature Medicine, 27(4), 601–615. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41591-021-01283-z

Woolf, S. H., Chapman, D. A., Sabo, R. T., Weinberger, D. M., & Hill, L. (2020). Excess deaths from COVID-19 and other causes, March–July 2020. JAMA, 324(15), 1562–1564. https://doi.org/10.1001/jama.2020.19545

Wu, F., Zhao, S., Yu, B., Chen, Y. M., Wang, W., Song, Z. G., … & Zhang, Y. Z. (2020). A new coronavirus associated with human respiratory disease in China. Nature, 579(7798), 265–269. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-020-2008-3

Zhou, P., Yang, X. L., Wang, X. G., Hu, B., Zhang, L., Zhang, W., … & Shi, Z. L. (2020). A pneumonia outbreak associated with a new coronavirus of probable bat origin. Nature, 579(7798), 270–273. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-020-2012-7